Our Members

I was born in Evanston, Illinois. My parents and I moved to Pelham, a suburb of New York City where I grew up and spent most of my life up to age 35. Then, I went with my two sons to teach French at a Quaker boarding school, George School, in Bucks County, PA. I also taught at Dana Hall, Wellesley, MA, and Putney School in Vermont.

I became Director of Ulster County (NY) Community Action in 1977, and learned something about combating poverty. In 1980 I volunteered for the Peace Corps in West Africa and spent about 1 1/2 years teaching English in Benin, a former French colony. I later served as Assistant Peace Corps Director in Morocco. Then, I went to live in Hawaii and studied teaching English as a Second Language at the University of Hawaii. I had been divorced from my husband and lived with "Stretch" Johnson from 1974 until his death in 2000.

I have been concerned throughout my life with working for peace and justice, learning about other people of all kinds, and finding better ways for us all to get along. I have enjoyed participating in community life with folks in the Movement for a New Society, Philadelphia, 1975-77. I have been part of several Quaker groups, spent time at Pendle Hill, a Quaker Conference and Retreat Center, and recently served for five months as resident at a small Quaker Conference Center in the south of France, near Nimes. In Santa Fe, I have enjoyed learning Spanish and painting at the Community College. I look forward to life at ElderGrace for the opportunity to be part of a supportive community, interacting with people who share my interests and values. We will enjoy our life together and have fun.

In 1999 my husband, J. Bruce Blossman, and I took a break from eight years of living aboard our sailboat, SV Horizons, in Central America. While visiting family and bookstores in Denver, I discovered a co-housing magazine. As I read about co-housing, specifically elder co-housing, I realized that this was exactly what I had been searching for. In the past I had watched an aging friend and my elderly mother chose to live alone which resulted in isolation and boredom. I realized that their choice was not for me. I knew I wanted to live in community where the opportunity for both independent and interdependent living was promoted.

As Bruce and I drove back to Houston to close the sale on our sailboat-home we drove through northern New Mexico. On that trip we decided we would return to New Mexico in 2000 and there make our land-based home. Three or so years after moving to New Mexico we discovered that a new elder co-housing community was being planned in Santa Fe. With enthusiasm my architectural engineer husband and I joined ElderGrace and participated in the planning as a dream became a reality.

Bruce died in August 2009. I closed on my ElderGrace home in October 2009. In January I moved into my new home where I am thriving in my community of choice.

I’ve lived and traveled all over Europe and the United States, but the place I truly fell in love with was Santa Fe. I had come for many years to visit my kids. Before I ever set up residence, it became my spiritual home. It nurtured me. So, after the big job of raising six kids as a working mom and after my husband of fifty years died, I moved to Santa Fe. It was the place I chose to find out who I was as a woman alone.

Journaling chronicles my life, including my work with hospice, Habitat for Humanity and now tutoring first graders while meditation keeps me present in these precious moments. I also found precious moments and common values with Neils and now we both live here at Elder Grace, in our connected but separate dwellings, sharing a morning kiss.

I’ve found Co-Housing to be enriching and life-enhancing. It provides a way to experience a wide variety of personalities and make good friends. We share potlucks and participate in committees that create our Elder Grace community and keep it running smoothly.

When it’s time to play, The SF Symphony and Chorus, Pro Musica, and The Desert Chorale satisfy the music lover in me, while the performances of The Santa Fe Aspen Ballet, and the seasonal Pueblo Indian Dances satisfy my love of watching movement. Some days there’s just nothing better than a good Pilates workout or a long walk in a beautiful place.

It was in the moment my school violin string broke, during a school concert that others realized I could instantly transpose music. I was only nine, but the survival demands of The Depression ended my intimate relationship with instrumental music. WW II was the next life changing force that drove me into science. And then a health crisis diverted me away from the dangerous path of involvement with weapons development.

In ’84, after separating from my wife, I began a spiritual journey. The “Why Keep Going,” eventually transformed into “It’s Give Back Time.” I knew I had stumbled into something incredibly important. My awareness of Co-Housing came out of a Conscious Aging conference put on by Jubilados, whose vision has materialized into ElderGrace. While I volunteer at hospice and Share The Care, I look forward to the aliveness of a full house here at ElderGrace. I picture us around the fireplace having a group sharing on, “What’s delicious about your life right now?”

