Seniors share lifetime of memories in anthology book

Berteil Mahoney has always enjoyed reading memoirs and even took some memoir writing classes before she got the idea to teach one.

The former high school English teacher, newspaper columnist and director of a nonprofit for runaway and homeless youths submitted a proposal seven years ago to the Oasis Senior Center in Corona del Mar to teach a memoir writing class called Writing Your Life Stories.

A few of the writing groups Mahoney has led have published their work, and some have put together anthologies on their own for the mass market.

On May 16, Mahoney led her class of 14 students in a presentation at Oasis of a book they created titled “Grey Matters: An Anthology of Senior Memoirs.” It contains parts of all the students’ life stories.

“Everyone submitted something … which has been one of my greatest pleasures, to see everybody enthused,” Mahoney said.

“I believe so strongly how important it is to record our life stories; otherwise they will be lost for future generations,” she added. “We live in such a hurried time, people don’t sit down or take time or make time to talk about it. People often ask … ‘Why didn’t I ever ask dad about …?’”

The 10 women and four men in the current group come from different places with different backgrounds and work experiences. Among them are entrepreneurs, teachers, office workers, engineers, homemakers and a former California Highway Patrol officer.

Linda Healy, a Corona del Mar resident who was one of the CHP’s first female traffic officers in the 1970s in East Los Angeles, knew she had good stories to tell but didn’t think she could write them.

“I was a newbie at writing and Joan Miller became my ‘maestro,’ telling me to stay in my voice,” said Healy, referring to a student who has been in the class since it began in 2011.

Miller describes herself as a “Goat Hill girl” from Costa Mesa, and her writing for the anthology reflects her life growing up in Costa Mesa during the 1930s.

The former Newport-Mesa Unified School District teacher includes artist among her many careers. Her palm tree painting is on the book cover. Miller has been blind for four years and does her writing using dictation.

“My attendant, Lauren Jurs, types on the computer and runs off on a printer so I can take it to class to be read out loud by [fellow student] Joan Whalen,” Miller said. “This way it can be critiqued, which will help me get better at writing.”

Mahoney says the class isn’t about getting into the book publishing industry. The story-packaging knowledge provided to students is directed to serving a limited audience, such as loved ones or even oneself as a way to relive experiences. For example, she recalled a man from one of her groups who asked that a story from his book be read to him while he was on his deathbed.

Mahoney tries to reduce any fear of writing her students may have by beginning with vignettes, which she says are more manageable and less threatening. Top on her list of teaching principles, she says, is that no writing experience is necessary and everyone has freedom of topics and freedom of sharing or not sharing. She doesn’t grade but rather allows time for feedback.

Newport Beach resident Maureen Buffington, who has been in the class since 2014, wrote in the anthology book about her experience growing up in the remote community of Bamfield, British Columbia. She said she plans to continue taking the class because of the inspiration she receives from listening to the other writers and the feedback she gets on her own work.

“I’ve made wonderful friendships, and my fellow writers know more about me than my friends do,” Buffington said. “We’ve reached a point of honesty and trust.”

Though Mahoney’s classes consist primarily of senior citizens, she has taught a variety of ages. Her class at Oasis meets once a week for eight weeks, three times a year.

The cost is $140 for first-time students. For more information, call (949) 644-3244.

SUSAN HOFFMAN is a contributor to Times Community News.