December 2, 2025 • 34 mins
As part of our 10th Anniversary reflections, we’re revisiting a heartwarming episode with Bob and Emily Leland from The Village at University Gates in Waterloo — two remarkable individuals whose positivity and passion continue to inspire.
Hosts Kathy Buckworth and Evelyn Brindle invited Bob and Emily to share their outlooks on life, their love of people, and the joy they find in every day. From laughter and kindness to community and creativity, their conversation reminds us of the power of staying curious and connected.
✨ Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ The Power of Positivity – Bob believes in making people smile every day. His philosophy reminds us that laughter truly is contagious and kindness always matters.
2️⃣ The Joy of Connection – Emily shares her love of being with people and the deep fulfillment found in meaningful relationships.
3️⃣ The Pursuit of Passions – A beautiful reflection of Schlegel Villages’ own Pursuit of Passions initiative, celebrating the hobbies and dreams that bring purpose to life.
“The greatest untapped resource in Canada, if not the world, is the collective wisdom of our elders.” – Ron Schlegel
🎧 Listen again and let Bob and Emily’s conversation inspire you to spread positivity, nurture connection, and live your passions.
Learn more and explore the Pursuit of Passions Exhibit at schlegelvillages.com/popxew.
Discover more at elderwisdom.ca
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
She introduced me to Beta Sigma Phi and it was the best thing
that ever happened to me. Canada's a wealthy country, we
can afford to do much better with our seniors, not only with
improving long term care but also improving home care.
(00:30):
Between young people and their parents and grandparents, it's a
two way St. Hi, my name is Melanie James.
I am the Director of Recreation and Support Services for
Schlegel Villages. As part of Schlegel Villages
Wisdom of the Elder Signature program, the pursuit of passions
(00:54):
encourages our residents to share the devotions of their
past and present and reminds us all that our passion in life
helps to define us as individuals and brings meaning
to. Us every day.
This year's Wisdom of the Elder event focus was our pursuit of
passions in the Green Bench campaign.
(01:17):
Together they honored the stories and passions of our
residents through words and pictures.
At these events I am often askedwhat is your passion?
It's a hard question as there are many things that bring
meaning to my life. I think being with people is my
passion. It brings me immense joy to be
(01:37):
with others, family, friends andloved ones.
Continue to live your passions and find your joy.
Welcome to another episode of Elder Wisdom, Stories from the
Green Bench. I'm one of your hosts, Kathy
Buckworth, and together with my Co host Evelyn Brindle, we have
a special episode today because we are interviewing two people
(01:59):
at once. But before we get to that, we're
going to talk a little bit aboutpursuit of passion, which is
something that the Sligo Villagepeople have put together in the
last few months and something that we're going to talk about
today. But Evelyn, you're there.
What are some of your passions? I guess my major passion has
been my family making sure that they're going the right
(02:24):
direction and and getting an education and following the
things that they enjoy the most,sports and teaching and they're
all the happy good things in life.
And that's my question. Yeah, that's my passion to as
you know, I have 3 grandkids, I have 4 kids.
That would be my passion as wellas as well as, you know, we need
(02:47):
to have some of our own passions, don't we think, that
we just do for ourselves? So there's something that you do
for yourself, Evelyn, that you're passionate about, I
think. Primarily breeding, keeping in
touch with things that are goingon in the world.
Well, Speaking of great friendships, without further
ado, this is more than a friendship.
This is a team. I'm introducing you now to Bob
(03:08):
and Emily Leland. Good morning, Bob and Emily.
Good morning. Good morning.
We are so excited to have you onthe show today.
We, Evelyn and I, have been looking through the notes on
everything that the two of you do.
You were recently a part of the Pursuit of Passions event at the
Village. Tell me about that.
Why was that important to you toshare your passions with the
other residents? We were invited to participate
(03:32):
and we thought we're not quite sure what to do, but as we began
to think about it, we decided wehad a lot of passions that we do
separately and together that would maybe inspire other people
to do similar things. So we wanted to share those.
We had a lot of fun putting the program together and delivering
it. So that in itself was a good
(03:54):
passion for me, particularly because I did most of the
creation on it. So that's where we from my side
of the things, that's what I felt.
And I following her lead always,because she's the scriptwriter.
And if people appreciated it, then they seemed to.
We were very aware of Ron Schlegel sitting down in the
(04:16):
front row, and he just seemed tobe smiling and nodding.
And so we thought, hey, we've made a connection to the
audience. I love it.
What else can we tell you? I've also understand that you
have written 12 long letters to your children and I, I find that
(04:40):
very interesting. You know what?
I think we all, as we reach a certain age, want to pass on
some of our own history to the kids and have them learn some
things from us. But what?
What's the most important thing you told your children in this
(05:00):
those letters? Oh, let's see, that's a hard
question to answer. Let me just say that one of the
things that I wanted to do in doing that is to respond to
their request. Because when we used to be
together, the children would askme, tell us the stories, some of
the stories about your growing up.
Because I never realized that I had an unusual life's life
(05:24):
cycle. My father died when I was three.
I was born in the Depression in 1932, and my father died in
1935. And in the United States, there
was no social network. So my mother had two children,
one of whom was sick, my sister,who died in 1941.
(05:44):
So I've had an interesting life cycle.
So then after I left, so then she put me in an institution
where I lived with about a hundred 125 boys for eight years
between the ages of eight and 16.
Then I left and lived with her for a while before I went to
school. And so as I would tell these
(06:05):
stories about my time at ClaytonCollege and in the things I did
in in work and in school and in other kinds of things, they just
liked what I did. And they said, tell us about it,
Dad. And I said, well, I need to
because I don't have a, a sense of how I belong.
And so I needed to find out for me.
(06:27):
And So what I did was to find out my history about when the
Leland family came to North America, when the long and
family, my mother's side came toNorth America and how that
transpired. So I began, I began to feel like
I have AI have a line now and I feel like I belong somewhere.
And I just wanted to transmit that to the children and let
(06:48):
them know what their linkages were over time.
That's such a great story, Bob. I love that.