I’m partnered with Ellie, a woman I’ve known for eight years. She’s my best friend and we’ve found the best arrangement of ‘separate but together.’ Our homes are connected by a common wall and just a knock on the door away. Our planned joint patio may include a shareable hot tub. My green thumb will get me into our big community garden, while the handyman in me gets me into my upstairs workspace. My spiritual path gets me to a sangha a short drive away. And then there’s my latest joy: my new granddaughter lives right here in Santa Fe. I’m sure she’ll be reminding me of a core belief, “ Pay close attention to questions bright kids might ask.”

I’m a semi-retired school teacher, with many additional interests. I enjoy walking in beautiful natural areas, reading, listening to classical music, swimming, gardening, working with dreams, creative writing, and visiting with friends. I have one daughter, aged 20, whom I adopted from Honduras as a single mom.

I have lived in two other countries at different times in my life. When I was in elementary school, my family lived in Venezuela. It was here that I learned to speak Spanish, a skill that I have used as a bilingual educator. As an adult, I lived for over six years in Scotland, originally on a junior year abroad program in Edinburgh. Later I returned to live and work at the Findhorn Foundation in northern Scotland. Findhorn is an international, nondenominational, meditation community and “ecological village”. It was at Findhorn that I became aware of the healing power of dreamwork, and also discovered my passion for gardening. There, also, I began to really ponder the profound questions of life and connect more deeply with my “Higher Power.”

I have had many experiences of community living, at Findhorn, at Ghost Ranch, and at a Quaker study center called Pendle Hill. I have also often lived with housemates. Now that my daughter is grown, I am looking forward to once again immersing myself in more of a cooperative lifestyle. I love Santa Fe, and think living here will be even more enjoyable while participating in Eldergrace.

I grew up in New Mexico, but I’ve lived in many parts of the US and I’ve had several careers – bouncing back and forth between academia and the arts. Educational administrator and then professional weaver (ikat) for 15 years. At 50, I went back to graduate school and got a PhD in philosophy of science. I taught philosophy for a few years and then went into academic advising. Again, I turned back to the practical arts and for several years I renovated houses in Albuquerque. Mostly I was the owner/contractor, but I also got quite good at design, tiling, painting, and ‘green renovation’ (including a grid tied photovoltaic solar system).

I make quilts. I’m learning colcha embroidery. I have one adorable dog. I do pebble mosaics when I can get someone else to do the heavy lifting. I’m volunteering for the annual International Folk Art Market.

I joined ElderGrace because I’ve been looking for community for a long time. I’ve finally realized that in the current US culture, community has to be intentional. We have to want to be in community with our neighbors and they have to want to be in community with us. It simply does not happen just because we live next to each other. Why ElderGrace? Because I love New Mexico – land, sky and sun! Because Santa Fe is an amazing cultural center of the Southwest. Because my new home is cosy, bright, and ‘green’! Because I like the people who have been working on making this community happen and I want to be in community with them.

I’m a thirty-year-plus veteran of the Houston public schools, having been a special education teacher for ten years, an Algebra teacher for twenty years, and a Coordinator up to the present. Additionally, I am a trained ESL teacher and teach night classes at the local community college. Back in the 1970’s I trained at the bi-national center in Mexico City where I worked for two years as an ESL teacher. I read, write, and speak Spanish fluently and am very comfortable with the multicultural environment of the Southwest, especially Santa Fe. For this reason I feel that Santa Fe is a good “fit” for me.

In the 1980’s I had the good fortune to live in an inner-city community centered around the neighborhood Episcopal church. I lived in a small apartment complex occupied mostly by other members of the church. We ate common meals together a few times a week, celebrated birthdays/holidays together, and went to church together. This was a very satisfying time for me and I’ve often thought that I would like to return to such a style of living. As I transition into retirement, I find that ElderGrace is a good choice for returning to a more community-based lifestyle. And finally, I’m a vegetarian who is very interested in anything having to do with a “green” lifestyle. I love to read, jog, listen to music, and cook vegetarian food.

