SON: Connections - Spring 2002

Headlines | Briefly | From the Deans Desk | Alumni News

Voices from the New "Wonder Years": Life After "Retirement"
Edith Heinemann-Harris. MA, FAAN
Professor Emeritus of Psychosocial and Community Health
Developed first nursing program in the country for the care of patients with alcoholism and substance abuse problems, in 1972

"I think the most exciting part of my retirement was meeting and marrying my husband, who I am writing a biography about and who died last year at 94. He was a retired English professor and we shared a love of books. We built a large second story room onto our house so that we could more easily have groups over for literature discussions. Music was also an important part of our lives, as Mark had been a pianist, and we always went to the symphony and the opera. I still go regularly, with my daughter. I was born in Germany, and Mark and I went there for my high school reunion in 1985 and a year later did some more sightseeing around Germany and also England. I hadn't been back since escaping from Germany in 1938, on one of the last boats to leave. I was 18 at the time and got my first job in a nursing home. Fortunately I spoke English because I had learned it in school. I had intended to do volunteer work in alcoholism after I retired, but I was inhibited by a heart condition and diabetes. I did not expect to have these illnesses and have not been able to do as much as I would have liked. Ingrid Bergman once said, 'There lives within me a young girl.' I still feel that way, but life is different when you are 81."

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