Dorcas Speer Interviews Mabel Iowa Robbins (WOI News Clip 451)

Friday is a very big day for our guest she is mrs. Mabel Iowa Robbins she's president of the Iowa retired teachers association and the big day is the official dedication of Heather Manor now what's Heather Manor first and then tell me how it started well many years ago some of our good teachers had the idea that a retirement home for teachers was not only feasible but very much needed and some of our teacher friends thought they might help us they were the Heather Shaw sisters who lived out on floor drive and they gave three acres of land to on which to build a retirement home for teachers well of course next thing that we ran into was the Federal Aviation Authority that said no you can't do this because it's right in the flight pattern from the airport where the planes will fall down on you and crush your home or they will make so much noise that the people can't sleep and so forth so what we had to look around for another place and then when we contacted the urban renewal board and the ISEE Executive Board who was sponsoring this project made they deal with them to buy the present place where Heather Manor is built but because these sisters had given such an impetus to the project and sort of given us the nudge that put us over we kept that name Heather which was the first part of their name Heather Shaw and we kept that name Heather and called it Heather Manor I think it's rather to put a name I I like it too and it's a little unusual not such a common name but not like gold Golden Age Homer golden years home our harvest years or anything like that you know it's a little bit distinctive and I like it I think it's a wonderful name there's something sort of romantic about it yes now it's located at East Fifth and des moines the main streets that's right that's right right northwest of the Capitol and of course as you come into Des Moines from particularly from the West or Southwest or Northwest there are two things that you can see ones Heather Manor and the other things the state capital and the Heather manner just looms up over all the surrounding landscape and it is a beautiful building it's just unusually beautiful we think now are these apartments are they rooms or how do there are three different sizes of apartments there's the two room apartment which has a bedroom which closes off that's such as I have know you were the first resident I was the first person to go in there and I nearly broke my neck to get in there first I wanted to beat everybody to it I knew my sister was coming in I knew I could handle her keep her out till I got in but there was another girl from Colfax coming in and I was scared to death first she'd get in before I did but I got there first I was the very first resident and I was of course very proud of that I had selected my apartment the year before so I knew her I was going to go but I was proud to be the first resident then there are apartments which they call a medium sized studio apartment that's a one room apartment then there is the smaller one a few smaller ones that are perfectly adequate they're not small they're not little at all they're perfectly adequate they have all the same equipment that we have closets baths private baths all units have their own private bath and everything linen closet everything like that a plenty of cross ventilation even the smallest one has so that if a person doesn't have quite the funds to pay for the larger apartment why he didn't go into one of the smaller ones and there's large storage space in our apartment and that's very handy but of course the other storage spaces are in the basement and there are Longford laundry facilities in the basement and everything that you would find in a first-class apartment home a little bit better now is there a central eating spot yes yes I've had three meals a day there ever since the 29th of May when I moved in and my only complaint about the chef and his cooking is the fact that he feeds us too much and I have pled with him to cut down on the food and I said if I gained 40 pounds my doctor will kill me and so you'll be the blames he just cooked such wonderful meals and they're so well planned and there's variety great variety and their serve detective Lee and we just are so happy there we couldn't be happier and we're so bad we went there now do teachers have a problem like some of their older people as far as eating is concerned you mean as far as having a special diet or something that sort is concerned they have the chef can prepare them a special diet because he's a man that's been in restaurant work all his life and he knows about special diets and about preparing special diets so that he could do that if it were necessary but so far everybody is husky and there's one lady that a president has to have her meals taken tour in the room but as long as there are only a very few people in there why the chef doesn't mind doing that but of course if it were full he wouldn't have time to do that and of course the North Tower is all equipped with kitchen tips that is a stove like big stove and the refrigerator in his sink and a big cupboard and so forth a garbage disposal and the service calls it just outside the door so that these people who wish to cook for themselves can be perfectly well taken care of but I didn't want to I cook wash dishes all I was going to and I wanted somebody else to do it for me well now part of it is the company of having some day to eat with and they do continue with good nutrition oh yes of course my sister is in a another two room apartment just around the corner from me and so we go down together they are the people who cook for themselves and we call them very facetiously cookies because they cook for themselves but that's a nice sweet name too they will come down occasionally perhaps Sunday dinner or maybe for dinner regularly at the noon meal they'll come down just to get one meal a day when somebody else prepares didn't they can have what they need now is this restricted to just teachers no no it is not we have some folks already in there who are not teachers it's retired teachers and their friends so all you have to do to get in is to say you're a friend of Mabel I Robins and you can get in what happens if you haven't have a teacher and you weren't very good when you were a little boy or grand well most teachers are very forgiving souls you'll find and that they will forget all those unpleasant things and yes now in another vein are the communities taking the full advantage of the talents of the teachers that are retired and making use of this within their community at work pretty well I think the smaller communities are more prone to do that than the larger communities the smaller communities depend a very great deal on their retired teachers for substituting in the schools and that's a real problem you know substitutes are hard to get these days and they're very delighted to have these retired teachers substituting and then they depend on them to do a great deal of red cross work and they depend on them to they set up an auxiliary and say here's the hospital auxiliary join the hospital auxiliary they set this auxiliary up so if the retired teachers will join it and work in the hospitals you know take the books around from the from the library the bookmobile and take the flowers around deliver the flowers deliver the mail and things of that sort you know they why the hospitals just couldn't get along without these retired teachers they just are so necessary to the community now what about as working as perhaps special tutors for some of the children that really need it they do that a great deal it's hard to get a child who has dropped out once to come back and be tutored if they can get them before they drop out and say now we will help you take a teacher who is agile enough to get over to the school and me the child after school will tutor you for half an hour 3/4 of an hour to stay and you have to why they do that a very great deal but when the child has already dropped out of school it's just like pulling teeth to get them to come back for any kind of tutoring though the teachers would be glad to do that and retired teachers they don't have so much at stake don't you know and perhaps they're not so uptight as the classroom teacher and don't have so many worries during the day and there may be a little more patient with these cherubs that need a little special help and they don't have to worry about their position their pensions are safe and their social security is safe and they just mom and Papa don't like it by they that doesn't make a difference to their child well I know it's going to be a very special event Friday at Heather Manor which is located at East 5th and Des Moines a street in Des Moines Iowa and our guest was the first resident she is a mrs. Mable Iowa Robins the present president of the Iowa retired teachers association and thank you yes that's my pleasure