[This story is a follow-up to our November 2020 Thanksgiving issue front page photo inset]
By Theresa Giacalone April 8, 2021
Along with Irene W.’s ninety-seven years comes much life experience, of course; and it was in hearing her story that I experienced a life lesson myself while struggling to regain a little balance after the tumultuous election of 2020.
You might agree that one of the many values of history is how it adds perspective. It was late March 1942 when Irene turned eighteen. It had already been a full twenty-two years since the 19th Amendment was adopted, granting women voting rights– yet not until they turned thirty. This is something I did not know until asking the question: how many elections are in 97 years? Doing the research for this article revealed still more interesting answers. The year of Irene’s 40th birthday was when the 24th Amendment of 1964 finally allowed voting without taxation; then seven years later, the voting age threshold was at last lowered to eighteen. Getting a sense of the timeline of events that helped U.S. citizens gain some key rights is helpful.
Math will also be helpful to answer my first question. Irene hit thirty in 1954 and could start voting. After a quick calculation, we arrive at some estimates surrounding Irene’s voting history. 97 minus the first 30 years she could not vote equals 67 voteable years divided by the 4 year frequency of presidential elections. Instead of doing more research and calculations to determine her potential rate of voting if mid-terms were included, I’ll kiss perfectionism goodbye and be satisfied to know that Irene W. likely voted a minimum of 16 times in her lifetime. Wonderful!
If all guidelines had been equal to today’s, Irene would have cast a ballot for president almost 19 times. But all things were not equal as described above. Minimum age and gender played a significant part in the history of election laws thereby affecting our estimate and her own voting rights.
However, being barred from voting until she turned thirty might have mattered very little to Irene given her busy life in northern Ohio. As one of eight children, she was surrounded by her strong, German Catholic family in which faith and church was the center. She raised four children of her own, teaching them to not judge others saying, “It would be a very boring world if everyone was the same.” Politically, Irene aligned like many Catholics in her day with the Democrat party, until it ‘went south’ on abortion.
She supported her husband in his career with NASA and later, as an early widow, re-entered the workforce engaging her talent in mathematics while employed with Sears & Roebuck. Later, in her 60’s, while working for a local business, Irene took classes to learn how to use computers and then went on to set up the computing system for the company.
[Side note: At this point in interviewing her daughter, Irene’s story started sounding like one of my favorite movies. It tells of three women who played an integral role in getting the U.S. space program to the moon. Based on a true story, it’s full of relevant civil rights themes, history, science, and mind-bending math. It’s also humorous in every perfect way. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend “Hidden Figures”, a delightful hybrid of spunk and intellect!]
The similarities between Irene’s story and the characters of a favorite movie felt like an exclamation point to the newfound perspective I had for the intrigue (read: frustration) surrounding the 2020 election. By learning about Irene and her likely 16 presidential elections, I had a new outlook. Compared to the many elections in which Irene voted, one takes on a whole lot less significance. Not that the 2020 election wasn’t really, really important, and due to radically wide divides in policy– was more contentious than any previous election ever, but… I won’t digress down that path right now. All that’s necessary is to bear in mind what one of Irene’s daughters said: “Mom always lived out strong ethics and morals, even in difficult times. She trusted God’s hand in her life, always took a positive approach and taught her children to pray, not worry, and turn it over to God– always giving thanks for the many blessings.” The best advice ever.
To top off her wisdom, Irene’s timeline also includes perseverance. She was the first woman to be on her church’s finance committee… until she was in her 90’s! She was out visiting the sick until 88 years old, and continues watching daily mass and the rosary.
When first seeing Irene’s photo on the cover of Life News #43, did you consider that there was so much depth to her story? At 97, with more years behind her than ahead, life is harder and yet also simpler now that she is being well cared for by her family.
To follow-up on her birthday last month, Tri-cities Right to Life would like to say, “Happy belated birthday, Irene!” Thank you for helping me, and maybe all of us, recall the value of perspective.
TG
* If you’re so inclined, will you send Irene a message via our contact form? She would love that!