(upbeat music) - [Sabrina] One of the reasons I continue to show up every day is their stories.

- [Resident] And see?

- Yeah.

- [Bill] Sabrina Seymour, Life Enrichment Director at StoryPoint Assisted Living in Northville.

- [Interviewer] Do you see their eyes light up or?

- I do.

I mean, you see it all over their face.

You hear it in the change of their tone.

I wish people knew what they could learn from our residents, the knowledge that they bring, the life stories that they bring, and their life isn't over.

Because that's my job is to tell them and show them that there's still new things to do and to learn and to see.

- [Bill] Talking story with seniors at StoryPoint, Seymour sees the benefits to her residents and the people who work with them.

There are studies that show that too.

- And so I did some research in the area marrying storytelling in older adults' wellbeing, and the results were profound, I would say.

And the research out there is really compelling to show that older adults need to have their stories heard.

- [Bill] Professor Elizabeth Murphy, a media psychologist and a caregiver herself, she specializes in issues facing seniors.

- Storytelling is a good vehicle to help them look at their lives and create and solidify, crystallize, so to speak, the stories of their lives, so they can look back and say, "I've lived a good life.

This is who I was.

This is who I still am."

- [Bill] In Columbus, Ohio, the Brookwood Point Residences.

Murphy visits with campus director Kristi Sweyer.

- We've talked a lot about happiness and aging well, but one topic is storytelling.

- [Bill] Murphy teaches at Ohio Dominican University nearby, and she's working with seniors here.

- And that's one of the primary goals, I think, is to get people to feel comfortable creating a story.

And we talk about how to do that, the story format, but everyone has a story.

- [Bill] Here, talking and listening, a more resident-oriented approach, Kristi Sweyer says.

- It's now about what is important to the residents and really knowing them.

- [Bill] And you're seeing a difference, do you think, with getting results, or getting a better outcome?

- Absolutely, and I know caregivers are much more effective when they can relate to the resident.

- Some of the feedback I get from programs I do and what my research is that people feel heard, they feel validated.

I had one woman say at one point she felt like she had her 15 minutes of fame.

We remember things better in a story format than just written.

Physiologically, we see a lot of good benefits as well too.

We see stress reduction, we can see boosts in mood, and sharing stories also helps connect bonding, and our brains light up when we hear and relate to someone else sharing a story.

- I think it's really meaningful.

- [Bill] In Massachusetts, Dr.

Annie Brewster's health story collaborative has taken storytelling into the field of medicine at Harvard University.

- I'm so excited for everyone to hear your story - [Bill] Here, an online gathering led by some Harvard medical students.

- There I was a spunky, sassy, talkative young girl growing up in Fruitland, Maryland.

- [Bill] Through finely crafted stories, three storytellers connect their lives to the medical challenges they're facing, - And then, triumphant, awake, alive, we surface.

- Thank you so much, Janet, for sharing your incredible story.

- It's something that people resonate with.

I think it's really meaningful, and I think it really is therapeutic.

We start with the individual who's sharing their story.

It's sort of at the center of this ripple, and they get therapeutic benefit from engaging with their story, from telling it, but then it ripples outwards, and it impacts the people who are receiving that story.

- It's the least that I can give to the future of the medical profession if we influence, three of us, influence a few people, and they influence a few people, then we are doing a service.

- It seems like something that makes perfect sense.

We should be doing this a lot more.

Right?

- I agree with that.

I mean, of course, our whole mission at Health Story Collaborative is just that, to create time and space for storytelling, primarily because we don't do enough of that in this day and age.

And we're doing, you know, with social media so much that is like not really storytelling, but it's sharing, but it's like truncated little media bits.

So our whole goal is to create that time and space.

- You had done some work with seniors.

Tell me about that.

- Yeah, I mean it was sort of a pilot project, and unfortunately, we didn't get funding to take it further, though I think it's so important.

- [Ralph] I had a very good life.

I'm a native Bostonian.

- The reason we came to that, as it intuitively makes sense to me that I think in our culture, in particular, we don't always respect elders.

