“I don’t know what I would do without the support”

The best part of Annie R.’s 35-year career as a nursing home aide was always seeing a sick person smile.
“That was one of the greatest blessings,” she recalled. “A lot of times, I would go in to work feeling sad or depressed, and then someone would smile at me, and I would forget all about myself.”
Annie’s bedside manner has defined many parts of her life. In addition to working in the nursing home, she also spent years caring for her sick parents, husbands, and her stepchildren. When asked about her hobbies, Annie paused for several moments before answering.
“Well, I love animals. I guess that was my hobby. I would take care of all these wild animals – rabbits, squirrels, and I even had a pet possum once,” she said.
But now, at 91, Annie struggles greatly with health issues that have plagued her since she was a child, and in 1981, after the death of her third husband, she found herself in need of some care herself.
That’s about the time when she enrolled in the meal-delivery program at Meals on Wheels and More in Austin, Texas. Annie has graciously donated $10 a month to MOWAM for over 20 years, and she now also gets services from the Medi Wheels, Care Calls, and Handy Wheels programs, all of which are supported by the generosity of Altria.
“I had just lost my husband and my dad [in 1981], and I just didn’t feel like I could go to work anymore,” she said. “I just couldn’t hold up to it physically.”
Annie now sees MOWAM’s work in her life as some sort of karma.
“Them old people in the nursing home, they was my grannies,” she said. “I got along with them so well, and I thought, ‘Well, the time will come when I’ll be like that, when I’ll need help.’ And sure enough it did.”
Born in Oklahoma, Rutledge has lived in Austin long enough to see several cow pastures become office parks. She moved here as a teenager from Arkansas, where her father’s family lived. Her mother passed away when she was just a child, and she and her father traveled to Austin from Arkansas by covered wagon. The trip, which required them to make their own roads, took nine months. To survive, Annie ate berries she found in bushes and foraged for greens.
“It was rough travel. We had to cut down trees and move logs, everything,” she said.
In Austin, Annie finished the fifth grade and then went to work in various jobs in cafes and schools before following her calling and becoming a nurse’s aide.
Annie’s first husband died in 1941. She remarried twice, but lost both of those men to illnesses. Annie never had children and now all of her relatives are gone, having either passed away or lost contact with her. In the past decade, she has undergone several stomach surgeries and suffered a heart attack. At 4-feet-8-inches, Annie has trouble with several household chores that require a longer reach.
Through Altria’s support, Annie is able to stay in the same house she shared with her father toward the end of his life.
“He was a doggone good old dad,” she said. “He was my mother, provider, counselor and best friend all rolled up into one man.”
Annie has also formed many new bonds with the people she has met through MOWAM’s programs. She speaks fondly of the people who deliver her meals each day, especially the Tuesday girl, and her Care Caller, who calls every Thursday and Sunday, has become a great friend and support.
“It gets hard for me sometimes,” she said. “Meals on Wheels has really been exceptionally good to me. I don’t know what I would do without them. I don’t know what I would do without all the support.”