I love the fact that you're documenting that for your kids.
It's so important to know where we came from so we know where.
We're going as I did this, I thought I I gave them, I decided
I would do it. Letters from Dad as as the
method and what I did was then give them a binder A1 inch
(07:11):
binder and said I'll have this done.
I'll have these letters done in in a year.
You'll you'll by next Christmas you'll have this complete.
Well 12 years later I finally completed it and and the and the
binder became 3 inches instead of 1.
Well, it sounds like you have a love of documentation and I know
(07:32):
I'm going to turn to Emily now because I know Emily has a love
of documentation as well. Because I've been reading
through what what you do, Emily,and it's absolutely fantastic.
Please tell us about planning for my future.
I'd be happy to do that. In the fall of of 2022, I became
(07:52):
part of a focus group at University Gates and we were
working on end of life matters. And the group discovered that
there are several important matters which residents living
in a village like this need to consider in order to be prepared
for all eventualities as we approach our final days.
And my passion for everyone needing to be good to go meant
(08:17):
that I ended up doing the preparation for and the
presentation of several matters throughout the five sessions
that were held in the Town Hall here.
And the matters that we shared included, first of all, ensuring
that all the necessary legal documents are updated and
including naming a substitute decision maker.
(08:39):
And we've discovered that some people coming to the village
either didn't have an updated will or didn't have an A
substitute decision maker or even know what that meant.
Powers of attorney. And being over the age 65, by
the way, is not necessarily the time to start thinking about
getting these documents. Anyone who reaches the age of
(09:01):
majority should have a will, andpreferably the two power of
attorneys as well. And because life can be
complicated. For instance, the day I
presented the wills matter, we went shopping afterwards at
Staples and in conversation witha young man who was helping us,
(09:22):
Bob asked him if he had a will because he told him what I had
been doing that day. And he said, well, no, I don't,
but I think I probably need to think about it because this
morning on the way to work, I was almost T boned.
So he realized that yes, it's important for me to think about
those things. And then the next session we
(09:45):
talked about special care like palliative and Hospice care that
are possible when those needs arise.
And we talked about where they might be offered in this
community. And then we spent a good amount
of time talking about made medical assistance in dying and
help trying to help people understand what this new thing
(10:08):
is all about, what their rights are, what possibilities there
can be. And for each of the sessions, of
course, we gave handouts to everybody about that session.
So they had lots of resources totake with them to either
themselves check things or get family to help them discover
(10:28):
what information in addition that they might need to know.
Our our final sessions were making sure that people had
everything recorded somewhere that their loved ones would need
to know when they could no longer communicate.
So whether they were going to use a fill in the blank book
(10:48):
which we made available for themthrough taking orders or whether
they wanted to create a personaldocument on the computer
following the example of one that we had created starting in
2009. We just encouraged everybody to
record everything, which included things not only names
(11:09):
of family and and friends, but contacts of people on your
day-to-day life like the doctorsand even your foot care
specialist and hairdresser in case that appointments had to be
cancelled sometime in the future.
And so we just made it possible for residents to get that
(11:33):
information down in the best waythey could.
Number of people bought the bookand were bought even a book for
their family 'cause they realized their kids needed to do
the same thing. And even some of the staff here
were drawn into the importance of documenting their
information. And for quite some time after
(11:54):
the sessions finished, residentswould still stop me on the
street and ask questions and clarifications.
So while that was a short term kind of activity, I felt that my
passion to make sure that everybody knew what was going to
be helpful for them in the coming days and knew what to do
(12:16):
was a success for me. It's a very important just in
case file that you put together and how many people really don't
know how to do that or what should be included.
But having gone through my sister in law's death and
(12:37):
estate, it's very difficult trying to find that information
when it's not readily available.Like bank accounts where she had
her insurance to come from, whatjobs that she had had, or their
(12:57):
own private life insurance. Your information about who holds
the mortgage on your home, all of those things take so much
time. And sometimes it's a year later
when you run or more when you run across information and say,
(13:17):
Oh dear, didn't know about this,I've got to contact them.
I know it can be very confusing for those left behind not to
know even where to look for information.
So that's what we're trying to encourage people to do.
And our one inch binder also includes all the materials that
we have put together related to the Funeral Home process.
(13:44):
And and so we've got all that onfile.
We have chosen to do prepayment for those kinds of services and
we're also putting together someinformation about things that we
might like to have in the service that would recognize our
life. And so we're leaving nothing to
chance. Really.
My parents have a binder like that with the service laid out
(14:07):
in it. And just last week my mom
informed me that they decided toskip any sort of visitation
because you know what, Kathy? People can just zoom it in if
they want to. So that's where we are with my
parents planning now. And they're not wrong.
And they and you're absolutely right, it gives me great Peace
of Mind to know that that binderis available.
Well, and the other thing, sinceyou mentioned the zooming,
(14:27):
Kathy, is that today, the other thing that needs to be included
are your passwords to your accounts.
And because everything is done on the Internet, and I've heard
of a couple of friends who had alot of difficulty getting into
their husband's account after hehad passed away because they
(14:53):
didn't know the password. And so much of what we do today
is online banking and so on thatthat's also an important thing
to include in that binder. Well, it is, it is.
And we have you all had for a long time a multi page sheet
that goes from A-Z that has every online contact listed that
(15:17):
we can think of, which has our passwords and whatever other
information that might be neededto have available in terms of
termination dates for certain contracts and that kind of
thing. So that's a.
That's a. We refer to it all the time
because we can't remember either.
(15:37):
And you have to keep obviously that binder somewhere safe with
all the passwords on it. But what you also want to
include is your digital footprint as well to what do you
want to happen to your Facebook page?
Are you on Instagram, you know, do you have screening services,
etcetera? How do you want your online
profile to you? Know, it's tough having to be
introduced to the 21st century for us old people.
(15:59):
I mean, none of this was around when I was training as an
engineer and I wondered why it wasn't.
Right. Yeah, No, exactly.
I understand. Besides talking about the just
in case files which you've just described in wonderful detail.
