Episode 11: Looking Back and Looking Forward with Nancy Kessler
Join your host Betsy Bush as she speaks with Nancy Kessler. They discuss how Nancy founded her company Memoirs Plus which helps seniors tell their life stories, her passion for storytelling that blossomed in her childhood, and her advice for those trying to discover what their "next version" might be!
Resources:
Women’s Enterprise Development Center
Transcript:
Betsy Bush (01:01):
What happens when you're 58 and you get fired from your job, you're a single mom, as well as your mother's caretaker. You start the business. You feel you were meant to like maybe from childhood on today's the latest version I speak with Nancy Kessler. She's the founder of Memoirs Plus a business that works with seniors to capture their life stories and a published book illustrated with their own photographs. It's not just a business for Nancy. It's a mission that connects her and her client's families to the extraordinary stories of their lives. Nancy Kessler. Thank You so much for joining me on the latest version, Nancy, you are the founder and owner of Memoirs Plus a very interesting business that you founded at the age of 58. And you're telling me it's okay for me to mention your age. I've talked about myself, I'm I'm 60 at the moment, and I think I'm loving being 60. So I'm not going to worry about age at all. So you have a very interesting journey founding your own business. And why don't you tell me a little bit about what Memoirs Plus is, and then let's talk about your journey to the point of your founding that
Nancy Kessler (02:24):
I founded the company seven years ago. And I had a hard time coming up with the title. So I decided to use memoirs plus so that I could give myself some wiggle room to do other things, but primarily I write memoirs in the voice of the person who's I'm interviewing. Most of my clients are very old seniors. I would say they're in their eighties and nineties and some in their early hundreds. And what we do is we put the book, their stories into a hardcover book that also helps the family organize all their family photographs and memorabilia, and we have audio tapes and video available after the project's completed. So it's, it's an intergenerational piece or I have grandchildren and great-grandchildren contribute their stories as well.
Betsy Bush (03:23):
And a lot of your projects end up as a co in book format, is that right?
Nancy Kessler (03:31):
Primarily I'm right now, they're in hardcover books. And I imagine in the future that we will be going more digital. I do offer digital e-books and Kindle books now, but people in their eighties and nineties really prefer a hardcover book at this point.
Betsy Bush (03:50):
Well, sure. And let's face it. Digital technology changes so rapidly. You know here at the latest version I had I'm a, I'm a broadcaster from early on it, you know, in my early twenties. And I had samples of my work on reel to reel, which my which we were able to have transferred to CD, but now I brought them into the studio to, you know, excerpt for the latest version. And then we're like, I don't even have a CD player. How do I even, so, you know, we think we're on the, on the cutting edge of some things. And sometimes a book is maybe the best thing. So, so
Nancy Kessler (04:39):
I often joke that the only thing left may be a book because, you know, we're trusting that the cloud is going to keep all of this. And I'm worried that someday they may not. So having a hardcover book is really valuable even to the younger generation, they seem to really like having a book about their family.
Betsy Bush (04:59):
So tell me about your journey to the point where you founded memoirs plus you seem to have, you have a very interesting multifaceted background.
Nancy Kessler (05:14):
That's right. I've reinvented myself several times some out of necessity. And I, I basically was a child who loved to listen to stories. So I was often sitting in the kitchen because that's where the best stories were told in, in most families. And so I was a quiet child and I would just listen to the adults talking. And I was collecting stories at a very young age. I actually had a neighbor Mrs. Blanche Shea, and she would give out butterscotch candy right before dinner. So all the kids would ring the bell and run away. And I was drawn into her Victorian parlor where she would tell me about in the 19th century and the town that I grew up in, in New Jersey. So I really credit, you know, the, the elders in my life at a young age for getting me interested in history. Um so I went to college and became very interested in museum studies. And I then went to the Cooperstown graduate program in upstate New York. And I became a museum curator at the Museum of the City of New York. I was there for several years in the paintings prints and photographs department. And I learned a lot about how to put up exhibits. I had a lot of fun, but ultimately it was not a very rewarding financially rewarding career. So I, I left too. And then I worked for the Koch administration in the department of transportation and for a while ahead of a catering business, cause I love to cook. I've done many different things. I've worked for architects, lawyers all sorts of people. But basically I was collecting skills. I didn't even know what skills I was collecting for, but it all made sense to me when I turned, when I was 58, I got fired from my job and I found it absolutely impossible to find a traditional job. I just wasn't getting interviewed. I was I remember one position I came close, but they said they picked somebody who was a little bit more perky. Oh, well that meant younger because I think I'm still perky. But I, so I, at that point I had been working with seniors earlier and really loved doing any kind of work with seniors. And I decided I was going to start some kind of business and create a business at age 58. So I took a class that was offered by the women's enterprise development center here in Westchester. And it was a 60 hour entrepreneurial class and they taught us every aspect of starting a business. And when I started, I really didn't know which aspect of working with seniors. I was going to pursue. And a lot of the things that I was interested in doing my instructor said, you know, that's been done, that's a little boring. You know, I don't know that that's going to fly. And during that period, somebody asked me to do a memoir of a woman named Germaine. And she had been, she was born in Iraq and moved to Iran and her husband died at a young age and she was running a max factor, cosmetic business as a single woman under Ayatollah Khomeini. And he tried to take her children away. She whisked them off to Switzerland. She was taking money all the time out of the country. She actually showed me the purse where she smuggled the money out and with a fake bottom. Wow. She ended up in Greenwich, Connecticut. And you know, her grandfather had been a Pasha in the Ottoman empire. She really had an incredible history. So we did a memoir for her 90th birthday and we called it the first 90 years.
