GaiI was a good student and did well in school. She attended Northern Illinois University, but when her brother started teaching at Ohio State, she transferred there, majoring in sociology, with a minor in philosophy. When she graduated in 1970, she stayed in Columbus, Ohio, and took a waitress job. When that ended, she moved back to Chicago, a bit at lose ends. Her dad had previously told her about an exam to become a caseworker and had suggested Gail take it. “I had no idea what a case worker was but I needed a job so I took the exam and passed. Shortly after, I received a letter telling me I was hired for a position on the South side, far from where I lived. I took the job.”
Gail was assigned biweekly home visits and found the work interesting and rewarding. “I enjoyed helping clients find the services they needed.” The work entailed checking each family’s financial status and needs and then verifying they were receiving the help they applied for, such as aid for dependent children. Gail was soon promoted to be a supervisor: “At first I was an intake worker, but then there were cutbacks so I was moved to take care of unemployed adults. Then I became a trainer, and was promoted to be the local office administrator. This was in a very diverse area of Chicago, where people of many backgrounds lived, speaking lots of languages. I liked the job but we were badly understaffed. I was able to meet the needs of the clients by being efficient, direct, and organized. The woman who promoted my said I’m like a steel magnolia. I’m fearless in certain ways. I was standing waiting for the L one afternoon and a guy grabbed my wallet. I chased after him, and, with help from a bystander, got my wallet back. I could run fast back then!”
Gail was a social worker for 31 years. She retired at age 56 with a pension, ready to take on the next chapter of her life.
Marriages & Other Domestic Renovations
Gail was married three times, briefly in her 20s, again in her 30s, and enduringly in her 40s to her husband, Pat. She explains, “In my 30s I was married to my friend’s brother. I’m a self-taught, hands-on home renovator. Husband number two was good at this, as well.” The couple lived in a Queen Anne Victorian flat that they renovated. Her husband also owned a two-flat with a storefront, which Gail and her friend turned into a gift store. Gail was experiencing social work burnout at that time and quit the agency to make a go of the gift store. When she found she missed working with people, she returned to work as a social worker.
The Victorian home she and husband number two bought was in need of renovations. Her husband, a mechanical engineer, took on the structural work. “He decided that our heating system, which was the steam heat I loved, needed to go because it wasn’t efficient, so he was putting in forced air, which I hate, and it took him two years to install the system. We spent the first winter heating the house with an antique pot-bellied stove. We hooked up with a tree guy, got the logs, split the wood, you get the picture! The second year we got an additional, airtight woodstove stove for heat. The house eventually got fixed but the marriage was broken. He bought me out, and with that money, I bought a house one block away that had survived fire damage.” Gail moved into the new house with her assorted dogs and cats and got to work.
Gail met her third husband, Pat, at a wine tasting event; a wine connoisseur, he managed the wine and cheese shop where the event took place. “I liked the wine and I liked him, so I asked him out. We both liked hot Thai food and that started the romance.”
Soon after they married, Gail told Pat about the caseworker exam. He was working long hours at the wine shop, Thanksgiving to New Year’s without any time off. Pat took the exam and passed. He worked in that field briefly but wasn’t convinced this was his path. Then Gail heard about a fire fighter exam and urged Pat to try for that. He took the exam, passed, and was on the list of new hires, waiting to be called … when the accident happened: “We were renovating our house, removing the ceiling from the turret to create a cathedral ceiling. We had just finished that work and the storm windows were dirty, so unbeknownst to me, Pat decided to wash them. He was holding onto the crossbar of the window for balance when it broke away and he tumbled two and a half stories onto the ground. I was in the kitchen and was unaware of the fall. A neighbor who saw the incident called me. It could have been worse.” Pat endured a concussion, a shattered elbow, and broken bones around one eye socket. He had surgery and was slowly recovering. By the time he had to take the physically challenging part of the exam, he was in good shape. He became a fire fighter, working in Chicago for 20 years. He retired on October 19th.
In Chicago, Gail and Pat lived in what formerly was a funeral home built in the 1920s. They could see the possibilities of transforming it into a beautiful home for the living. French windows ran across the entire side of the house. They used to be amber, but Gail and Pat replaced them with stained glass. Gail, whose storytelling style is reminiscent of Alice’s adventures through the looking glass, enriched with delightful and occasionally dark twists and turns, describes what happened when a contractor came to measure the windows for storm windows and screens: “The back of house where we now have the kitchen used to be where the bodies were displayed. Our tenant at the time was asleep under a sheet in the back. While the contractor was measuring, the tenant stirred, the sheet appeared to rise on its own, and the poor guy thought it was a body come to life. He ran out of there, leaving all his samples behind. It was terribly funny!”
Friendly Fish & a Southbound Move
Gail happily acknowledges that her life’s unusual trajectory has its challenges, but she manages to find humor, even in difficult times. She recounts how Pat wanted to put a Koi pond in the backyard. “Pat dug it himself. We bought Koi. The first winter, Pat decides the pond isn’t deep enough and the fish might freeze, so he buys a humongous aquarium as big as this couch and puts the fish in and installs it in our bedroom for the winter. In the spring, he digs the pond deeper and the fish were very happy. When we sell the house, we’re not sure what to do with the Koi. We’re attached to the fish; they are intelligent and swim up to you to say hello. One of the sisters we bought the funeral home is interested in buying it back. Maybe she’ll want to keep the fish.”
That would certainly make Pat’s move to Asheville to join Gail much easier. “Years earlier, Pat and I were driving to Florida to visit my parents. I have a good friend who developed the Black Walnut Bed & Breakfast Inn in Asheville and she was trying to get us to move here. We came to visit and she showed us three houses for sale—we didn’t have money to buy another home, but we were drawn to this one house in Montfort that had a cottage and a garage in the back. That seller was willing to do a deal with owner finance. So we bought it and took on the renovations. Now it’s a rental and we love the work we did on it.”
Over the years, she and Pat would travel from Chicago to Asheville to work on that property. Their talents for restoring life to old homes has led to the couple owning four homes, plus the cabin in Boone, all but one of which are rental properties. “As a landlord, I’m taking care of people and problem solving, but in a different way than being a social worker. Together with my husband, who can fix about anything, we make sure these properties are in good shape. Our tenants know we will quickly respond to whatever needs fixing.”
Three years ago, Gail moved into the house in Montford, traveling when possible back to Chicago to be with Pat. On all his vacations, Pat would travel to Asheville. Now that he’s retired, they will get the house in Chicago ready to sell, and then Pat will move to Asheville full time to start the next chapter of their life together.
In Pursuit of Wellness
