Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 228

Retire? Hell, Meet six Chicagoans well age of 65 but still working By the time a man gets well into the 70s, his continued existence is a mere miracle. Robert Louis Stevenson I'm not old, I'm only 83. Hell no, I'll never retire. I'd rather die than retire. Joe Liss Dennis Fradin What do Michelangelo, Mae West, Agatha Christie, Connie Mack, Mao Tsetung, and George Burns have in common? Michelangelo created the Rondanini Pieta when he was 89.

Mae West at 85 starred in the film "Sextette," and Agatha Christie, also at 85, published her 83d book, "Curtain." When he was 87, Connie Mack managed his Philadelphia Athletics to a 5th-place finish. Chairman Mao at 82 was the leader of one-fifth of the world's population. And George Burns played God on the screen when he was 81. All were involved in their life's work well beyond the usual retirement age of 65. past the usual retirement and enjoying it.

New laws are making this possible. In April, President Carter signed a bill, effective Jan. 1, 1979, that will protect most Americans from mandatory retirement until they are 70. "Raising the retirement age to 70 is just the beginning," says Albert J. Neely, special assistant to the director of the Illinois Department on Aging.

"Mandatory retirement itself is on the way out. Older workers are a sound economic investment to employers. They do many things better than younger people. They often have unique skills, with which they can enrich younger workers. If people are still competent, there's no reason they should be discarded just because they've reached a certain milestone in age.

In the future I'm sure we'll see more people 70, 80, or even older still doing their thing." Perhaps one day it won't be rare to find people 80 and older still working in their chosen fields. Right now any working octogenarian belongs to a pretty select group. Among them are these As people live longer, there is an Chicagoans who, increasing number of people who want to more years, are still continue working beyond the age of 65. jobs. 95 and into health Louise B.

Hawkins was 10 when she went to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Three years later, she saw William McKinley -pass through Chicago as he campaigned for the presidency. She vividly remembers seeing the Wright Brothers when they toured Chicago with their flying machine, and she recalls enjoying "stereopticon views" forerunners of movies at the Crystal Theater in Joliet, her hometown. Hawkins is talking about these memories at the Claude Holman Neighborhood Health Center at 43d Street and Greenwood Avenue, where she works 20 hours a week as a health educator's assistant. Most of the time, she is not at her desk but at various Chicago schools, where she helps health educator Joan Fleming teach students about diet, hygiene, and health.

"I'm working in a program funded by the federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act," Hawkins says. "I'm only allowed to work 20 hours a week, although I'd like to work more." In her spare 40 AND SURGEON despite their 80 and going strong on their Photos by Charles Osgood tion in Nebraska. Then she been robbed twice. So she took worked as a traveling maid for up karate. "We elderly are wealthy people.

At 29 she got easy targets," she says. married (and had one daugh- How can someone 95 years ter who died at eight months) old still be up and about, let and settled down in Chicago alone working? with a permanent job at the "I was lucky in that I came Eastwood Beach Hotel. She from a family of long-lived was a housekeeper there until people. My father was a deshe was forced to retire at age corator who died on his 99th 72. From that time until she birthday, and he had arranged was 92, she did catering and to paper a house the very day various odd jobs to supplement he died.

her Social Security checks. In "A year ago I was in a hospi1975, she was offered her pre- tal for a cancer operation. But sent job at the health center. that didn't stop me. I was out Hawkins comes in contact of the hospital in 11 days.

with a lot of young people both Cancer isn't a dreaded word to at her job and her volunteer me because I took care of work. She feels there is a close mine in time, and I believe I'm connection between work, cured." crime, and education. "I enjoy Her main advice about life is young she says. "At to take a proper attitude: the schools, they're always "Don't even think about getasking me about what Chicago ting old, because that's a looked like 90 years ago and if waste of time. I'm going to I had relatives who were keep living and working until slaves, which I did.

But in somebody says I'm too old. Bemany ways I'm disappointed sides, I still have my book to in the teen-agers. In my day it was automatic for kids to go to That book will relate her work. What's ruining our coun- thoughts on how to live and try now is that we have people work to an old age. She is 15, 16 years old who have going to write it when she is never done a thing in their 100.

"That is why I won't exlives; everything gets dished plain everything now. If I told out to you everything now-when I'm Hawkins, who takes public only 95 then you might not transportation on her job, has buy the book when I'm 100." 0 UPSET UPSET time she does some catering. She also does volunteer work with the police of the 21st district, going to "beat meetings" to talk to neighborhood teenagers about crime, drugs, and education. "I was born on March 1, 1883," says Hawkins. "My heritage is part African and a good part Indian.

There were Cherokees on my mother's side and Blackhawk Indians on my father's. "Work was a main part of my life ever since I can remember. There were 16 of us in our family, and each week my mother made out a list of chores for everybody." When she was 9, Louise Hawkins got her first paying job. For 50 cents a week she washed dishes for a woman mornings before school and evenings after school, a job she continued to do even after she graduated, at age 14, from Joliet Township High School. After working at this job for eight years her pay was raised to a dollar a week.

As an adult Hawkins spent about six years as a teacher's assistant on an Indian reserva- Chicago Tribune Magazine.