I understand Bob and Emily, there's a get around to it file
maybe too. Can you tell me about?
That, well in, in the 70s I believe it was, there was a, a
(16:23):
little medallion that was often handed out as a coaster to put
under glasses that called itselfa round to it.
And the explanation was that people would often say, I just
couldn't seem to get around to it.
(16:43):
And so at the beginning of the sessions that I presented, I
made sure that everybody left with a round to it in their
hands so that they had no excuses for not following
through. And saying that I never got
around to it, Well, you have around to it now, so don't
delay. Get on with the work.
(17:04):
Know that you both share a passion for learning something
new because it keeps you sharp. And I really share that with
you, learning something every day that I didn't know before.
But one way you do that is watching educational DVDs
(17:26):
together. That's exactly.
What are what are some of the your favorite topics?
Well, let me just say that for about 15 years we believe in
continuing education and we can't get to the university,
which does provide it if we needed to.
But for 15 years, we've gone to school three nights a week.
The location is an easy access. It's our Dan where the DVD's
(17:49):
from The Great Courses Teaching Company provide continuing
education on a myriad of subjects such as geology,
history, various religious topics, music, literature,
physics in your life, the human body and how it works, the brain
and how it works even while we sleep, and how lifestyle and
(18:11):
aging affect its performance. Because of physical and fiscal
restraints, we are now professional armchair travellers
and so we have through the teaching company, a number of
places we have visited. We've toured Egypt, Iceland,
Greece, Italy, France, England, Scotland and Wales and many
(18:34):
more, all from our armchairs. We don't have to worry about the
the airport checking baggage, packing and unpacking suitcases
and getting on and off buses, which we can't do very well now.
So this provides us an excellentopportunity to travel and to
learn and keep ourselves mentally alert.
(18:55):
It's called the Teaching Company, it's based in the US
and these are all professionallydone and they're they're all
university level lecturers in the subjects that we get.
So if people wanted to, they canjust Google online The Great
Courses and greatcourses.com andthey'll get a list of, I think
(19:16):
there's 800 or so subjects lectures that are available.
So if people are interested in it, they can continue to do
continuing education right from their home.
It is. That's amazing.
Are there? Are there, Are there topics
sometimes that one of you is interested in the other one is?
Not the catalog comes. We usually have a good reading
(19:38):
period through it and and mark the ones that each of us would
like to purchase and then we discuss what's the important
ones to get for right now and weorder one or two or three and
then keep ordering. We have and still have a number
on our shelves that we haven't watched and most recent right
(19:58):
now we're in the middle of watching one on architecture and
and how construction. Structural Engineering.
Structural Engineering. So, and you asked the question,
how do you pick pick them out? Well, this is a field.
This is my field. This was civil engineering and
(20:19):
religion. So Emily is interested in
religion too, and she's interested in music, but some of
the things that I know about that she doesn't know about,
she's learning about, and some of the things I don't know about
that she knows about, I'm learning about.
So that it's mutual. When we set selective course,
there's only been one course that we did not watch in its
(20:42):
entirety because it was different than we expected.
And we may go back and do it later on.
The point is to keep learning aslong as you can and be
stimulated by people who know what in the world they're
talking. About well, I feel like Emily
could probably put together a DVD series herself on creative
cooking. I understand that's one of your
passions, Emily and and I went somewhere that you there's
(21:05):
there's never been a leftover you didn't like or something
like that. Like you can do anything with a
leftover. Is that right?
Sometimes when Bob or people askwhat's for the next meal and
I'll just say, well, whatever falls out of the fridge when I
open the door. So yes, I do enjoy working in
the kitchen, which includes doing the basic entree kinds of
(21:27):
scythe, but also doing special baking.
And it's just, as I indicated inmy presentation, my early years
both at my mother's side and shehad a lot of guidance and
patience. But in the my early teens, I
participate in it in 4H homemaking clubs for five years.
(21:51):
And in those clubs we learned how to do all kinds of
homemaking things from cooking to gardening to sewing and just
different projects in each of those fields.
So that added to my knowledge about the importance of the
(22:13):
following The Food Guide for Health.
And I'd like to think that one of the reasons both of both of
us are still doing pretty good health wise is that we eat good
balanced meals. Because I just keep that in mind
every time I cook something. Except for maybe the special
treats that we have now and again.
We know they're not on the Food Guide for Health, but what the
(22:35):
heck. What the heck?
You have to have some special treats and you know, you're
right. The leftovers, I love this
because Canada is a country thathas a lot of food waste right
now. So, you know, being able to do
something with those leftovers. Well, I think probably the
amount of food I have thrown outthrough our 46 years of marriage
could be in contained in a one liter container.
(22:59):
There's just if it's possible, Ijust put it in the freezer and
we it shows up in soup later on.Good points to make as well.
Yeah. So living there at Taunton
Mills, you, or rather now, it wasn't Taunton Mills University
Gates, Yes, you're not participating in their meal
(23:23):
plans. You're doing your own cooking
every day. Absolutely.
We just are still totally independent and we have depended
on the nursing staff now and again and we've depended on the
Hobby Stop Hobby Shop staff a great deal, particularly as I
prepared my presentations. But in terms of participating in
(23:46):
activities and using the meal plans, we do not.
Certainly we don't do the meal plans right now.
If someday, if we need to, we'llget into that, but not at the
present time. Great.
You mentioned the hobby staff and I know we have a terrific 1
here at Aaron Meadows and I'm sure they've got a great program
(24:09):
there as well. Participate in a lot of their
programs there, both of you. No, we really don't participate.
In very selectively. Yeah, very selectively.
We participate in programs just because we are busy doing our
own thing. We don't at this point have the
(24:29):
need for interaction with other people.
That happens through card games and those kinds of things.
We just have our own thing at this point into in ourselves,
plus our outside friends and activities and so we just have
chosen not to be involved a great deal.
(24:54):
OK. But we do, we do participate
occasionally like this week was National Sunday week or
something like that or day. And so Sunday we had a, we had a
had Sundays down in the. Social club.
Social club and so we went down and had our ice cream, ice ice
cream sundae. That's.
