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DAD WAS AN ACCOUNTANT. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, taking classes at night while working full-time. He also studied engineering at another Philadelphia college, again taking classes at night. Dad would have enjoyed being an engineer, but he could only take on so much while working a day job. He never completed that degree.
Being sharp at math and having an organized mind, accounting was a good fit. Dad eventually became president of J.S. Collins & Son, a chain of lumber and hardware stores in southern New Jersey that was incorporated in 1912. Dad started his career with Collins in 1939, but left in 1942 to join the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. When he returned after the war, his old job was waiting for him.
My father was forced into semi-retirement at age 58 when the company’s owner closed the business. But Dad wasn’t done working for Collins, though he had to take a significant pay cut. He spent the next three years selling and liquidating the company’s real estate. He also took care of all the tax returns and legal paperwork necessitated by the business’s closure.
When that work was done, Dad was out of a job. He was age 61. He received unemployment payments for a few months. Because his career ended earlier than he’d expected and he had a son—me—to put through college, he took Social Security at age 62. His payout started at $445 a month, about $1,700 in today’s dollars.
Based on the rules at the time, he received extra Social Security payments for me during the months I was enrolled as a full-time student. Those payments, coupled with the freshman engineering merit scholarship that I received, were generous enough to fund my first two years of college.
My mother was a homemaker. She’d worked until her marriage to my dad at age 27, but after that her work was running the household and bringing up my three sisters and me. Since her own Social Security credits were minimal, she received a Social Security payment based on my dad’s benefit. As Mom was four years younger than Dad, she didn’t receive Social Security benefits during the first several years of his retirement.
Dad’s pension for his 35-year career at Collins was fixed at $347.15 a month. It was initially worth about $22,000 a year, figured in today’s dollars. By the time of his death, inflation had eroded the pension’s buying power to about $7,000 a year. There was no survivor option, so my mom received no payments after he passed away.
In addition to owning their house free and clear, they had a modest portfolio of individual stocks and bonds. Several bank certificates of deposit rounded out their financial holdings. All in all, it was enough for a comfortable retirement, though my parents were hardly the millionaires next door.
How do I know all these details? Over his career with Collins, Dad produced a huge number of financial ledger pages—all by hand. He also kept ledgers for his personal finances. I have five of them in my possession.
Three of the ledgers are for estate trusts that he managed for decades. The trusts were set up for the benefit of his two mentally disabled brothers. Using a variety of specialized forms, he meticulously kept track of each trust investment and every expenditure. These ledgers were turned over to me when I became the successor trustee in 2001.
My father’s two personal finance ledgers are of more interest to me these days. What I discovered from looking through them is that, for many years into retirement, Dad continued to work as a private consultant and tax preparer for several wealthy clients, as well as some friends of lesser means. Among those clients was John S. Collins, Jr., the multi-millionaire owner of Dad’s former employer.
My father continued working until age 72, when he finished closing out Collins’s very significant estate. Although this part-time work didn’t make him rich, it often provided a decent supplement to my parents’ Social Security payments and Dad’s pension.
The first 20 or so years of my parents’ retirement went well. Two years after I graduated from college, they sold their home in New Jersey and moved to a new house they’d built in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a few miles from me. They’d always liked Lancaster County. We took a number of vacations in the area when I was growing up, so the area was familiar to them. When I settled down there, it gave them even more incentive to move. The property taxes on their New Jersey home were also a factor.
Dad brought along most of his woodworking tools and set up a well-organized shop in the large garage at their new house. He enjoyed making things, including toys for his grandkids. He had a wealth of practical skills that I lack and was always eager to help if I needed a repair or something made.
My parents did some traveling in retirement, mostly road trips. The most ambitious of these was a month-long bus tour to the Rocky Mountains and other places out west. Conveniently, I was around to look after their house while they were gone. They had a great time and enjoyed getting to know their fellow travelers.
Mom was a reader, intensely interested in nutrition, and a bit of a homebody. She liked keeping her house in good order. She was also prone to worry. One of her greatest fears was alleviated when her only son got married at age 29 to a gal who received her wholehearted approval. Always having a soft heart toward children, she was ecstatic when, a few years later, more grandchildren arrived. Mom and Dad were able to visit us in the hospital when both of our children were born.
When our precious daughter was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age two, my parents were there to help out in any way they could. We were blessed to have a large support network during the biggest trial of our lives. Mom and Dad were an integral part. Although the ordeal was very difficult for them also, I think helping us increased their sense of purpose. Today, our daughter is a happy, healthy young lady in her late 20s.
My dad had an even-keeled temperament, which was a counterpoint to my highly strung mom. He enjoyed excellent health, relished his daily crossword puzzles and took pleasure in the simple rhythms of life. But his routine was eventually disrupted. Around age 82, his non-symptomatic prostate cancer took a turn for the worse and spread throughout his body. He had a year or so reprieve with medication, but eventually the effects wore off and he went into decline. He passed away in 2001, a few months before his 84th birthday.
After Dad died, Mom lived alone in their house. We visited her often and assisted her as needed. She started having some issues balancing her checkbook, so I began taking care of that for her. Occasionally, she’d say some strange things. It became clear that she was showing signs of cognitive impairment and would be better off not living alone.
On her own, she drove to a nearby church-related retirement home and initiated the entrance process. She sold her house and moved into independent living. Her condition worsened. She was moved to skilled care, which was very expensive. Meanwhile, my tender-hearted sister, Lynn, decided she wanted to take care of Mom in Texas.
