Oregon women vowed none of them would be poor, old and alone

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - The first photo album in Susan Connolly’s top-floor apartment in downtown Eugene is labeled “The BLOWS #1 - 1985-1989.”

Close to the front is a group photograph of a dozen or so 30-something women - titled “1st Gathering!” - taken on April 28, 1985, in the backyard of Ellen Weaver’s former home on West 12th Avenue.

Meet the Bag Ladies of the World, whose acronym is, yes, BLOW.

“Mostly, we’re still our same selves,” says Martha Evans, 70.

“Grayer,” says Martha Snyder, 71. “And floppier.”

They all burst into laughter. They do this often.

If being Bag Ladies hasn’t kept them young, it’s kept them young at heart.

They first came together 30 years ago this month to support one another, through marriages and divorces, births and deaths, vowing that they would never let each other grow old, poor and alone, never let a single one become a “bag lady on the street.”

This weekend, 12 of the original 13 members (nine still live in Eugene) will celebrate with a retreat up the McKenzie River at Wayfarer’s Resort in Vida.

Call it another “BLOW out,” because they do.

One of the “founding mothers,” Olive Bowers, is even coming all the way from Newcastle, England, where she moved a few years back.

And what will they do up there?

“Eat,” someone says.

“Laugh,” another says.

“Drink,” yet another says.

“Maybe line dance, if I can teach these people a simple line dance,” Weaver says.

“Sing!” Snyder says.

This all began one day in the winter of 1985, when Weaver and Snyder were having coffee at the Oregon Electric Station after seeing the movie “Starman,” starring Jeff Bridges.

“I never heard that story,” says Evans, a retired attorney who joined the group in 1986, sitting Thursday in the apartment that Connolly shares with husband Dan Solitz on the 13th floor of the Willamette Towers complex on Lincoln Street.

“This is the story!” says Weaver, 68, as everyone shares another giggle.

“I mean, you think it’s a joke,” she says. “And then it becomes not a joke.”

Sure, it was just a joke that day at the restaurant in 1985, when Snyder, responding to Weaver’s concern about their economic futures, said: “We could all be bag ladies together.”

A few months later, there they were at the home of Weaver, then a granola-maker at Wildtime Foods in Eugene.

Weaver since has married and divorced, and has no mortgage of her own. She splits time between renting a room in a friend’s condo in Eugene, and staying in South Carolina and Olympia, where her children and grandchildren live.

“I’m a minimalist,” she says.

These women have been lawyers, schoolteachers, entrepreneurs and struggling artists. They have been married, divorced, single, gay and straight. Some are or have been affluent, some have come close to dipping below the poverty line.

Snyder, a sculptor and local museum volunteer, says she just qualified for Section 8, low-income housing.

A 2012 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report on older Americans says that in 2011, the median income for older men was $27,707, while for older women it was just $15,362.

So when the Bag Ladies of the World began those monthly potlucks at group members’ homes three decades ago, they began collecting $2 dues.

Why?

So they could one day afford a “BLOW house,” of course, where they all could live and grow wrinkled together.

But they haven’t exactly raised enough money to pull it off. They do have $25,000 to $30,000, though, which they’ve divvied up among three funds, including a “lifeboat” fund that members can access if in need.

In the past couple of years, the group has come together to support member Debra Nuñez, whose husband, local activist David Oaks, fell and broke his neck in December 2012, causing paralysis from the chest down.

“It’s very, very hard, because they’re both in need of support,” Snyder says.

“Some people have had health problems, and we’ve been able to provide for that,” adds Connolly.

Member Catherine Cascade has pneumonia right now and will miss the trip up the river this week.

“We’re really lucky with our collective health,” Evans says.

“We made a pact with each other, that if we were sick, we’d tell our ’health buddy,’” says Anita Engiles, 68, another “founding mother.”

Evans wonders who her “health buddy” is.

“You don’t have one?” Weaver says.

Evans starts laughing again.

“I’ll just be on the floor (dying)!”

The Bag Ladies’ goal from here on out?

“Stay together,” Snyder says.

“I think our goal is still just to support each other,” says Connolly, also an attorney.

“We’re glad that no one has dropped out!” Evans says, as more laughter ensues.

“We’re still there for each other,” Weaver says.

“I have a new boyfriend,” Evans says.

“She fell in love at the Country Fair,” Connolly whispers. “She’s one of the ’Big Girls’ now.”

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Information from: The Register-Guard, https://www.registerguard.com