My life is characterized by a wide diversity of work situations and locales. My work has included teaching, social work, rehabilitation, art therapy, and grief counseling. I currently do companion care with ladies in a rest home and work in a chiropractor’s office, all part time and fun! After growing up in a small town in Missouri, I lived in the Philippines, then to Boston, then to life in the woods in Missouri and finally “home” to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Santa Fe has offered the perfect combination of elements I need and want in my elder years, including: mountains to hike in, a wonderfully balanced climate, the most beautiful sunsets of anywhere I’ve lived, an accepting atmosphere for different spiritual traditions, vibrant cultural diversity, green living and best of all, senior co-housing!

My adventures in community living have extended from my thirties to the present and include rural and urban communities. Over time, I’ve become aware of the benefits of community as similar to a cup overflowing. As an alternative to the lonely isolation of many of our elder citizens, having neighbors who are friends, and creating together a caring village of independent, active elders is my idea of a little “peace” of paradise. My joy in life includes visiting my son and grandchildren in California and I look forward to them visiting me in ElderGrace!

Outward Bound has employed me as a guide for the last ten years. My office is the great outdoors and I believe in their mission statement of cooperation, compassion, integrity and inclusion. These values are the connecting link between my work with Veterans, Youth at Risk and what attracts me to cohousing. My understanding of ‘conscious aging’ directly relates to keeping my body, mind and soul fit to work. The nearby Sangre de Cristo mountains double as my church and personal trainer.

My first introduction to community was during my growing up in Brazil. Our neighbors in Rio flowed in and out of a door always open. My adventurous grandmother nourished the wild side in me and expanded my view of the world. We’d travel on long bus rides over dirt roads to far away places like the Amazon and Iguazu Falls.

So, it was really no surprise that after sitting behind a computer for eight years locating the epicenters of worldwide seismic events, I became restless. I dreamt of doing the work I do now. My current dream is to create a variety trips that would appeal to the variety of folks here at ElderGrace. As I drive home from my work in the Colorado Rockies, I look forward to pulling into our village, being in our new energy efficient home, washing my clothes in our finely decorated Common House, chuckling together and feeling part of something quite special.

Born and raised in New York City through a stew of movements, protests, alternate side of the street parking, Off, Off, Off Broadway theatre, home-groups, art lofts, subway delays, The 9th Street Y, blackouts, The Gay and Lesbian, Black and People of All Color Gospel Choir, deadlines, Coney Island to Fire Island, Pope John the 23rd to Starhawk, I’m an amalgam of it all.

‘The explorer’ is hard wired into what drives me. My work in art and psychology was always merged with ‘the traveler.’ The ‘free spirit’ in me always felt owning a home could be a conflict of interest.

A different age brought with it different needs. I celebrated my fiftieth birthday by planting more flowers in the yard and attending a myriad of ‘hands on’ natural building workshops where I learned the importance of sustainability. Our move to New Mexico was all about being in the perfect place to befriend the power of the sun.

Either I found Elder Grace or it found me. It is the only affordable and sustainable cohousing community in the country. Currently, I am working on how to balance my private life; which includes my commitment to my partner of twenty-two years, my love of the outdoors, creating art at our amazing community college and my volunteer work at the women’s prison, with my participation in the building of our community. Consensus is the basting stitch that gathers all of our opinions into one decision. As we cultivate who we are together, I find a good sense of humor helps mitigate my New York directness and a joy in cooking helps to fully stock our common kitchen.

Living at ElderGrace is the soul satisfying end of a twenty year search for community in Santa Fe. I was living in Santa Cruz CA while on this journey. When I heard that the formation of the ElderGrace Senior Co-housing Community was beginning, I retired from Hospice Caring Project where I had worked for many years as a social worker and moved from the senior housing project where I had a great apartment and good neighbors. And I moved to Santa Fe in September 2006 to be part of this amazing process of creating ElderGrace. This change was so right for me and my dream is fulfilled.

Now we have reached another stage of the community formation process by living here and experiencing community in our daily lives. We share special events like a festive Thanksgiving dinner and decorating our community Christmas tree and the mundane like cleaning the Common House and shoveling snow. Some of these neighbors I know well through four years of planning. Others are new friends. My family from Illinois and friends from CA are coming to visit this year. Since I also love living in Santa Fe and this part of NM it will be such a joy having them here. Life is good.