We had a huge 85th birthday party for Mom at the retirement home. Immediately afterwards, she flew off to start her new life. I continued to manage my mom’s finances, while my sister took care of everything else. Mom lived her final, challenging years in Lynn’s spacious house. She was surrounded by my sister’s five fabulous cats and was close to several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. My family is indebted to my sister for her competent and loving care. Mom passed away at age 91.
My wife and I are now in the early stages of our retirement journey. We have no way of knowing how it’ll turn out. Our experience will certainly be quite different from that of my parents. Still, as Mark Twain reputedly said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Ken Cutler lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has worked as an electrical engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than 38 years. There, he has become an informal financial advisor for many of his coworkers. Ken is involved in his church, enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife Lisa, is a shortwave radio hobbyist, and has a soft spot for cats and dogs. Follow Ken on X @Nuke_Ken and check out his earlier articles.
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Ken, Thank you for the well-written article about your Parent’s Retirement.
It’s an inspiration to recognize the need to chronicle my family history.
Another fabulous article. So moving and inspirational. Your parents sound a lot like my mom, high strung and a worrier, and my step-father, calm to the point of comatose, and very even keeled.
Mom lived until age 82 and my step dad until 93. He lived with my wife and me the last 6 years of his life, beginning a year after my mom died. He was in assisted living the last 9 months of his life, after having a stroke.
He began investing in Mutual Funds in the late 1950’s when he married my mother, after she and my father divorced. He was a career military man and after 23 years, he retired, only to join the Capitol Police, as an officer stationed in the US Senate, for another 16 years. My mom and step dad lived a very comfortable life, with his Military Retirement Pay and his Civil Service Capitol Police Pay, an of course their Social Security. When he passed away, he left my two sisters and me almost $1M in mutual funds and a paid for home.
He spent his entire working life in service to his country, having served in Germany after WWII, and in both the Korean War, and the Viet Nam War. He was proud of that service and of his Capitol Police Service as well, and I was and remain proud of him and thankful for the life he provided my mother.
Wonderful article. This has nothing to do with finance, but my delightful and special grandmother lived in Lancaster at 740 N. Duke St. The apartment building is still there. I have many fond memories of staying at the Host Town Resort as a young boy, visiting her and going to Zinn’s Diner, enjoying the Amish country. Thanks again for the article.
Thanks Brian. Zinn’s Diner was a favorite of my parents’ and I have fond memories of it as well.
Ken–Enjoyed the article…..you are rightly proud of your parents….hard work, serving the nation, more hard work, family……the foundation of our nation.
Ken, thanks for telling the story you gleaned from your father’s ledgers. It started me thinking about my grandfather’s farm records that I have, and others that were lost. An interesting life can be the sum of a lot of ordinary days.
So true, Ed. I’ve always thought that just about anybody’s life story would be fascinating, when told correctly.
I so much enjoyed reading your story. It reminded me that in certain ways, things have changed since your parents were young. Some of the specific choices they made were what was expected of them, but today we the flexibility to make other choices if we so choose. Men do not have to be the sole support of families. Women do not have to give up their careers in order to be home makers. Women do not have to be the caregivers to their elderly parents and men do not have to manage the finances. But these things all still need to be done, and someone needs to do them. That has certainly not changed.
Thanks for putting a smile on my face, Ken. That’s how family is supposed to work, and I’m glad it did with yours.
I never expected to face the burden of parent care, because my bitterly divorced parents were both seriously ill by their 50s and never reached retirement age. But now my beloved MIL has arrived from China to live out her life with us. She’s 83 and takes no pills except nutritional supplements, both Eastern and Western. We hope and believe that at least the next few years will be good ones — and we hope and believe we’re prepared for when things go bad. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.
Your experience sounds very similar to my own, with parents who lived in rural Oregon and the great debt I owe my older sister who cared for them in their final years. Having worked in the asset management business before retirement, I am still able to manage our finances (electronic spreadsheets only, please!), but have many of the same concerns as you seem to have as to how my own retirment will play out. Its a reminder, that no matter how much we plan, when and how the actual end of our lives occurs is both unknown and unknowable.
Ken, Thanks for sharing those memories of your parents and their experiences. Pass those thoughts to your kids so they too can share in the generations that came before them.
Thanks Jeff. My kids read all of my articles, so they are indeed sharing in the family history stories.
Thank you all for reading and commenting. Your kind words are appreciated.
Your article was filled with some good news – especially about your daughter recovering from cancer.
My parents left behind their tax returns for several years. I was fascinated that they were able to get a complete check-up at Mayo Clinic for $380 (in the 1960s). Little tidbits like that made me realize how expensive things were going to be over the years, and in retirement in particular.
The helping back and forth between parents and children is a great part of your story. It’s the way it’s supposed to be, and the world would be a much, much better place if it were like that more often.
Ken, thanks for this great story. Your folks obviously raised some good kids.
Your parents were good people. A true blessing.
Great story not only of how retirement was financially different for previous generations but also how your family helped each other over time—your parents when your daughter was ill, and then you and your sister when your mom needed you. Very inspiring.
Nice story Ken. Helping our parents is challenging but fulfilling. Congratulations on being there for them.
Sounds like your parents raised some very responsible and loving children.
Good article! A lady friend mentioned to me…
“When you see your self reflected in your children, you receive a blessing.”
Ken’s parents were blessed I’m sure!