Right. But how could you not
(25:17):
participate in that? I mean, come on.
Exactly. I wanted to loop back just a bit
and talk about where we started this discussion, which was on
the Pursuit of Passions event. And Bob and Emily, I wonder if
you can tell me why you were asked to present during this?
Event. We're not sure except I expect
it may have been because of our interactions.
(25:38):
The question was asked to us, would you be willing to do this?
We said yes and we had no idea what we were saying yes to, but
but as the as the project grew and we finally figured out what
was needed then it was satisfying to us to participate
fully in. We thought we might have
(25:58):
something to say. It sounds like it sounds like
you definitely did. Can you tell us a little bit
about how you? Presented your Emily.
Emily wrote a script and we started, we started by
introducing ourselves and she said I'm I, I, I'm, I'm Bob and
this is Emily. And oh, she said no, that's not
right. And then I just said, come on,
(26:20):
honey, we've been married. For how long have we been
married? She said not long enough anyway,
and so. That's beautiful.
And and we ended our session with.
Just the way. Well, in the in the process of
presentation, I had prepared a number of slides that were shown
on the screen that related to each of the topics that that we
(26:42):
went through in our presentation.
And so it went from starting outwith the slide about age as a
matter of the mind, if you don'tmind, it doesn't matter.
And talking a little bit about that through the passions that
we, the simple passions we sharefrom our living here, which is
(27:04):
includes the reflections in the lake that we see every morning
when we get up and the beautifulcolors and trees around us.
We just enjoy the view from our NE windows and, and it makes us
feel that we're kind of out in the country, which is what both
of us like. And so from there then we went
(27:27):
into our individual passions andeach, each section, each, each,
each passion had a special slidethat went with it.
Have the picture as well as the verbal presentation.
Well, clearly you have to do a YouTube video of it now so that
(27:48):
everyone can watch. OK, that's your next challenge.
Exactly. One of the one of the reasons we
do this podcast, of course, is hearing these wonderful stories,
but also we have such smart people like yourselves on the
program that we like to draw elder wisdom from.
So I'm going to pitch that to you now.
And you're both such positive people.
(28:09):
You have any advice on how to maintain that positivity?
Well, one of the things that I enjoy is being sure that I can
have people that I interact withsmile and laugh sometimes
through the day. I'm I'm a believer that as, as I
used to learn from the old Denver Post, laugh and the world
laughs with you weep and you weep alone.
(28:30):
And that's unfortunately too bad.
But I, I enjoy. It seems to me that our outlook
on life is that we're here such that whatever time we're here.
And one of our jobs is to be sure that we can bring some joy
or peace or contentment or consolation to somebody whose
(28:53):
lives we touch as part of our, our, our daily prayers at meal
time is to is to affect the lives positively of those with
whom we interact. And so I try to do that a little
bit and it, and I do, I do succeed almost every day.
When we were running the business, we we taught our staff
(29:17):
within 5 seconds of a person entering our store, you smile at
them and almost always they would return the smile.
That's the way people are. We enjoy going down Main Street
and interacting with staff and sometimes the staff are having a
(29:37):
tough day and often when Bob says something to them they will
laugh and say thank you. I needed that laugh today.
For, for example, one of the staff was talking about and I
talked about being up and getting ready to go in and shave
and I'd still was in my underwear.
I thought about sometimes going out to get to get the paper from
(30:00):
the mailbox right outside the our door on the 8th floor.
And I said I've, I've resisted doing that, but because I'm
just, I'm just too sexy. And she just broke up over that.
So if I would, if I were to say to older people, and I am going
on 91, if I were to say to olderpeople, if you can maintain as
much as you can a positive attitude and want to communicate
(30:25):
that to other people as you interact with them.
One of the things I learned in the years of my ministry is that
everybody has a story, and many of the stories need to be told
and want to be told, and many ofthem have some difficulties
related to them. And my job was to try to help
them understand what they were experiencing and that it wasn't
(30:47):
permanent. One of the things I admire about
Bob is that, and he throughout his life, wherever, whatever
setting we were in a big crowd, he would just kind of work the
room and meet everybody and he would ask questions and that got
people talking. And I just admired him for being
(31:09):
able to do that. I was kind of a wallflower all
my life and wished that I could be more outgoing than than I had
been. And so I appreciate his ability
just to make conversations with anybody he meets, and he can
generally find questions that will follow through with what
(31:30):
they want to share. My daughter, my daughter enjoys
that too, she said. Dad, that's one of the things I
wish I could learn from you, that how you can find the entry
question of their interest that would allow them to begin to
tell you what's going on in their lives and something that
you might help them with. That is a very special talent
(31:51):
and your talent of conversation and passion and sharing with us
today has been something that wehave treasured.
I know Evelyn, you probably feelthe same.
I. Hope we we have one passion that
we would like to share before weleave.
One fun, mutual passion. Santa Claus last Christmas
(32:13):
brought me a present and this iswhat it said.
When we get to the end of our lives together, the house we
had, the cars we drove, the things we possessed won't
matter. What will matter is that I had
you and you had me. Well, that's such a perfect way
(32:34):
to wrap up this episode today. It's been such a pleasure
speaking with you, Bob and EmilyLeland.
Thank you so much for sharing your passions and your lives and
your stories with us. I have to go now myself and do
some armchair traveling and somelearning so I can keep up with
y'all. And I thank you so much for
joining our Elder Wisdom Storiesfrom the Green Bench today.
(32:55):
Thank you. Thank you for thank you for
inviting us to participate. You compliment.
Both of us continue exploring new things together, both of
you. Well, thanks to Emily and Bob
Leland for joining us on this episode of The Green Bench.
We really appreciate it. And on behalf of my Co host
Evelyn Brindle, I'd like to thank you for giving us the
chance to bring you, our listeners, these stories of
(33:17):
Elder Wisdom. We'd love to have you subscribe
to the podcast if you haven't already done so, but we'd also
love to hear your words of wisdom on social media.
Please do using the hashtag Elder Wisdom, which will also
help others to find us on this green bench.