Community living has always interested me but I thought it would be with people I already knew and loved. I am here at ElderGrace with people I have just met and feel lucky as they are bright, community minded and full of life.

I have lived in Santa Fe for twenty three years because of the beauty, culture and beautiful sky. I am looking forward to building this community with my spirited and interesting neighbors who also care about the environment and sustainable living.

It is important for me to keep a balance with my personal and social life and feel I can do this here as well as having a strong support system if needed. I love my new home and am excited about starting this new way of life. This spring will bring another new experience when I explore learning about organic gardening.

After living in Santa Fe for several years, I moved to ElderGrace in November and love it. I still do have strong ties to Western Massachusetts where I grew up and worked and where my daughter, her husband and many friends still live. I’m a retired United Church of Christ minister and served the church for thirty years in a variety of ways, both as a layperson and a professional.

It was my son and his family who encouraged me to move to Santa Fe and I delight in precious time with them. Together we enjoy outdoor adventures; last spring we went camping at Bandelier and this year perhaps we will explore further afield.

I love music and reading as well as all things of the natural world: walking, hiking, birding (novice), and skiing. One of my passions is environmental sustainability - I’m in awe of my son, who built an electric car, which is charged by his home’s PV system -- see: envirokarma.org. In addition to being politically active, I serve on the NNM Citizens Advisory Board which provides oversight to the DOE and cleanup of contaminants at Los Alamos National Lab – see: nnmcab.org.

I am grateful to be working and playing with this vital community of ElderGrace: living in an environmentally green home, building the soil, soon to be raising our own vegetables, cooking together and supporting each other as we “age in place” – it feels good.

Garland’s early years had a sort of “Odd Couple” flavor to them: part Indiana farm boy and part east coast nomad. He’s enjoyed a lifelong career as a research chemist, but his passion has been music in many forms. Photography, travel, gardening and political activism have filled in the remaining spaces.

Linda was born and raised in Indiana. Her work life has included a stint as a high school math teacher and several gigs in the business world. Her interests include sewing, reading (mysteries and fantasy), travel and gardening. Maybe she’ll even dig out that clarinet in retirement.

After college and marriage, a return to the midwest for a few years gave way to the siren call of the Pacific Northwest where we’ve lived until the present. A vacation to Santa Fe was followed by a visit with the ElderGrace folks where we found them to be welcoming and vigorously active in building their lives together using the cohousing concept. The energy efficient ElderGrace house design meshes well with our concern for the environment. We plan to add solar cells as well. We look forward to “aging in place” supported by the universal design concept of the houses. The notion of a mutual commitment to help each other in the every day tasks of life is something that raises living at ElderGrace from a mere place of residence to living as part of a new family.

I feel like a gypsy. Over my 65 years I have lived in many places. My father was in the army and my husband worked on foreign engineering assignments. I have lived in Spain, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and various places in the United States, and loved them all. I would study the dictionary and learned to speak the “kitchen” version of their language to talk with the people. I have been interested in fibers for years and found new materials to try, in the different countries. I now write knitting patterns for yarn manufacturers and teach knitting classes, and try new things. I was told many years ago, that I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I have one daughter. She was born in Spain and I think caught the gypsy bug. She now lives and works in Brazil. I have four granddogs.

For years I have heard and read things about co-housing. It had always sounded like a good idea – the common house and sharing resources. I have been concerned about practicing sustainability, was living that lifestyle in Montana, and wasn’t interested in relocating to another individual home. I discovered ElderGrace in a Sustainable Santa Fe magazine last year. I started communicating with them and was able to spend a week there in February. ElderGrace was everything and more than I expected. I am interested in downsizing and actually the units appear to hold more of the things I’ve collected than I had originally thought from seeing the floor plans. I was so impressed with the residents, their different interests and passions. I felt that I belonged – something I had been looking for. It will be a few months before I am able to sell my property in Montana and move to ElderGrace. It gives me a very positive intention to look forward to.