- [Bill] The disrespect, maybe not listening enough.

A term for that?

It's called ageism.

- Ageism is still out there, and impacts emotional mental wellbeing of older adults.

Even patterns of speech vary a little bit when you see someone interacting with someone that's older.

They kind of go to an elder speak at times.

the voice goes higher, and they interact with them differently than if they were maybe a younger adult or a young person.

- It strikes me this is part of the therapy or therapeutic benefit that maybe could be a more formalized sort of thing that you might see in retirement homes.

- Oh, absolutely.

I think it should be.

I think it should be.

And I think also, not only would it be beneficial for the residents, for the storytellers and the listeners, but also their families that could be invited in to watch or witness, but also the staff.

As a healthcare provider, I've seen that there's so much burnout, and I think it's probably similar in assisted living facilities where there can be burnout.

It would be beneficial to the staff as well in these facilities.

And it deepens relationships.

So even relationships between staff and residents would change hearing each other's stories.

- It's really not that hard to be kind, to just listen, hear, reflect, confirm and validate, and then share.

Share a similar story.

- I think because the age demographic we have, they lived through a lot.

You know, they lived through the Civil Rights Act, they lived through Vietnam, they lived through so many different things that I think can lost in translation almost throughout history.

So having the real world account of what they lived in and what they lived through is really important to document and to ask those questions, like what was it like?

You know, was it like what we read in the history books?

It's like, was it really like that?

Or you know, is it inflated, or is it downplayed from what maybe I learned in school?

So I think documenting it is really important.

And I don't know if we do that enough.

From immigrant journeys and neighborhood traditions to downtown parades and street games, the region's older residents have wide-ranging memories of life.

They share their stories with Sarah Zientarski.

(upbeat music) - Can you just tell me a little bit about where you grew up and what your neighborhood was like?

- I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan in 1973, and I was raised by Caribbean parents.

My dad was Guyanese and my mother was West Indian.

- Can you just tell me where you grew up?

- In Detroit.

Uh-huh.

We used to live in Detroit.

- I grew up on the west side of Detroit, and it was a nice neighborhood.

- Where did you two grow up?

- I lived in Ontario.

I lived in a little village of 360 people.

That's where I grew up.

- [Sarah] What is the name of that village?

- [Temple] Omemee.

- I was born in China, living in China for a while.

Went to Canada, living in Canada for a while, and I come down to the United States.

- Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up, and what your neighborhood in metro Detroit was like back then?

- Oh, okay, I was born and raised in Detroit on the West Side, Southfield and Warren area, Warrendale area, which was a predominantly, back then when I was growing up, it was more of a Polish neighborhood.

My grandparents lived close by, one, about five blocks away, and the other, my grandma, next door.

And we had a lot of fun, you know, when we were kids.

- What was your schooling and then your career?

- Well, I went to Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, and then I worked at Detroit Bank and Trust, Plymouth-Canton schools, and then I worked at U of M for 30 years.

U of M, I did medical transcription, medical billing, and the secretary to three doctors.

- Can you tell me what it was like growing up in Detroit?

- We played in the street, (Sarah laughs) and they would close the street, you know, so we wouldn't get hurt.

We played in the street that, you know, Kick the Can.

- I hear this game, Kick the Can, all the time.

What is Kick the Can?

- Oh, well, we used to, you know, they would close the street, and they would put a, I would say a can, and we would kick it.

- I grew up in the restaurant business.

- Okay.

What kind of restaurants?

- Chinese restaurant.

Well, we sold everything.

In Canada, we sold everything.

- [Sarah] Yeah, like what?

- [David] We sold steaks.

- [Sarah] Oh wow.

- [David] We sold all kinds of stuff.

- What made you wanna marry David?

- Because he was good to me.

(laughs) - What are some funny moments that you have working at the restaurant together?

- Hmm.

The restaurant business is kind of fun.

I enjoy the restaurant business.

I enjoy the people.

- And what about you, Temple?

- He's a people person, I'm not, and so he was happy about it, and I wasn't unhappy, but it's not my forte.

- What are some of the poignant moments in your life that really define who you are, who you came to be?

