“No one believes me when I tell them I’m 90. On a first visit to a doctor, the doctor opened the door and said, ‘I’m in the wrong room.’ They expect to see a really old lady,” says Irene Kessler, who celebrated her 90th birthday in September.
“I can’t believe I’m 90. I can do everything I did when I was 20. I grocery shop, do the laundry, cook, drive, make my own bed,” she says. “Well, I don’t jump rope anymore, but I stopped jumping rope a long time ago.”
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Born in Pittsburgh, Kessler moved to St. Louis in 1965. Her husband was a door-to-door salesman, and her brother owned a company here. Moving to St. Louis meant that her husband would only be away for one week instead of two. With five kids, it certainly made things a little easier.
After Kessler’s children went to school, she began working part-time as a lifeguard and a water-safety instructor at the St. Louis Jewish Community Center, where she earned $1.99 per hour. Kessler loved the work and was good at it. She went on to become assistant aquatics director and later ran adult sports programs. “I couldn’t believe it,” she recalls. “I knew nothing about sports, but I had wonderful people helping me.”
She worked at The J for 27 years until retiring in 1999, right after her 65th birthday.
Today, Kessler’s children and eight grandchildren live out of town, but she keeps a busy schedule that begins every morning at 6 a.m. She has her coffee, meditates, and then swims four days a week. Her evenings are filled with canasta and mahjong. She plays with a younger group of women—they’re in their 80s.
“There are a lot of things that I’m aware of—one of them is socialization. I swim. I get massages. I meditate. I take acupuncture. I get plenty of sleep. I do everything I can to take really good care of my body. It’s so important,” she says.
We asked Kessler for a few more nuggets of wisdom about life and longevity.
What would you share with a younger version of yourself? I always worried about money. I had a second marriage, and when he died, it was a terrible time, but my life today is so beautiful. I have a gorgeous condo. I’m financially fine. I would tell my younger self that everything works out.
What is one of life’s most reliable joys? It’s not a person. It’s music.
What relationship advice would you give someone else? First, everybody who comes into your life is supposed to be there. There are no accidents. You learn something from people. Each one is a gift, no matter how painful it is. I’ve had my heart broken, but this is why I am the way I am today.
What advice do you have on life? You create your own life. You look at your life, and whatever you don’t like, change it. Don’t wait. Nobody’s going to give you anything. There are no free lunches. You’re going to have to work for it, but you can create it.
Have you always been this optimistic? No, there’s nobody who is going to get through this world without some pain and obstacles. I buried a child when he was 30. I’ve been divorced. I had a miscarriage. There have been a lot of losses in my life, but I say they were gifts. They came into my life, and it was a gift that they were there. You have a choice how you want to look at something. It’s your mind. I have chosen to say that everyone who passed away in my life was a gift.