Starting in New England, the 4th of 5 children, I chose to leave for Wyoming in my 20s to enjoy a western lifestyle. During the 1970s I worked at a variety of tourist-oriented town jobs or on ranches. Also enjoyed time in the mountains on horseback, some river rafting and much fun.

In the 1980s to 2003, my husband and I traveled around the U.S., finding odd jobs wherever we landed: Salt Lake City; Athens, Ga.; Seattle and San Juan Island; Raton, N.M.

All of those stints lasted between six months and two years, at which point we returned to Jackson Hole, where we had many friends and could earn sufficient income. My longest term job there was at a weekly newspaper, which for many years felt like a second large family. Finally, three years after my spouse died, I moved from the snowy North to sunny Santa Fe.

Joining ElderGrace reminds me of some early experiences in groups where everyone shared common purposes and communal duties. Among such experiences were those at: a girls' school in Concord, Mass.; an American Friends Service Committee assignment teaching children near Detroit; a "Christian Leadership" program in Berkeley, Calif.; a small Vermont college where students, teachers and staff gathered in monthly meetings based on principles of the New England Town Meeting.

And now I'm privileged to live in this Southwestern co-housing community within an old and fascinating city. The joys in my life center around good friends, animals (right now mostly kitties), music (right now mostly classical), the trees, clouds and sky just out my ElderGrace window, and my first and last house, full of light and space. I love living here!

Developing a relationship to Place and the natural world has come to be in some ways the work of my life since moving to Santa Fe and the Southwest in 1975. Being a participant in the larger community of the living world in a respectful, caring way is a notion that informs my daily as well as larger choices. When I learned about a co-housing community in Santa Fe that aspires to be green, sustainable and caring, I took notice.

In my professional life I have been a graphic designer and illustrator, and continue to design books that support the shift to a more sustainable and compassionate way of living in the world. I am a gardener, dreamer, flower essence practitioner, and astrologer. I find that there are many tools on the path to healing and wholeness, not the least of which derive from the rich dimensions of myth and nature.

In becoming a member of ElderGrace, I am entering a new stage of my life in which I am learning to participate in the human community in a more deeply engaged way. I am immensely appreciative for the opportunity to be a part of a community of people of such heart and vision.

It all started in California when I would sit by the railroad track and wait for the train to go by. One of the rail cars would pave painted on the side a big Indian with a tall red feather and the words Santa Fe. I believe that I was imprinted at that time.

While I was in college, I bought a book on Indian rugs and spent many hours trying to figure out how to get to New Mexico and back and still get to class on time.

Twenty years ago, I decided to take an art tour to Santa Fe. I came away feeling like I had been dipped into a supersaturated solution of color. I wanted to be in Santa Fe.

There have been many periods in my life; such as my beach period in California, my Disneyland period, my mountain period in Boulder Creek, my Europe period, my army wife period, and my Washington, D.C. period. All these periods have put me on the path to this co-housing community in Santa Fe.

Recently, after a life transition I began thinking about a mutually committed community for daily living. Typing "Santa Fe cohousing" into Google yielded ElderGrace. This community soon became a welcoming and stimulating new family.

Although still centered on my scientific vocation - developing new computational methods to improve drug discovery - and traveling globally to promulgate those methods and learn about others, I look forward to deeper involvement in ElderGrace.

By way of further self-categorization: I was raised in exurban Wilmington DE, educated in Boston, lived and worked in Philadelphia, Terre Haute, St. Louis, and Santa Fe. Lifelong emersions in reading non-fiction, playing Dixieland jazz, and baseball geek-dom, with excursions into the practice of calorie restriction and the politics of sustainability are my keen interests.

I have lived in New Mexico for twenty-two years and I plan on spending the rest of my life here; I love the climate and scenery. The first 40 years of my life were spent in Texas. I like to say I am a recovering Texan!!

I was a singer, percussionist, and actor for many years. Most of my performing was in classical music and musical comedy. My degrees are in music and are from Abilene Christian University and Eastern New Mexico University. Even though I do not perform anymore, I still love music and I take in all the concerts I can. For a town of 70,000, Santa Fe has a huge number and great variety of musical performances.

I moved to ElderGrace because I want to be a part of a community. I look forward to integrating myself within this wonderful community.