Betsy Bush (09:45):
Wow. That's great. What, what a, what a story? It sounds like a movie. It sounds like, you know, in fact maybe it was a movie,
Nancy Kessler (09:55):
She was on the plane when the Canadian hostages got released.
Betsy Bush (10:00):
I was just thinking about that.
Nancy Kessler (10:02):
The movie Argo is about that and, and she was sitting next to someone who was just recently freed as soon as they hit a certain point. The pilot came on and everybody started sharing. So she had a remarkable story. And in fact, she fell about a week after her 90th birthday. And then from then on, she only spoken Arabic. So we were just so fortunate to get her story and even some of her recipes before she deteriorated. But you know, the family is always grateful to, to have the words of the person directly.
Betsy Bush (10:44):
That is amazing. That's, you know, it just shows you, when you open yourself up to these different kinds of possibilities or experiences, you don't know what you're going to run into. And it sounds like you probably have had a similar experience with a lot of your with a lot of your clients Looking on your website. There's a page as a a page from one of the books as a sample project of a woman who's on whose wedding day she was getting married in New York city on August, 1945. And someone ran into the ballroom and said, the war is over. I mean, that's, that is, that is an incredible story. And that's probably a story that was passed around, you know, always told around the Thanksgiving table or something like that. But to have that you know, on printed on the page that can be then passed down to future generations. That's, that's an incredible gift that you're giving those, those families.
Nancy Kessler (11:52):
I had that, that story. And then there's one family where the man was being drafted into the army. So they decided on a Friday night to get married on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. And they had a full formal wedding. I have like a to-do list that they did. They had invitations, they have bridesmaids, they had out, you know, the correct clothing. It was incredible. They put it all together, like a whole formal wedding in a day and a half.
Betsy Bush (12:25):
Wow. That's those, those are, you know, those lives of that generation are really really interesting. Tell me about, you talked about the, the skills you collected over the years that have helped you from this point. Because I think when people you know, they, you know, how, how can I start something new when I don't know anything about a particular field, but I think maybe if you look at what you've been doing up into this point, you realize, oh, you know, I learned how to do this, or I can apply what I learned in one area to another area.
Nancy Kessler (13:05):
Definitely. well, the museum work has come in most handy because I often tell my clients I'm making an exhibit of their lives. It's just in a book form, but it's very much like the same as putting an exhibit on the wall. And I also worked in publishing for over 10 years. So that certainly has helped me know what a book should look like. And though I've, I'm constantly learning that. And then, you know, when I worked in different offices, I gained skills in bookkeeping, QuickBooks finances, insurance policies, things like that. And also the program that I took the business class I would encourage anyone starting a business to go to a women's business center because they're funded by the SBA and they have a lot to offer and show great success rates.
Betsy Bush (14:07):
Let's talk about that because I think people need to know there are resources out there if you are, you know, as you did, I have this great idea for a business, or I want to, you know, talk to someone about forming an idea, getting a business plan and things like that, that, that there are resources in the community for, for people to make sure that they get started off on the right foot. We're, you're actually, you did so well through the women's enterprise development center located in Westchester county, New York that now you're on the board. Is that right? Yeah. So what would you suggest that people do who are not in Westchester? You know, maybe in other parts of the country, where do you think they might look?
