This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 20, 2008 - Ten years ago, Dora Smart sat down at her kitchen table with a sheet of paper and a pen. She began writing.
At 66, she knew she had more years behind than ahead. She wanted her daughters to find the letter after her death. She wanted to write about what really mattered.
A few days later, Smart drove to her bank in Wentzville, pushed a key into her safe deposit box and tucked the letter inside, next to another treasure.
Today, Smart is 76.
Her daughters don't know about the letter. It starts like this:
"To Those I Love, I've never had the desire to be famous or wealthy -- I only hoped to be me -- healthy, happy and live in a country where God, family, love, freedom and security were important."
She still lives in that country, Smart believes. But the world's changed in her lifetime, and what really matters seems to have changed along with it.
She works hard for her money ...
Smart opens her eyes to Tuesday morning's darkness. At 6 a.m., her alarm clock radio switches on. She gets up for another day's work, like she has for the last 40 years.
She listens to talk of traffic, weather and the economy. The president will make another speech about the financial crisis, she hears. She prepares her cereal, a special mix of flakes and bran, gets dressed and pulls a tube of pink lipstick over her lips. By 7:15, she's driving through a misty fog on her way to work.
Soon, Smart walks into the cafeteria at Francis Howell High School. It's cold and empty, filled with the churning growl of industrial refrigeration.
She collects her chipping metal money box, the same one she was given when she first started here 40 years ago.
Her twin girls were in seventh grade then. They thought she was here to keep watch over them. She thought it was a great way to help the family and stay busy. None of them ever thought, at 76, she'd still pull on an apron and touch the screen of the computerized cash register each day. But now Smart's glad she's here.
She loves the people. She watches kids grow, then sees their kids come through her line a generation later. And now, she needs the money.
Last month, Smart started dipping into savings that she'd hoped would always be there.
"I grew up with a great mom, dad, sister and grandparents, so my hopes and wishes came true as I became an adult. I loved and married my high school sweetheart and in doing that I received a great larger family -- Bob's mom, dad, brothers and their families.
"I became a mother of the most wonderful twin daughters that Bob and I could have. They and their families, including granddaughters, are so special to me."
So hard for it, honey ...
With plastic gloves over her hands, Smart picks up heaps of plastic forks and drops them into a clanking container. She repeats, over and over, until it's time for the knives. She works in the dish room, the sound of running water nearby. Soon, the smell of tacos floats in.
People say they need a new school here, this building is too old. But Smart began here the year the building first opened.
Then, she and her husband, Bob, planned on graying together. He was a carpenter making union wages. They had a little money from her parents, bought 20 acres in New Melle and built their own home. They raised their girls there. They raised cows for beef. They lived conservatively. They didn't spend money they didn't have.
Eighteen years ago this month, Bob went on a hunting trip to Colorado, had a heart attack and died. The day of his funeral was one of three Smart has missed in 40 years.
Today, she's the oldest employee in the building. But at 76, she's not alone in the workforce.
Between 1977 and 2007, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 101 percent increase in employment of workers 65 and older. The number for men rose 75 percent and for women, 147 percent. Smart is among a small group of people 75 and older still working. They only made up .8 percent of those employed in 2007, BLS reports. But between 1977 and 2007, it grew the most at 172 percent. And that number is expected to keep growing. In the future, BLS predicts the number of workers 75 and older will rise more than 80 percent.
Smart won't say what she makes now, but thinks she'd be considered low-income. She and her husband owned their home before his death. She has no credit card debt.
Still, the money she makes is just about enough to cover property taxes and pay a few bills. That gets harder with the rising costs of just about everything.
These tough times
Here's how she knows the economy isn't good: the lunch line. More kids are bringing sack lunches than ever, Smart says. That's new.
But also, she's seen all these big houses popping up over the years. "I didn't understand where they got the money to buy a home like that," Smart says. "We worked day and night to get what we had."
Smart was a child during the Great Depression, but adults from that era didn't take anything for granted, says Andrew Hurley, a professor of history at the University of Missouri St. Louis. They didn't feel secure, and they didn't assume the economy would always perform well.
So they raised their kids to be conservative with money.
Over time, the economy did become more stable, and if it had dips, they were never as severe as in the 1930s.
"For most working people, times were always tough," Hurley says. But things began changing when credit became common. "I think people have had the liberty to live above and beyond their means in recent history like they never have had the liberty to do before," Hurley says. "For a lot of people, it's irresistible."
Generations that came after weren't used to the dangers of a bad economy, and for many, consumer culture took over. People began defining themselves by what they had, Hurley says, not what they did.
It's easy to call consumerism superficial, Hurley says. But it also creates jobs and provides an avenue for upward mobility. Today, the economy's tough again, but it's not Depression-tough yet. And despite an endless stream of analysis, no one's quite sure what comes next.
"It's really scary," says Debbie Nelson, the kitchen manager at Francis Howell. She has worked with Smart since 1996 and says Smart is accurate and good at her job.
But Nelson, 55, doesn't plan on working until she's 76.
"I hope not. I really hope not."
She also has no plans for retirement.
Inside a safety deposit box
Next to the letter in her safe deposit box sits Smart's will, and something else -- a $100 bill.
Clinton DeWitt Smart gave it to his son and daughter-in-law as a wedding gift in 1954. The new couple had never seen a $100 bill before. They took it to their bank and placed it inside the safe deposit box.
It has sat there ever since.
Next to it, Smart's letter to her daughters covers a page of paper, her hand writing neat and steady. The letter ends like this:
"I've worked for __ years at Francis Howell High School in food service and have been in contact with hundreds of students and staff. I pray that I've some positive influence along the way on all those I've known and loved.
Love, Dora"
Ten years ago, Smart left a spot blank for the number of years she'd been working. She didn't know then when they would end.
She still doesn't.
Kristen Hare is a freelance writer in Lake St. Louis.