We do love a review and a ratingon the podcast.
You can easily find it by going to elderwisdom.ca and following
(33:38):
the link. Take a look at the Elder Wisdom
Pledge Against Ageism while you're there, and please think
about signing it. Thanks again for joining us.
I'm Kathy Buckworth, and along with Evelyn Brindle, we look
forward to sharing some more elder wisdom with you on the
next episode of Stories from theGreen Bench.
Elder wisdom Stories from the Green Bench is brought to you by
(34:01):
Schlegel Villages. A complete continuum of care
offering independent living to long term care.
Celebrating and honoring the wisdom of the Elder.
You'll learn more about us. Please go to our website
schlegelvillages.com.
She introduced me to Beta Sigma Phi and it was the best thing
that ever happened to me. Canada's a wealthy country, we
can afford to do much better with our seniors, not only with
improving long term care but also improving home care.
(00:30):
Between young people and their parents and grandparents, it's a
two way St. Hi, my name is Melanie James.
I am the Director of Recreation and Support Services for
Schlegel Villages. As part of Schlegel Villages
Wisdom of the Elder Signature program, the pursuit of passions
(00:54):
encourages our residents to share the devotions of their
past and present and reminds us all that our passion in life
helps to define us as individuals and brings meaning
to. Us every day.
This year's Wisdom of the Elder event focus was our pursuit of
passions in the Green Bench campaign.
(01:17):
Together they honored the stories and passions of our
residents through words and pictures.
At these events I am often askedwhat is your passion?
It's a hard question as there are many things that bring
meaning to my life. I think being with people is my
passion. It brings me immense joy to be
(01:37):
with others, family, friends andloved ones.
Continue to live your passions and find your joy.
Welcome to another episode of Elder Wisdom, Stories from the
Green Bench. I'm one of your hosts, Kathy
Buckworth, and together with my Co host Evelyn Brindle, we have
a special episode today because we are interviewing two people
(01:59):
at once. But before we get to that, we're
going to talk a little bit aboutpursuit of passion, which is
something that the Sligo Villagepeople have put together in the
last few months and something that we're going to talk about
today. But Evelyn, you're there.
What are some of your passions? I guess my major passion has
been my family making sure that they're going the right
(02:24):
direction and and getting an education and following the
things that they enjoy the most,sports and teaching and they're
all the happy good things in life.
And that's my question. Yeah, that's my passion to as
you know, I have 3 grandkids, I have 4 kids.
That would be my passion as wellas as well as, you know, we need
(02:47):
to have some of our own passions, don't we think, that
we just do for ourselves? So there's something that you do
for yourself, Evelyn, that you're passionate about, I
think. Primarily breeding, keeping in
touch with things that are goingon in the world.
Well, Speaking of great friendships, without further
ado, this is more than a friendship.
This is a team. I'm introducing you now to Bob
(03:08):
and Emily Leland. Good morning, Bob and Emily.
Good morning. Good morning.
We are so excited to have you onthe show today.
We, Evelyn and I, have been looking through the notes on
everything that the two of you do.
You were recently a part of the Pursuit of Passions event at the
Village. Tell me about that.
Why was that important to you toshare your passions with the
other residents? We were invited to participate
(03:32):
and we thought we're not quite sure what to do, but as we began
to think about it, we decided wehad a lot of passions that we do
separately and together that would maybe inspire other people
to do similar things. So we wanted to share those.
We had a lot of fun putting the program together and delivering
it. So that in itself was a good
(03:54):
passion for me, particularly because I did most of the
creation on it. So that's where we from my side
of the things, that's what I felt.
And I following her lead always,because she's the scriptwriter.
And if people appreciated it, then they seemed to.
We were very aware of Ron Schlegel sitting down in the
(04:16):
front row, and he just seemed tobe smiling and nodding.
And so we thought, hey, we've made a connection to the
audience. I love it.
What else can we tell you? I've also understand that you
have written 12 long letters to your children and I, I find that
(04:40):
very interesting. You know what?
I think we all, as we reach a certain age, want to pass on
some of our own history to the kids and have them learn some
things from us. But what?
What's the most important thing you told your children in this
(05:00):
those letters? Oh, let's see, that's a hard
question to answer. Let me just say that one of the
things that I wanted to do in doing that is to respond to
their request. Because when we used to be
together, the children would askme, tell us the stories, some of
the stories about your growing up.
Because I never realized that I had an unusual life's life
(05:24):
cycle. My father died when I was three.
I was born in the Depression in 1932, and my father died in
1935. And in the United States, there
was no social network. So my mother had two children,
one of whom was sick, my sister,who died in 1941.
(05:44):
So I've had an interesting life cycle.
So then after I left, so then she put me in an institution
where I lived with about a hundred 125 boys for eight years
between the ages of eight and 16.
Then I left and lived with her for a while before I went to
school. And so as I would tell these
(06:05):
stories about my time at ClaytonCollege and in the things I did
in in work and in school and in other kinds of things, they just
liked what I did. And they said, tell us about it,
Dad. And I said, well, I need to
because I don't have a, a sense of how I belong.
And so I needed to find out for me.
(06:27):
And So what I did was to find out my history about when the
Leland family came to North America, when the long and
family, my mother's side came toNorth America and how that
transpired. So I began, I began to feel like
I have AI have a line now and I feel like I belong somewhere.
And I just wanted to transmit that to the children and let
(06:48):
them know what their linkages were over time.
That's such a great story, Bob. I love that.
I love the fact that you're documenting that for your kids.
It's so important to know where we came from so we know where.
We're going as I did this, I thought I I gave them, I decided
I would do it. Letters from Dad as as the
method and what I did was then give them a binder A1 inch
(07:11):
binder and said I'll have this done.
I'll have these letters done in in a year.
You'll you'll by next Christmas you'll have this complete.
Well 12 years later I finally completed it and and the and the
binder became 3 inches instead of 1.
Well, it sounds like you have a love of documentation and I know
(07:32):
I'm going to turn to Emily now because I know Emily has a love
of documentation as well. Because I've been reading
through what what you do, Emily,and it's absolutely fantastic.