Nancy Kessler (14:57):
There are these centers everywhere. And even though they may be called a women's business center, they do accept some men. But they're usually limited to taking local people. So you need to find your local women's business center. There's also SCORE, which is most that has more men retired men that gives advice, but they offer a lot of very good programs. I think taking some kind of class really increases your rate of survival and in owning a business because there's so many aspects that you just don't think about head of time. And they prepared me for everything I needed to know legally with branding, marketing all aspects of the business. And I've been paying it back because I thought the program was so worthwhile that being on the board has, has really been nice. And and, and also volunteering in the community, I think is a big part of starting a business so that you get familiar with the people who are, you're able to network in your communities through WEDC. See, I also started a networking group of women, business owners who serve as seniors in Westchester. So I have that group it's called the WEDC senior providers network. And so there's all sorts of opportunities. I did an awful lot of networking when I was just starting out and I'm, I'm a great one-on-one person. This was obviously before COVID I could sit down and have a cup of coffee. I probably had at least a hundred cups of coffee with different people just to tell my story, get to know what they were doing. I tried to figure out really what was going on globally in the field of aging before I started. And I think that being a lifelong learner, it was, it was a really exciting thing for me to see not just the local movements, but what was going on.
Betsy Bush (17:15):
You know, one thing I talked about in my first episode of the second series, which is when we're talking, which it hasn't been dropped yet, but I talk about the idea of longevity because I've, I've come across this interesting book called the Renaissance soul. Maybe you've heard of it. It's, you know, for people, I would say like us who have a lot of different interests who maybe get to a point and want to pivot to something else, which is exactly what this podcast is all about. And the, the feeling that people have of, oh, I'm too old to start anything new, you know, what's the point I'm already X age. She put, you know, she takes you through this interesting exercise, which is take your age, take the age you expect to live to, you know, what, what do you, you know, reasonably expect? And my parents lived into their nineties, so, okay. I have 30 plus years ahead of me. That's fine. But to take that number and subtract it from your current age. So if I subtract 30 from 60, that puts me at 30. So what would it be like to be 30? You know, what have you accomplished in 30 years? You know, going back 30 years and to this point, and it's like, well, maybe, okay. Maybe they're not fully as productive as you would be as a younger person, but that's a long time,
Nancy Kessler (18:55):
Right? I mean, I just did a longevity test in a set. I was going to live to 103. But I, this whole transition has actually made me feel younger, partially because I'm dealing with some very old people who give me a lot of wisdom about the end of life. So I'm not as afraid of it. I think as some people might be, but I feel younger because I feel like I'm doing very authentic work and it's very important to me that these seniors be honored while they're alive. And that we're not just preparing all of this for a funeral. It's really a celebration of them. And so many people feel invisible as they get to be in their eighties and nineties. They don't feel like anyone wants to hear their stories anymore. So it's, it's fascinating. I've had children, adult children who have hired me, and they've said, I've heard every story 10 times. I don't need to even read the book. And then they open up the book and they're surprised because they do hear every family. Here's a story that they never heard before. I haven't had one yet.
Betsy Bush (20:13):
I've had similar experiences where maybe someone very late in life tells you a story, or you hear about that story from someone else. And you're like, why didn't I know that I would have wanted to know more about that. I have so many questions now. And it's I, I think the idea that you want to do this while that person is still living so that those, those family members can ask those questions. Cause that's so valuable.
Nancy Kessler (20:48):
Absolutely. And at the end of life, people are more open to talk to me about stories. My own mother would deny things 20 years before. And then as she got closer to the end, she started telling me the stories and sometimes she would repeat herself, but that gave me opportunity to ask further questions. So I do have a lot of clients who have early or sometimes later stages of dementia, and this can be very helpful for them because they do have those long-term memories. You know, we sometimes have to have a family member to make sure that the information is correct, but I have one woman, I did a project for an, and it was just photographs and captions, but her, her family photographs. So she just loves to go through this book. She can't really do much more than look at them, the pictures at this point, but it can be very therapeutic for people in different phases of dementia.
Betsy Bush (21:50):
You know, I'm thinking of this time that we're in of COVID and how many seniors have been isolated from their families for such a long time passing away without family members present. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about the kind of work that you've been doing and the isolation that seniors have been facing in the separation?
