"A chicken coop; the unlikely birthplace of a fundamental idea. It's where Ethel Percy Andrus found a retired teacher living because she could afford nothing else. Ethel couldn't ignore the clear need for health and financial security … and it inspired her to found AARP. For over 50 years we've continued that work." (www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PM6pAnHKLs.)
While you may remember the television ad, you probably never realized that Andrus resided in Ventura County.
"As it is," Andrus liked to observe, "when you leave a job, they often just give you a gold watch, and all you can do is look at it and count the hours until you die." That had to change.
Yet, all Andrus had were her beliefs. Fortunately, they were enough.
Belief No. 1: Age is only a number. Andrus would create the National Retired Teachers Association when she was already 63. Seven years later, she would relocate to Ojai and establish Grey Gables, which would serve both as a model active retirement community and the headquarters of the NRTA.
Finally, at the tender age of 74, she would inaugurate the American Association of Retired Persons.
The birthplace of AARP, according to Jack Fay (Andrus' attorney) was the Ojai Valley Inn. During the previous decade, not only were those over 65 years old considered uninsurable by the 40 insurance companies initially contacted by Andrus, but, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 75 percent were forced to live with relatives, and 55 percent subsisted below the poverty line.
AARP actually originated as a mechanism by which the NRTA could sell health insurance.
Belief No. 2: The greatest rewards in life come from serving others. During the time Andrus taught in Chicago (1903-10), she volunteered at Hull House, which provided educational, medical and counseling services.
Founder Jane Addams, the first woman awarded the Nobel Prize, insisted that her social workers reside in the community to learn the needs, firsthand. Andrus' Hull House experience would provide invaluable when she got the nod, in 1917, as the first female high school principal in the Golden State.
Andrus was at Santa Paula High School when she was invited to become an administrator at East Los Angeles High School. The 2,000-student school became infamous for class clashes between rich kids and poor immigrants from China, Japan, Italy and Mexico; for behavior problems then called "juvenile delinquency" and for the staggering number of dropouts.
Andrus' first task was to defuse tensions. She believed the solution was in a shared sense of purpose: "We must keep our many nationalities conscious and proud of their racial and national background" while sharing individual "contributions made to the American dream."
To that end, she asked her students to stand daily and recite: "I hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal. God hath made of one blood all races of men, and we are his children, brothers and sisters all."
Realizing that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to education, she eliminated Latin and Greek to add vocational courses, she collaborated with the Los Angeles County Community Hospital to train nurses, she encouraged civic associations to sponsor education awards and she brought back outstanding alums as coaches and teachers.
Belief No. 3: The transformative power of words. Andrus, known for her fiery scarlet hair and ramrod-straight posture, was instrumental in renaming her campus Abraham Lincoln High School. In addition, her students couldn't help but see the word "Opportunity" — writ large in wrought iron — as they entered the school building.
As actor Robert Preston told the Los Angeles Times, "The big iron scroll at Abraham Lincoln High School through which we passed said 'Opportunity.' Isn't it amazing that we didn't know until we walked out: Opportunity had red hair!"
Belief No. 4: The muscle in numbers. By the time she died in 1967, AARP had grown to 1.2 million. Today, the organization boasts 40 million and has accumulated enough clout to make congressional campaign managers sit up and take notice. One in five voters belong to AARP.
During the years Andrus led AARP, she pushed for the passage of Medicare and Medicaid, for tax laws benefiting seniors, and for cost-of-living increases in pensions as well as lobbying to outlaw mandatory retirement, to improve Social Security and to end discrimination against the elderly.
Not only did she pioneer a mail-order discount prescription drug service but, believing that retirees should be involved instead of isolated, she also negotiated the now-universal senior discounts at restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, cruise lines and car rental businesses.
When Andrus discovered a former colleague gravely ill in a chicken coop, she vowed, "I may be retired, but I am not finished living." For those of us of a certain age, neither are we.
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