Please tell us about planning for my future.
I'd be happy to do that. In the fall of of 2022, I became
(07:52):
part of a focus group at University Gates and we were
working on end of life matters. And the group discovered that
there are several important matters which residents living
in a village like this need to consider in order to be prepared
for all eventualities as we approach our final days.
And my passion for everyone needing to be good to go meant
(08:17):
that I ended up doing the preparation for and the
presentation of several matters throughout the five sessions
that were held in the Town Hall here.
And the matters that we shared included, first of all, ensuring
that all the necessary legal documents are updated and
including naming a substitute decision maker.
(08:39):
And we've discovered that some people coming to the village
either didn't have an updated will or didn't have an A
substitute decision maker or even know what that meant.
Powers of attorney. And being over the age 65, by
the way, is not necessarily the time to start thinking about
getting these documents. Anyone who reaches the age of
(09:01):
majority should have a will, andpreferably the two power of
attorneys as well. And because life can be
complicated. For instance, the day I
presented the wills matter, we went shopping afterwards at
Staples and in conversation witha young man who was helping us,
(09:22):
Bob asked him if he had a will because he told him what I had
been doing that day. And he said, well, no, I don't,
but I think I probably need to think about it because this
morning on the way to work, I was almost T boned.
So he realized that yes, it's important for me to think about
those things. And then the next session we
(09:45):
talked about special care like palliative and Hospice care that
are possible when those needs arise.
And we talked about where they might be offered in this
community. And then we spent a good amount
of time talking about made medical assistance in dying and
help trying to help people understand what this new thing
(10:08):
is all about, what their rights are, what possibilities there
can be. And for each of the sessions, of
course, we gave handouts to everybody about that session.
So they had lots of resources totake with them to either
themselves check things or get family to help them discover
(10:28):
what information in addition that they might need to know.
Our our final sessions were making sure that people had
everything recorded somewhere that their loved ones would need
to know when they could no longer communicate.
So whether they were going to use a fill in the blank book
(10:48):
which we made available for themthrough taking orders or whether
they wanted to create a personaldocument on the computer
following the example of one that we had created starting in
2009. We just encouraged everybody to
record everything, which included things not only names
(11:09):
of family and and friends, but contacts of people on your
day-to-day life like the doctorsand even your foot care
specialist and hairdresser in case that appointments had to be
cancelled sometime in the future.
And so we just made it possible for residents to get that
(11:33):
information down in the best waythey could.
Number of people bought the bookand were bought even a book for
their family 'cause they realized their kids needed to do
the same thing. And even some of the staff here
were drawn into the importance of documenting their
information. And for quite some time after
(11:54):
the sessions finished, residentswould still stop me on the
street and ask questions and clarifications.
So while that was a short term kind of activity, I felt that my
passion to make sure that everybody knew what was going to
be helpful for them in the coming days and knew what to do
(12:16):
was a success for me. It's a very important just in
case file that you put together and how many people really don't
know how to do that or what should be included.
But having gone through my sister in law's death and
(12:37):
estate, it's very difficult trying to find that information
when it's not readily available.Like bank accounts where she had
her insurance to come from, whatjobs that she had had, or their
(12:57):
own private life insurance. Your information about who holds
the mortgage on your home, all of those things take so much
time. And sometimes it's a year later
when you run or more when you run across information and say,
(13:17):
Oh dear, didn't know about this,I've got to contact them.
I know it can be very confusing for those left behind not to
know even where to look for information.
So that's what we're trying to encourage people to do.
And our one inch binder also includes all the materials that
we have put together related to the Funeral Home process.
(13:44):
And and so we've got all that onfile.
We have chosen to do prepayment for those kinds of services and
we're also putting together someinformation about things that we
might like to have in the service that would recognize our
life. And so we're leaving nothing to
chance. Really.
My parents have a binder like that with the service laid out
(14:07):
in it. And just last week my mom
informed me that they decided toskip any sort of visitation
because you know what, Kathy? People can just zoom it in if
they want to. So that's where we are with my
parents planning now. And they're not wrong.
And they and you're absolutely right, it gives me great Peace
of Mind to know that that binderis available.
Well, and the other thing, sinceyou mentioned the zooming,
(14:27):
Kathy, is that today, the other thing that needs to be included
are your passwords to your accounts.
And because everything is done on the Internet, and I've heard
of a couple of friends who had alot of difficulty getting into
their husband's account after hehad passed away because they
(14:53):
didn't know the password. And so much of what we do today
is online banking and so on thatthat's also an important thing
to include in that binder. Well, it is, it is.
And we have you all had for a long time a multi page sheet
that goes from A-Z that has every online contact listed that
(15:17):
we can think of, which has our passwords and whatever other
information that might be neededto have available in terms of
termination dates for certain contracts and that kind of
thing. So that's a.
That's a. We refer to it all the time
because we can't remember either.
(15:37):
And you have to keep obviously that binder somewhere safe with
all the passwords on it. But what you also want to
include is your digital footprint as well to what do you
want to happen to your Facebook page?
Are you on Instagram, you know, do you have screening services,
etcetera? How do you want your online
profile to you? Know, it's tough having to be
introduced to the 21st century for us old people.
(15:59):
I mean, none of this was around when I was training as an
engineer and I wondered why it wasn't.
Right. Yeah, No, exactly.
I understand. Besides talking about the just
in case files which you've just described in wonderful detail.
I understand Bob and Emily, there's a get around to it file
maybe too. Can you tell me about?
That, well in, in the 70s I believe it was, there was a, a
(16:23):
little medallion that was often handed out as a coaster to put
under glasses that called itselfa round to it.
And the explanation was that people would often say, I just
couldn't seem to get around to it.
(16:43):
And so at the beginning of the sessions that I presented, I
made sure that everybody left with a round to it in their
hands so that they had no excuses for not following
through. And saying that I never got
around to it, Well, you have around to it now, so don't
delay. Get on with the work.
(17:04):
Know that you both share a passion for learning something
new because it keeps you sharp. And I really share that with
you, learning something every day that I didn't know before.