Nancy Kessler (22:15):
Yes. Um so my business model was based on the fact that seniors feel socially isolated. W my ideal person is not someone who's going down to play bridge at the local senior center. They're more of the person who's staying home, and the family's worried that they don't have anything to do. And if they're intellectually able, this can be a wonderful opportunity. So during COVID I was called by some families that I had already completed a memoir, but they wanted me to sort of check in with their parents. You know, I, I was making a lot of phone calls during COVID to try to just touch base with my clients because my clients do become my friends. And I love to keep up with them afterwards to see, you know, how they're doing. I did have one woman I'm just going to show the book here. It's Martha. She lived in a, an assisted living place and she was busy every minute of the day volunteering at the, the gift shop. And she was doing workouts with the personal trainer and meals, everything. And when COVID happened, she really withered and eventually passed away just social isolation. So I saw a number of my clients. I mean, she was 98 old and lived a very full life, but it was real strain for these seniors.
Betsy Bush (23:55):
I want to, I go back to a part of your your personal history, because I think it's very important for some of my listeners to know that you were able to kind of restart yourself. You were, I understand divorced for a while. You were a single mom, you were also a caretaker to your own mother. How did you manage to do all of that?
Nancy Kessler (24:23):
Well, I took care of everybody else, like a lot of women's stories and I raised my children. I was one, my children were one and three when I got divorced and they're now 31 and 33. And so I raised them and then almost as soon as they were launched, my parents got ill. And so then I spent seven years taking care of my mother. But she, she was a very progressive woman. And she was 88 when she died. So she lived a full life, but when she started to need care, she accepted the help that I gave her, but she also decided that she was going to reimburse me for the caretaking. So she, she helped me financially start my business by just offering to pay for groceries and gas. And that was such a gift because I had time to get on my feet with the business. Um you know, and she recognized that if she had to pay someone to do all of this, all that I was doing for her, it would cost a lot more. So I, you know, I wish that that model would continue more in our society because there's a lot of unpaid caregiving and it takes a giant toll on the economy. And most of the people doing the caretaking are women. So I, I was very fortunate. I actually had a lot of fun taking care of my mother because she was an interesting person and we would do fun things together. We would travel and it was enjoyable.
Betsy Bush (26:20):
Oh, you're lucky. Not everyone has that experience.
Nancy Kessler (26:23):
Right. Okay. A lot of people have, you know, I mean, I have met a lot of people who say they disliked their parents. So I was just fortunate that my mother ended up being a friend just when, you know, we needed it. No,
Betsy Bush (26:38):
That's great. You know, I always ask my guests, if have three pieces of advice for others who are on their journey, what, what have you learned along the way, if you could pass along some advice to those on their own journeys towards re-invention a latest version, the next version, what would you share?
Nancy Kessler (27:04):
So I think go back to what you like doing when you were very young, because just the way that I liked sitting in the kitchen, listening to stories, being told. If I had heard that when I was 20 years old, maybe I would be doing what I'm doing now, but I think I needed the wisdom of my years to get to where I am now. I think that it's important when you're starting a company to leave yourself some room to grow, because what you think the company is going to be may not end up being what it is. So by, for instance, by calling it Memoirs, Plus I'm able to teach memoir writing. I, you know, am able to do a slideshow for somebody that wants it I've done book parties and book launches, and I've, I've grown the company in a lot of different directions. So I would say, you know, don't try to pidgeon hole yourself.
Betsy Bush (28:14):
You know, as, as we were saying, you know, none of us is trying thinks we're going to start the next Amazon. It's not like you want to, or have to take over the world. It's just finding that niche that you can occupy very easily and comfortably and offering something that is unique and that you're, you know, uniquely qualified to be able to do.
Nancy Kessler (28:42):
I think everybody has different talents. And it's important to know, you know, where, where your own weaknesses are in terms of starting a company. I was comfortable with the financials because I had done that for other offices. A lot of people really need to hire a bookkeeper or somebody right from the start. My biggest area where I needed help was in designing the books because I liked doing it, but it was taking an amazing amount of time because, and I'm not a graphic artist. So it was fairly easy to find designers that could whip them out in no time. Whereas it was taking me a very long time. I also have a team of people behind me who are transcribing the tapes and, and scanning photographs. I have copy editors, proofreaders someone I call a fresh eye. They look at the book when it's completely done.
Betsy Bush (29:45):
I'm incredibly inspired. This is a really such an interesting field. And it's, it seems adjacent to the other kind of newish field that I've discovered which is photo management. So someone who comes in and manages the reams of photos, you know, not only, you know, maybe some people that I know have inherited a box of black and white snapshots with nothing written on the back. What do you do with that?