- I think I've been drawing ever since I was a little child, and when I was at St.

Mary's Redford, they didn't have an art teacher, but I continued drawing, and I remember my mother taking three buses at least three or four times down to have me take a day's class at the DIA, because they saw the talent was there, and they wanted to pursue it.

And that's one thing I really remember.

- Do you remember any like of the fun activities that you did growing up?

- Playing baseball.

I liked playing baseball.

I used to go down with the gang of kids, and we used to go to the park, and see everything that was going on.

- What are some of the things that you loved about the city of Detroit?

- Going downtown with my mom at Hudson's.

Christmas time at Hudson's down there, a good neighborhood, lots of kids playing on the street, and of course, the traditional coming in when the street lights went on.

- It's fun going downtown, you know.

And I used to go down to the ethnic festivals every weekend when they had it on the Detroit River before they built Hart Plaza.

It was all gravel, and that was really nice.

And then they built Hart Plaza.

- Would your parents take you to like downtown at all?

- Yes, we would go downtown, usually for the big events like Thanksgiving parade.

And we were a drag racing family.

(laughs) I wasn't like the other kids.

I worked on 454 big black engines with my dad.

I had to do tuneups, I gapped all his spark plugs.

Oh my God, I was such a tomboy when I was a kid.

- How did your family end up coming to the Detroit area?

- Well, my grandfather, when he was younger, him and his cousin, beside, they're from Poland, and coming from a communist country, they wanted a better life, of course, like everybody else.

So they came in and they landed in New York, and then they, a little bit in Buffalo.

And then my grandfather finally got a job at Ford Motor Company, you know, so he worked there for years and years.

- What do you think made Awrey Bakery so beloved in the area?

- We hired all the same people.

We brought all the people up from Indiana, and they were our down home folks.

- How many employees did you have at Awrey Bakery?

- 300.

They used to have an open house every other year, and you would see the product being made.

- How do you see Detroit has changed over your lifetime?

- Detroit has changed a lot.

It's not, to me, when I grew up in Detroit, Detroit was more close-knit.

I mean, we had long streets.

On Margaret, it was very long.

We lived between Woodward and Nevada.

That's like blocks of walking, (laughs) and we knew everybody on both sides of the street.

Everybody knew everybody.

That's just not how it is nowadays.

I don't think anywhere.

People are more closed off.

They're on their computers.

- What are some of the things that you wish were still the same from, you know, 50 years ago compared to now?

- Oh, wow.

I think life was so much simpler back then, compared to today with all the technology and stuff.

And a lot of that has just bypassed me, because I'm not into all that electronic stuff, you know?

But a lot of it is very good, you know, and very helpful for people.

One of the other things, you know, that would help define me is my love of animals.

I love animals, all the animals.

- What would you want people to know the most about the life that you've lived so far?

- I've lived a very full life.

I've traveled almost all over the world.

I've been to China and Italy five times, and all over Eastern Europe and stuff, and the river cruise is stopped at a different city or country every day, and you learned about how the people live, and everything else, and that was important to me.

I've lived a very exciting life and fulfilling life.

- What are the lessons that you learned from your mother and dad that you wanna continue?

- To be honest with yourself, to be honest with other people.

Always look people in the eyes, like Dad always said, when you negotiate a deal.

He negotiated lots of deals.

And the other thing my dad taught me was great sportsmanship.

He was a pro stock drag racer.

So when he raced, you know, whether he won or lost, he always went around and shook everyone's hand.

- What advice can you give me right now to be able to live a life and live as vibrant as you guys are?

- Well, what you should do is you should be able to get along with almost anybody.

Anybody walk in, try to get along with them.

- What do you want people to understand about the aging process, and like just where you are right now in this chapter of your life?

- Just be glad that you're still alive, and you can still, I said I wake up every day and thank God I can still walk, talk, and breathe, and remember my name.

(laughs) - And you can see more of our caregiving stories at OneDetroitPBS.org.

That'll do it for this week's "One Detroit."

Thank you for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit" website for all the stories we're working on.

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