But one way you do that is watching educational DVDs
(17:26):
together. That's exactly.
What are what are some of the your favorite topics?
Well, let me just say that for about 15 years we believe in
continuing education and we can't get to the university,
which does provide it if we needed to.
But for 15 years, we've gone to school three nights a week.
The location is an easy access. It's our Dan where the DVD's
(17:49):
from The Great Courses Teaching Company provide continuing
education on a myriad of subjects such as geology,
history, various religious topics, music, literature,
physics in your life, the human body and how it works, the brain
and how it works even while we sleep, and how lifestyle and
(18:11):
aging affect its performance. Because of physical and fiscal
restraints, we are now professional armchair travellers
and so we have through the teaching company, a number of
places we have visited. We've toured Egypt, Iceland,
Greece, Italy, France, England, Scotland and Wales and many
(18:34):
more, all from our armchairs. We don't have to worry about the
the airport checking baggage, packing and unpacking suitcases
and getting on and off buses, which we can't do very well now.
So this provides us an excellentopportunity to travel and to
learn and keep ourselves mentally alert.
(18:55):
It's called the Teaching Company, it's based in the US
and these are all professionallydone and they're they're all
university level lecturers in the subjects that we get.
So if people wanted to, they canjust Google online The Great
Courses and greatcourses.com andthey'll get a list of, I think
(19:16):
there's 800 or so subjects lectures that are available.
So if people are interested in it, they can continue to do
continuing education right from their home.
It is. That's amazing.
Are there? Are there, Are there topics
sometimes that one of you is interested in the other one is?
Not the catalog comes. We usually have a good reading
(19:38):
period through it and and mark the ones that each of us would
like to purchase and then we discuss what's the important
ones to get for right now and weorder one or two or three and
then keep ordering. We have and still have a number
on our shelves that we haven't watched and most recent right
(19:58):
now we're in the middle of watching one on architecture and
and how construction. Structural Engineering.
Structural Engineering. So, and you asked the question,
how do you pick pick them out? Well, this is a field.
This is my field. This was civil engineering and
(20:19):
religion. So Emily is interested in
religion too, and she's interested in music, but some of
the things that I know about that she doesn't know about,
she's learning about, and some of the things I don't know about
that she knows about, I'm learning about.
So that it's mutual. When we set selective course,
there's only been one course that we did not watch in its
(20:42):
entirety because it was different than we expected.
And we may go back and do it later on.
The point is to keep learning aslong as you can and be
stimulated by people who know what in the world they're
talking. About well, I feel like Emily
could probably put together a DVD series herself on creative
cooking. I understand that's one of your
passions, Emily and and I went somewhere that you there's
(21:05):
there's never been a leftover you didn't like or something
like that. Like you can do anything with a
leftover. Is that right?
Sometimes when Bob or people askwhat's for the next meal and
I'll just say, well, whatever falls out of the fridge when I
open the door. So yes, I do enjoy working in
the kitchen, which includes doing the basic entree kinds of
(21:27):
scythe, but also doing special baking.
And it's just, as I indicated inmy presentation, my early years
both at my mother's side and shehad a lot of guidance and
patience. But in the my early teens, I
participate in it in 4H homemaking clubs for five years.
(21:51):
And in those clubs we learned how to do all kinds of
homemaking things from cooking to gardening to sewing and just
different projects in each of those fields.
So that added to my knowledge about the importance of the
(22:13):
following The Food Guide for Health.
And I'd like to think that one of the reasons both of both of
us are still doing pretty good health wise is that we eat good
balanced meals. Because I just keep that in mind
every time I cook something. Except for maybe the special
treats that we have now and again.
We know they're not on the Food Guide for Health, but what the
(22:35):
heck. What the heck?
You have to have some special treats and you know, you're
right. The leftovers, I love this
because Canada is a country thathas a lot of food waste right
now. So, you know, being able to do
something with those leftovers. Well, I think probably the
amount of food I have thrown outthrough our 46 years of marriage
could be in contained in a one liter container.
(22:59):
There's just if it's possible, Ijust put it in the freezer and
we it shows up in soup later on.Good points to make as well.
Yeah. So living there at Taunton
Mills, you, or rather now, it wasn't Taunton Mills University
Gates, Yes, you're not participating in their meal
(23:23):
plans. You're doing your own cooking
every day. Absolutely.
We just are still totally independent and we have depended
on the nursing staff now and again and we've depended on the
Hobby Stop Hobby Shop staff a great deal, particularly as I
prepared my presentations. But in terms of participating in
(23:46):
activities and using the meal plans, we do not.
Certainly we don't do the meal plans right now.
If someday, if we need to, we'llget into that, but not at the
present time. Great.
You mentioned the hobby staff and I know we have a terrific 1
here at Aaron Meadows and I'm sure they've got a great program
(24:09):
there as well. Participate in a lot of their
programs there, both of you. No, we really don't participate.
In very selectively. Yeah, very selectively.
We participate in programs just because we are busy doing our
own thing. We don't at this point have the
(24:29):
need for interaction with other people.
That happens through card games and those kinds of things.
We just have our own thing at this point into in ourselves,
plus our outside friends and activities and so we just have
chosen not to be involved a great deal.
(24:54):
OK. But we do, we do participate
occasionally like this week was National Sunday week or
something like that or day. And so Sunday we had a, we had a
had Sundays down in the. Social club.
Social club and so we went down and had our ice cream, ice ice
cream sundae. That's.
Right. But how could you not
(25:17):
participate in that? I mean, come on.
Exactly. I wanted to loop back just a bit
and talk about where we started this discussion, which was on
the Pursuit of Passions event. And Bob and Emily, I wonder if
you can tell me why you were asked to present during this?
Event. We're not sure except I expect
it may have been because of our interactions.
(25:38):
The question was asked to us, would you be willing to do this?
We said yes and we had no idea what we were saying yes to, but
but as the as the project grew and we finally figured out what
was needed then it was satisfying to us to participate
fully in. We thought we might have
(25:58):
something to say. It sounds like it sounds like
you definitely did. Can you tell us a little bit
about how you? Presented your Emily.
