The caregiver
107-year-old alumna spent a lifetime caring for others

By Bethany Miller

At age 107, Gladys Rader Shepler has lived through the Great Depression, two world wars, the turbulent times of the '60s and '70s and the current war on terror. Yet, through all of the trying times, she always has put others first.

Now, a company of friends is banding together to return the favor. Shepler has outlived her savings and needs the community's help to remain in her apartment and maintain her independence.  

Shepler is used to self-reliance. Born in 1897, she lived on her family's farm in Pickaway County with her parents, four sisters, one brother, her grandmother and the hired farm workers. She kept house, cared for her sick grandmother and looked after each member of her family. She remembers one especially bad week, when two siblings and her mother had the mumps, during which she cared for them and added their chores to her own list.

Shepler also worked the land. "There wasn't much on the farm I couldn't do," she says. On any given day, Shepler might have taken a team of four Belgian horses out to the field and worked the entire day, resting only for lunch and water.

   
The only time she spent away from her family was when she attended Ohio University. Shepler had a lot of fun in Boyd Hall, where she lived with girls she recalls were always into trouble. "All of them had the devil in them," she says, chuckling.  
        
America entered World War I the year after Shepler began her studies, and she remembers traveling to the train station with her fellow college women to bid farewell to the male students as they left for war. "I wanted so much to go with them," she says, but her parents would not sign the paper that would allow her to serve as a nurse in France.

Instead, Shepler remained at Ohio University to complete her two-year certificate in public school music in 1918 and begin teaching in Mingo Junction, Ohio. Although she enjoyed teaching, she stayed only one year. Her siblings had married and left home, so she returned to care for her parents and grandmother. "The time came when they needed to be taken care of," she says. "And that was my job." There she worked until their deaths in the late '40s and early '50s. "That left nobody in the house but me," Shepler says, "and that's when I got married."

           
At age 51, Shepler married Kenneth "Soup" Shepler, a longtime friend. Together, they helped to build Emmet Chapel United Methodist Church in Circleville. Shepler was active in the church, opening her home for church board meetings, covering her dining room table with piles of church paperwork and even teaching Sunday school until about 20 years ago. She once baked more than 100 pumpkin pies for the church's booth at the Circleville Pumpkin Show. "But that sounds like bragging," Shepler says.

Not to those who know her – like Clara Dye. "She is known for her church work here (in Circleville)," says Dye, who visits Shepler several times each week and runs errands with her.

After Soup died in 1972, Shepler moved to Logan Elm Village in Circleville, then to her assisted-living apartment at Pickaway Manor Care Center in 1998. She still plays euchre and piano and is known for the beautiful lace she makes by hand. She reads the Columbus Dispatch, Circleville Herald and Chillicothe Gazette daily and usually spends her nights thinking and worrying. Her 107 years have taken nothing from her except some of her hearing. Friends like Dye say she reminds them of things to do every day – and they love her for that, and for her frank opinions.

They are showing their love in a way that shows their respect for Shepler's independence. Shepler has outlived her savings, which could make it impossible for her to stay in her $3,000-a-month apartment, forcing her into a nursing home. Friends have opened the Gladys Shepler Special Fund at a Circleville bank and are accepting donations to support Shepler. A July brunch hosted by the Eastern Star (which Shepler joined in 1949) raised more than $8,700 for the fund.

Being taken care of is a role reversal for Shepler. And even though her efforts weren't financially lucrative, she doesn't regret any of them.

           
"I've been everybody's nurse all my life," she says, "and I'd do it all again today."

And with a little help from her friends, Shepler can maintain her independent spirit.

Bethany Miller, BSJ ’04, is a former student writer for University Communications and Marketing.

Donations to the Gladys Shepler Special Fund can be sent to The Savings Bank of Circleville, 118 N. Court St., Circleville, OH 43113.