When Cornelia Curtis tried to vote last year, she found
that she had been dropped from the roll of registered voters. The clerk
told her she was listed as dead. "You're going to find out I'm the liveliest
corpse in Massachusetts," the 74-year old Brighton woman retorted.
Curtis is a handicapped senior citizen. Call her either
one, and she'll unleash a barrage of verbal abuse if you're lucky; she
may take a playful swing if you're not.
Earlier this year, she started a new job monitoring
handicapped accessibility at Roxbury Community Collage on Huntingham Avenue.
That position might satisfy others confined to a wheelchair by polio and
arthritis, but Curtis now looks forward to a career as a creative writing
teacher. To prepare, she searched for a text book. When she couldn't find
one she liked, she wrote one herself.
Connie Curtis gives new meaning to the terms "handicapped"
and "senior citizen:.
Raised by uncles and her grandfather in Medford, Curtis
moved to Beechcroft Street in Brighton 12 years ago, and still lives there
alone. Her introduction to the disabled began early, even before she was
born. Curtis' father went blind at age 14. Now that she is disabled and
a senior citizen herself, humor and energy are her weapons in the battle
for a productive life. "I'm sick and tired of people saying 'you're too
old for this or too sick for that," she complains.
That's a line Curtis has heard too often. Her 38-year
career as Division of Employment Security head clerk ended two years ago,
when her boss "forced" her to retire because of her age and disability.
"He was also hassling a friend of mine to retire. She went home one day
and had a stroke. After that I resigned."
Next came Roxbury Community College, where she stayed
on as a volunteer after her one-year federal grant expired "We got over
here and found it was totally inaccessible (to handicapped people)." she
recalls, speaking in the Kennedy Building's least chaotic room, the library
three floors below her office. Upstairs, a handful of bemused students
await her consul. Curtis has become unofficial dean to disabled students
at RCC, and new students also seek her advice. Walking through the corridors,
everyone greets her by name, and she greets them by turning up the volume
on her constant chuckle.
Despite the enjoyment Curtis so obviously derives from
her environment, she is a very serious worker. Outside doors open only
one way, restricting access for those with motorized wheelchairs. She can't
even use the front door there's no ramp. And when she first arrived, the
library entrance turnstile prevented her from using what she considers
an invaluable resource. She offered to take it apart with s hammer and
chisel, but school officials quickly removed the barrier.
Each morning, she waits for the security guard to open
the back door for her, but one morning she waited an hour before someone
allowed her in. That treatment brings out the best in Cornelia Curtis:
"I just sat there and made out a list of things that had to be done to
these buildings."
Still, handicapped issues are just one ring in Curtis'
circus" she's also a published author and a dynamic senior citizens' advocate.
Forty-two years ago the christen Science Monitor published
her first poem, which earned Curtis all of three dollars, but made her
feel "like a millionaire." since then, Curtis has written poems or essays
for The New York Times, The Washington Star, and five anthologies.
Curtis's duties at RCC give her first-hand contact
with what she calls "semi-literate"college students, a fact she finds particularly
distressing because of her literary background. "We've had students come
in here, born and brought up in this country, and the education they have
received is lamentable, to say the least." the outspoken Curtis, who never
acquired a college degree, believes she can help with her proposed creative
writing course. "Even if they don't become published authors , at least
they'll be able to read and write."
Her passion for literature, Curtis recalls was fueled
by her grandfather's habit of reading Shakespeare and Stevenson aloud after
dinner." he started when I was about two, but, I always liked the words,
even the sound of the words."
An accomplished author herself now, Curtis plans to
choose from more than one thousand poems for her next book. That project
and a children's storybook, she says, keep her occupied at home.
For Curtis though, the third ring has become the most
important: her central role as a senior citizen's advocate. Her involvement
with the Silver-Haired Legislature, a 200-member group which proposes bills
and lobbies for decent housing, social security benefits, and other senior's
issues, won Curtis appointment to the 1981 White House Conference on Aging.
That unexpectedly heated conference weathered charges
that President Reagan packed the meeting with delegates loyal to his positions
on social security and budget cutting measures, potentially harmful to
persons struggling through the 1981-83 recession on fixed incomes.
Curtis remembers press accounts critical of the conference:
"They said we were just playing games. Well we weren't." The conference
resulted in this year's social security bailout bill.
"This country has a lot of senior citizens, and there's'
going to be a lot more," says Curtis, echoing the White House Conference
theme. "On the whole, I think we did pretty good. You've got to have a
lot of time to make headway on these things."
Her quick harsh chuckle grows louder and less restrained
as Curtis reflects on the treatment of senior citizens in the United States.
Though disabled, she manages easily in her apartment, and resents the "prisons"
built for elderly housing today.
"You can't just say, 'Well they're old, but we just
can't kill them, so let's just give them something to do to keep them quiet.'
this business of regulating old people to rocking chairs to wait to die
really gets my goat. We're around and there's a lot of us. You're not going
to get rid of us by putting us in a rocking chair."
Indeed, to put Curtis in a rocking chair would be personally
dangerous and socially wasteful. This fall she runs for her third term
in the Silver-Haired Legislature, which includes posts that correspond
to those in the General Assembly. The Boston Caucus meets each month to
prepare issue papers and discuss senior citizen's related bills.
Partially funded by the Department of Elderly Affairs,
the statewide body occupies state house chambers for three days in November,
during the legislature's recess. Since her first term, Curtis says, the
elderly lobbyists have successively pushed at least eight bills.
Those three rings in Cornelia Curtis' life-circus extend
to other areas of her life. Because she loves mobility, Curtis keeps a
fold-up manual wheelchair rather than a motorized model. She was divorced
years ago ("Can't remember when") so friends take her shopping, and she
ambles around on crutches for short spurts.
But her longest trip on crutches was unforgettable.
Curtis entered a 25-word essay contest on the significance of Radio Free
Europe 18 years ago. She and six others from across the U.S. won a four-week,
all-expenses paid vacation to Portugal, Switzerland, Holland and France.
Curtis left the wheelchair behind.
Still, it's a tough life, and the constant pain aggravates
Curtis. "If I wasn't in pain, I'd call a doctor to find out what was wrong,"
she says. Disability and age have altered her life, but not adversely affected
it.
Students one-fifth her age at the bustling RCC offices
rely on Curtis for more than just course advice. "They all seem to end
up in my lap. So I just try to encourage them not to give up."
Printed in the
Allston-Brighton Citizen Item,
September 15, 1983