Emily wrote a script and we started, we started by
introducing ourselves and she said I'm I, I, I'm, I'm Bob and
this is Emily. And oh, she said no, that's not
right. And then I just said, come on,
(26:20):
honey, we've been married. For how long have we been
married? She said not long enough anyway,
and so. That's beautiful.
And and we ended our session with.
Just the way. Well, in the in the process of
presentation, I had prepared a number of slides that were shown
on the screen that related to each of the topics that that we
(26:42):
went through in our presentation.
And so it went from starting outwith the slide about age as a
matter of the mind, if you don'tmind, it doesn't matter.
And talking a little bit about that through the passions that
we, the simple passions we sharefrom our living here, which is
(27:04):
includes the reflections in the lake that we see every morning
when we get up and the beautifulcolors and trees around us.
We just enjoy the view from our NE windows and, and it makes us
feel that we're kind of out in the country, which is what both
of us like. And so from there then we went
(27:27):
into our individual passions andeach, each section, each, each,
each passion had a special slidethat went with it.
Have the picture as well as the verbal presentation.
Well, clearly you have to do a YouTube video of it now so that
(27:48):
everyone can watch. OK, that's your next challenge.
Exactly. One of the one of the reasons we
do this podcast, of course, is hearing these wonderful stories,
but also we have such smart people like yourselves on the
program that we like to draw elder wisdom from.
So I'm going to pitch that to you now.
And you're both such positive people.
(28:09):
You have any advice on how to maintain that positivity?
Well, one of the things that I enjoy is being sure that I can
have people that I interact withsmile and laugh sometimes
through the day. I'm I'm a believer that as, as I
used to learn from the old Denver Post, laugh and the world
laughs with you weep and you weep alone.
(28:30):
And that's unfortunately too bad.
But I, I enjoy. It seems to me that our outlook
on life is that we're here such that whatever time we're here.
And one of our jobs is to be sure that we can bring some joy
or peace or contentment or consolation to somebody whose
(28:53):
lives we touch as part of our, our, our daily prayers at meal
time is to is to affect the lives positively of those with
whom we interact. And so I try to do that a little
bit and it, and I do, I do succeed almost every day.
When we were running the business, we we taught our staff
(29:17):
within 5 seconds of a person entering our store, you smile at
them and almost always they would return the smile.
That's the way people are. We enjoy going down Main Street
and interacting with staff and sometimes the staff are having a
(29:37):
tough day and often when Bob says something to them they will
laugh and say thank you. I needed that laugh today.
For, for example, one of the staff was talking about and I
talked about being up and getting ready to go in and shave
and I'd still was in my underwear.
I thought about sometimes going out to get to get the paper from
(30:00):
the mailbox right outside the our door on the 8th floor.
And I said I've, I've resisted doing that, but because I'm
just, I'm just too sexy. And she just broke up over that.
So if I would, if I were to say to older people, and I am going
on 91, if I were to say to olderpeople, if you can maintain as
much as you can a positive attitude and want to communicate
(30:25):
that to other people as you interact with them.
One of the things I learned in the years of my ministry is that
everybody has a story, and many of the stories need to be told
and want to be told, and many ofthem have some difficulties
related to them. And my job was to try to help
them understand what they were experiencing and that it wasn't
(30:47):
permanent. One of the things I admire about
Bob is that, and he throughout his life, wherever, whatever
setting we were in a big crowd, he would just kind of work the
room and meet everybody and he would ask questions and that got
people talking. And I just admired him for being
(31:09):
able to do that. I was kind of a wallflower all
my life and wished that I could be more outgoing than than I had
been. And so I appreciate his ability
just to make conversations with anybody he meets, and he can
generally find questions that will follow through with what
(31:30):
they want to share. My daughter, my daughter enjoys
that too, she said. Dad, that's one of the things I
wish I could learn from you, that how you can find the entry
question of their interest that would allow them to begin to
tell you what's going on in their lives and something that
you might help them with. That is a very special talent
(31:51):
and your talent of conversation and passion and sharing with us
today has been something that wehave treasured.
I know Evelyn, you probably feelthe same.
I. Hope we we have one passion that
we would like to share before weleave.
One fun, mutual passion. Santa Claus last Christmas
(32:13):
brought me a present and this iswhat it said.
When we get to the end of our lives together, the house we
had, the cars we drove, the things we possessed won't
matter. What will matter is that I had
you and you had me. Well, that's such a perfect way
(32:34):
to wrap up this episode today. It's been such a pleasure
speaking with you, Bob and EmilyLeland.
Thank you so much for sharing your passions and your lives and
your stories with us. I have to go now myself and do
some armchair traveling and somelearning so I can keep up with
y'all. And I thank you so much for
joining our Elder Wisdom Storiesfrom the Green Bench today.
(32:55):
Thank you. Thank you for thank you for
inviting us to participate. You compliment.
Both of us continue exploring new things together, both of
you. Well, thanks to Emily and Bob
Leland for joining us on this episode of The Green Bench.
We really appreciate it. And on behalf of my Co host
Evelyn Brindle, I'd like to thank you for giving us the
chance to bring you, our listeners, these stories of
(33:17):
Elder Wisdom. We'd love to have you subscribe
to the podcast if you haven't already done so, but we'd also
love to hear your words of wisdom on social media.
Please do using the hashtag Elder Wisdom, which will also
help others to find us on this green bench.
We do love a review and a ratingon the podcast.
You can easily find it by going to elderwisdom.ca and following
(33:38):
the link. Take a look at the Elder Wisdom
Pledge Against Ageism while you're there, and please think
about signing it. Thanks again for joining us.
I'm Kathy Buckworth, and along with Evelyn Brindle, we look
forward to sharing some more elder wisdom with you on the
next episode of Stories from theGreen Bench.
Elder wisdom Stories from the Green Bench is brought to you by
(34:01):
Schlegel Villages. A complete continuum of care
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Celebrating and honoring the wisdom of the Elder.
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