‘Woman of 70 Finds Old Age To Be Blessed Estate’

From the Feb. 5, 1937, Nashville Banner

By Dorothy Dix

A grandmother with snow-white hair was telling me the other day how much she enjoyed being old.

“I am having the time of my life being seventyish,” she said. “It is like coming in from the heat and glare, labor, sweat, and struggle of mid-day into the cool gray of a peaceful twilight, when you can sit down and fold your hands and rest and have an hour or so for pleasure.

“No doubt this surprises you because we women are taught from our infancy that age is a woman’s greatest foe; something more to be dreaded than anything else on earth.

“On the contrary, we glorify the youth of women. We are forever prating about happy carefree girlhood and we never recognize that Grandma is a thousand times less care-burdened than granddaughter.

“My granddaughter, for instance, has so much more to worry about than I have. She is worried sick for fear she may not be invited to some party she wishes to go to; or that the right boy may not date her; or that some other girl may have a prettier dress; or that enough boys will not cut in on her dances. All of these are poignant anxieties that eat into her soul, poison her days and make her feel that it would be better to be dead than to be a wallflower at a ball, or for some commonplace youth not to come by in his roadster for her.

“But these things do not vex me because I have lived long enough to find out how few things matter and am immune to disappointment because time has taught me if I can’t do the thing I want to do I can do something else equally amusing.

“Also, I have reached the time of life when men are just human beings and not potential sweethearts or husbands. No woman is ever completely happy until she is so old that she knows that no man is going to look at her, anyway, so she can dress as she pleases and let out her corset strings and eat what she likes. It is a blessed estate, believe me, when you are old not to have to keep up appearances. You don’t even have to mind your manners after you are 75. Age carries with it the privilege of being cantankerous and getting by with it. And if you are amiable and sweet and don’t try to boss the whole family, what a fuss they make over you!

“When you are old you can indulge yourself in doing what you want to do. You can refuse to go to dull parties. You can decline to wear yourself out over ‘causes’. You have read the classics and listened to all the uplift lectures and highbrowed music, so you can read detective stories and go to the movies and popular concerns with a clear conscience. You can even have the fun of spoiling your grandchildren because their parents have the responsibility of straightening them out, and you can send them home when they get too obstreperous.

“And in old age you have the justification and the excuse for everything you do and leave undone. You can always plead that you are too old to go a hundred miles to see a disagreeable relative, but you are not too old to go on a tour around the world.

“It is because age is such a cinch, so restful and peaceful, so full of quiet pleasures that I am enjoying it so much.”

(Tennessee State Library and Archives)

Editor’s note: This article appeared in the February 2016 issue of The Nashville Retrospect along with other stories from the city’s past, including: “Six Shot In Columbia Race Riot” (1946); “Punishment of Mob is Sought” (1918); and “Race Segregation Laws Are Defended” (1917).