Elder Speak A Journey To Wisdom

Each Elder’s Personal Journey is a process of discovery. Facilitators guide small groups of Elders through a transformative 10 month program that allows them to discover and embrace the wisdom of their unique life experiences. They find their value and their place in the world as an Elder.

The Elder Speak Community Event is a production held at the Snowy Owl Theater and Wenatchee Valley Museum as a celebration and summation of the 10 month journey the Elders have taken.

Typically, the event includes a short video created by high school students containing their interviews with the Elders. Following the film, each Elder presents a wisdom statement and the significant life experience from which it came. Near the end of the event, a question and answer period is offered.

I was born in Guadalupita, New Mexico in 1950 and moved to Wenatchee in 1953. My father passed away from cancer when I was nine years old at the age of 51. My mother would support our family by being a domestic-house cleaner for over 40 years. 

At St. Joseph’s Parochial School my interest in Visual Art was instilled by my second grade teacher Mrs. Hozack. At Wenatchee High School I played Varsity tennis and was active in student government my senior year. 

Attending Wenatchee Valley College and Central Washington University would lead to a teaching degree in Art Education in 1974. I taught for several years at the original Wenatchee charter school, Operation Future. For one year, I traveled, taught-docent and drove the 70ft. Washington State Art-Mobile Art exhibit, traveling over 10,000 miles.

Then, teaching art and coaching tennis for 30 years would follow with the Eastmont School District until retirement in 2001.

Presently, I own Terry Valdez Art Studio and volunteer teaching art in the community.

Alma Chacón has over 30 years of experience in education where she served as a teacher, principal, and also as a program supervisor at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. During her years in education, she worked with diverse families to attain access to information and a quality education. She ensured that students received a well-rounded education which included math and sciences. 

Alma is the co-founder and former Executive Director of the non -profit CAFE: The Community for the Advancement of Family Education. She works with community partners to inform the Latinx community about important community services, established CAFE University, a tutoring program serving people aged 5- 99, ESL classes for adults, and leadership workshops. 

Alma initiated a Coalition to address the community’s needs during the pandemic and the Program continues today. Other programs of CAFE include the Chelan Douglas Recovery Navigator Program, Small Business Technical Assistance Program, and theYouth Empowerment & Solutions Program.

Life’s Journey I was born in Roy, Montana April 19, 1934. I was born at home, my Aunt,Dad’s sister, as mid-wife. I was the third of four siblings. Dick, May of 1931. Don, Dec. of 1932 and Carl, Oct. of 1935. Dad rented the dry-land wheat farm we lived on. This was in the midst of the great depression, dust bowl, no rain, crops failed for the past three years.

Late summer of 1936 we were informed of the government’s relocation program, one of which was located in the Matanuska Valley just north of Anchorage Alaska. It had been colonized the previous year. and were looking for replacement colonist to take the place of those who had wintered and who had returned to the States. As Dad would say “where would we want to starve to death, here or take the chance in Alaska”.

In October of 1936 we began the difficult trip to Alaska with four children ages one to five. We Arrived in Palmer, the government town built in the heart of the Matanuska Valley, on the third day of December. We moved into a 24 by 36 log home on a 40- acre track of timbered land. Home was heated by wood stoves with kerosene lamps for light and an Out-house out back. This was not unusual and considered normal.

This was home until I graduated from High school in 1952. Land was cleared, crops planted, cows milked potatoes planed, chickens laid eggs Moose hunted. Dad became a heavy equipment operator ”skinning cat”. In 1946 Dad bought a fishing location on Cook Inlet some 50 miles south of Anchorage. This was to be our summer home for the next any years Gill netting for salmon. I was 13 tending the nets during the week, mending nets on the week-ends.

In 1951 following fishing season we came “outside” hitching a ride on the cannery tender that had picked up our fish during that summer. We encounter difficulty in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska and the ship sank. We were picked up by another cannery tender that was nearby. We docked in Seattle. The first time I had seen any building taller than six stories high. From Seattle we traveled to Roy Montana where my mother’s folks lived. It had been 15 years since we had left. We stayed in Roy that winter. I was a senior. Played football, made all conference center in basketball.

March of 1952, we returned to Alaska, driving over the Alcan Highway. I ran track and graduated from Palmer High School that spring of 1952. That fall I enrolled as a freshman at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montaña. It was there that I met Charlotte who three years later(1955) became my wife. We spent our honeymoon on a look-out tower out of Missoula. Montana. I graduated from Rocky in 1956. That fall I enrolled in San Francisco Theological Seminary located in San Anselmo, California. I graduated from Seminary in 1959.

Charlotte taught school during our Seminary days which enabled us to be debt free. My first parish was in Moses Lake, Washington. I was ordained August 30 1959 as the Associate Pastor 0f the First Presbyterian Church in charge 0f Youth Ministry and Christian Education. I held this position for four years. It was in Moses Lake that our son, Neil, was born in April of 1960.It was in Moses Lake that I became involved in Tall Timber Ranch, our presbytery’s camp and conference site. in 1963 I was Called to be Pastor of the Okanogan Presbyterian Church in Okanogan, Washington. It was here that our two daughters where born. Nancy, Nov. of 1963 and Nona in July of 1968. I served that congregation until 1972. I was given a year’s leave of absence in 1969 to pursue a masters degree in psychology and counselling.

In 1972 I enrolled in the twelve-month CPE program at the Deaconess Hospital in Spokane, training to be a hospital chaplain. Upon completing that program in 1973 there were no hospital chaplain openings in the immediate area. I signed on with Central Washington Mental Health of Yakima, Washington and set up a mental health service in Sunnyside serving the lower Yakima Valley.

Seven years later in 1980 we moved to Wenatchee where I took on the position of chaplain at Central Wahington Hospital and was there until I retired in 1996. Upon retirement I took on the task as a volunteer to be in charge of the onward physical development of Tall Timber Ranch. This I did until 2010 when I retired at the age of 76.

Since then, I returned to the Hospital and as a volunteer I took on the role of Hospice Chaplain, the program that I helped to establish in the mid-1980’s as well as seeing hospital patients a couple days a week. I also teach Tai Chi twice week. For over 50 years my hobby was building furniture and my granddaughter is inheriting my shop equipment. My wife died in 2021 from Alzheimer’s after over 66 years of being together. I am slowly adapting to a very different way of life.

I was born in Seattle in 1934 and, with my twin sister, grew up in a home our architect father built. We lost our mother at an early age and were raised by a housekeeper. Our dad remarried when we were 12 and added two half-sisters to our family. Being a twin meant there was always someone to share adventures with. We were fiercely independent and walked, biked and rode city buses everywhere. The grownups never worried about us. It was a safe world.

I graduated from the University of Washington and was married that year at the age of 20. We were lucky to have three healthy children, and we created a beautiful family. But life as a suburban housewife, in the 60s, never seemed to fit. In my early 30s my uncle, a well-known NW mountaineer, took me on a climb of Mt. Rainier. I borrowed my aunt’s boots and equipment and set off in the backcountry as a total neophyte. Summiting Mr. Rainier changed my life.

In 1978 I moved, with my second husband to Leavenworth, another life-changing event. We built our log home together and filled our lives with amazing friends and adventures. The natural world was our playground and our spiritual home. I lost Dick to dementia in 2024. I still live in our house of 45 years and rely on my family and friends for assistance as needed, to entertain me and to keep my life joyful. I have always been lucky in my endeavors, and am grateful for the lessons I have learned, and am still learning, as my life continues to unfold.

Sponsor for 2026 Elder Speak