For Gayle Allen, retirement was never going to mean slowing down. It was going to mean finally having time for everything else.
Spend even a little time with Gayle at Sunnyside and that becomes obvious. She gives swimming lessons. She volunteers. She helps with bingo. She attends programs and outings. She spends time with residents at the Terrace. She is thinking about how to bring more theater to campus. And if something sounds fun, there is a pretty good chance Gayle will be there.
“I am good at play,” she said. “So, if it’s fun, count me in.”
That philosophy has followed Gayle through a life that has taken her from New Jersey to West Virginia and, eventually, to Sunnyside in Harrisonburg.
From New Jersey to West Virginia
Gayle describes her journey simply: born and raised in New Jersey, college and career in West Virginia, and retirement in Virginia.
The path between those places, however, is anything but ordinary.
As a high school senior in Piscataway, New Jersey, Gayle was asked to select three colleges where she wanted to apply. She already had two in mind. For the third, she pulled a Christian colleges catalog from a shelf and started at the beginning of the alphabet. Before she got very far, her name was called.
So, she picked Alderson Broaddus College in Philippi, West Virginia.
Gayle and her mother decided to make the trip to see it. Newly licensed and accustomed to New Jersey traffic, Gayle suddenly found herself driving on the winding rural roads of West Virginia.
Once she arrived, she fell in love with the small college.
Originally, Gayle had much bigger heights in mind for her career. She wanted to become an astronaut. Motion sickness eventually helped put an end to that plan, and the freedom of a liberal arts education gave her an opportunity to explore other interests. By her sophomore year, the pieces seemed to point toward elementary education.
It turned out to be the right fit.
Gayle spent much of her career teaching kindergarten, along with three years teaching third grade. Years later, while pursuing National Board Certification, she discovered something about herself that perhaps should not have been surprising. Of the areas she was tested on, the one she excelled in was play.
“There’s your sign,” she remembers thinking.
Her teaching career also led her to David.
The two met while teaching in McDowell County, West Virginia, where a group of educators from outside the area regularly gathered for meals and outings. Gayle and David married in 1988 and eventually settled in Hampshire County, where they remained until retirement.
Planning Early for What Came Next
Gayle and David did something many people put off. They started thinking about retirement living long before they needed to.
After losing all three of their remaining parents during the 2014 and 2015 school year, conversations about their own future became more important. They began visiting communities and considering what they wanted the next chapter of their lives to look like.
David researched continuing care communities, with a nonprofit model being important to them. Sunnyside was already more familiar to the couple than Gayle initially realized. Their church in West Virginia had supported Sunnyside through charitable giving, and the family had traveled to the Harrisonburg area for years.
In 2016, they decided to visit.
Gayle remembers touring Sunnyside with Nancy Wayland (now the executive director) and immediately falling in love with the campus and its possibilities.
They were not ready to retire yet, but Sunnyside stayed with them.
In 2023, they made the move.
Gayle was younger than many people expected someone to be when moving to a Life Plan Community. In fact, she was told at the time that she was the youngest resident on campus, a distinction she still jokingly keeps tabs on.
For Gayle, moving early was never about needing care. It was about choosing the life she and David wanted while they were able to enjoy everything that came with it.
She had heard the familiar reactions from people who thought they were too young.
But Gayle had already visited Sunnyside. She knew better.
“I saw all the things that you could do,” she said. “And I saw all the opportunities, like as far as volunteering. That’s what I always wanted to do, is to quit my job and just volunteer all day long. Guess what I get to do?”
Today, she has another way of describing life at Sunnyside.
It is like a college campus, she says, “with no tests and no requirement to go to class.”
A Retirement Built Around Connection
Gayle has embraced that freedom wholeheartedly.
She serves on Sunnyside’s Green Committee, gives swimming lessons, helps with bingo at the Highlands and participates in activities throughout campus. She is also quick to take advantage of outings and programs that allow her to explore the Shenandoah Valley.
Her involvement is not simply about keeping her own calendar full. Much of what brings Gayle joy comes from sharing experiences with other people.
That is especially true when she visits the Terrace.
Twice a month, Gayle goes there for a simple reason: to play.
One activity involves residents batting balloons back and forth. During one of Gayle’s earliest visits, a resident did not want to participate. She simply let the balloon hit her and finally asked Gayle why they were doing it.
Gayle thought for a moment.
“I’m just here to play,” she told her. “I’m going to have fun.”
Something changed. The next time Gayle came in, the woman smiled and hit the balloon.
Later, a team member helped Gayle understand why her answer had mattered. So many activities in a resident’s day can come with a purpose or an expectation. Someone may be encouraging them to exercise, participate or accomplish something. Gayle was not asking for anything. She was simply there to have fun.
“Whenever anybody else asks me, that’s my answer,” she said. “I’m here to have fun. We’re just here to play.”
Gayle is also careful about something else. The older adults she spends time with are not children, and she does not treat them that way.
“They are not like kindergarten,” she said. “They’re just happy to see me, and I’m happy to see them.”
It is a simple distinction, but an important one. For Gayle, these moments are about friendship, dignity and the shared joy of being together.
There Is Always Something New to Try
The swimming pool has become another place where Gayle shares her talents. One of her favorite memories involves teaching fellow resident to float. The resident was not afraid of the water. She simply had never learned how to float.
Gayle told her that if she trusted her, they could do it.
Within about 15 minutes, the resident was floating.
“It just has to do with trust and no fear,” Gayle said.
Other residents and team members have come to Gayle looking for help improving their swimming strokes or finding ways to continue swimming after surgery. Gayle is even interested in learning more from Sunnyside’s therapy professionals so she can better understand how to help people exercise safely in the water.
And there are still things she wants to try.
Theater is high on the list.
Gayle loved theater in high school and college, and at Alderson Broaddus she had opportunities to perform that had not been available at her much larger high school. One of her most memorable roles was Emily Dickinson in “The Belle of Amherst,” a one woman play requiring her to carry an enormous amount of dialogue and essentially become Dickinson on stage.
Decades later, she still has a custom white dress made to resemble Dickinson’s.
Now, she would love to see more opportunities for residents to participate in theater at Sunnyside, perhaps even through readers theater or smaller productions.
It is fitting that even after a lifetime of teaching, raising three children, building a career and moving through several states, Gayle is still looking for the next thing to learn, try or experience.
Her children understand why Sunnyside fits her so well.
“They all know that it just fits my personality,” she said. “I get to do what I want to do.”
That might be the best description of Gayle’s retirement.
She and David made a thoughtful decision to move to Sunnyside before they had to. They chose a community not because they were ready to give something up, but because they were ready to make room for more.
More friendships. More volunteering. More swimming. More outings. Maybe even more theater.
And, most importantly for Gayle, plenty more opportunities to play.