Nancy Kessler (30:19):
I have. That's one of the byproducts of the memoir is that people give me their photographs. I scan them into a Google photo album and the family gets those photographs with labels afterwards. So, you know, it's not all of their photographs, but it's a big chunk. And I know I'm in the process of moving out of my home of 35 years. And I've had somebody scanning photographs for months now, so that I don't have to move them all.
Betsy Bush (30:48):
Wow. So you're scanning them. And then the hard copies are you display disposing of those, or
Nancy Kessler (30:54):
I have to admit that I'm not disposing of yet, but I, but I have, I have them organized so that they're not, they're not as haphazard as they were before. And there there's a lot less of them.
Betsy Bush (31:09):
It's, it's hard to know what is better. Is it better to have all these snapshots on an iPhone or a digital camera where, you know, it's, it's just kind of there in the cloud or to have boxes as I do it, you know, the old days when you had film and you just had boxes of, you know, random photographs, some of them not great shots but you feel bad throwing any of them away.
Nancy Kessler (31:37):
Well, I, I threw away a lot of the landscape travel pictures, you know, that didn't have any people in them. Because, and I also was taking pictures of my kids in the era where you had triplicate pictures. So there were just so many photos that were, but I mean, I w what I do when I am with the client is get, I get collecting their stories and then looking at the photographs to see what will illustrate it. So I'm not the only person out there that's doing this. There are a lot of people who offer memoir services of some kind. There's a lot of commercial places now that will, you know, send you a prompt each week and you write your own. And there's, there's value to any storytelling as far as I can see. My unique approach is that I have more of a conversation with the person. So there's a little bit of back and forth. And if it's a 95 year old, who gets a little tired, I may put in a story of my own just to give them a rest. But I offer a more personal touch. I do all the interviewing myself.
Betsy Bush (32:55):
You know, this is just such a wonderful of thing that you're doing, and I'm sorry that my own parents have, have, are not around. And, you know, I think maybe a lot of us are thinking, gee, I could have done that too. Or I wish someone had, like you had been around for my parents or my grandparents. I have this feeling of an, you know, the generation that is passing that world war II generation, the depression kids who fought world war two. They really, they lived through an an historically just a remarkable time, you know, of technological innovation, but historical import. And the more of those stories that we can capture the better for future generations. It's an important story that, and, and time that will, that won't come again. So
Nancy Kessler (33:54):
I'm encouraging everyone to write about their COVID experiences, because that's something everybody's going to want to know is what did you do during this period? I mean, we have very little documentation about what happened in the 1918 pandemic. So, And if you can give your children, I have, I have one client who's now 95. And she wrote this piece that I think is interesting. It's part of her book. And she says, I am excited about doing this book. I'm also embarrassed. So many pictures of me. It makes me feel funny realizing that the subject of what I write is me, is that egotistical over the top, talking about me. I had my doubts. I'm still not sure, but doing it has reminded me of the life. I've lived. The love I've loved, the learning, the talking, the listening, the joys, the sunrises, and sunsets, the serious things that were not really so serious, the serious things that were serious, the bumps along the way. I remember the good stuff best.
Betsy Bush (35:08):
That's beautiful.
Nancy Kessler (35:10):
It just makes you know, it because everybody, when I first approached them about doing a memoir, they're like, I'm not that important. I don't need a book about me, but it is such an honor to see their faces when they open up the book.
Betsy Bush (35:29):
That's nice, Nancy Kessler, I can't thank you enough for being on the latest version. This been a wonderful story. You've shared so much about yourself and what you're doing now, and clearly it's important. And I think, I think maybe a lot of listeners are going to start thinking, you know, I, I've got, I've got to get in touch with, you know, whoever the elders are in our lives. If parents,, elderly relatives and capture those stories before it's too late, because things can change in a moment. And CA capturing those, those memories are really important for all of us. And I find this very inspiring and also your, your journey towards starting your business and, and keeping it going. And it's just been great. And I appreciate your sharing it with us.
Nancy Kessler (36:25):
Thank you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure and I hope people visit my website memoirs plus.com.
Betsy Bush (36:33):
They can go to our website, the latest version, podcast.com for more information about Nancy and her and her business. And so please do that. Okay. Thanks so much, Nancy. I appreciate it.
Nancy Kessler (36:47):
Thank you.