Senior voters at Juliette Fowler Communities recall their first time voting
"That was just yesterday it seems," Beth Winterbauer said looking at a collection of photos, many of them black and white. "I'm 94. I'll be 95 the day after Christmas."
Winterbauer voted for the first time in 1952 when Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower were on the ballot.
"My father always encouraged us to vote," Winterbauer said. "He didn't tell us how, but we were to be intelligent enough to find out what was said, and then make a decision based on that."
Winterbauer lives at Juliette Fowler Communities, an inter-generational retirement home in Dallas. So does 87-year-old Chuck Morgan and 82-year-old Johnette Wilson. The three seasoned voters talked about their decades of voting and shared wisdom for new voters.
"The first election I voted in was the Kennedy election in 1960," Wilson recalled. "It was just like a right of passage you finally considered yourself an adult!"
That year was also Morgan's first time voting. "I brought people to the polls," Morgan said. "It doesn't matter what party, as long as the person running is doing the job for the people."
"There are always people that will be complacent and just don't make an effort to get out and vote," Wilson said.
The former elections volunteer and school teacher had some advice. "You need to study. No, we don't know them all; there's no way for us to know all of them, but we can know about what their beliefs are and what they promise us."
"So however we vote is how we're gonna live, and not only for ourselves but for our descendants," Winterbauer said. "I have great-grandchildren that, probably decisions I make today will affect them, and I think we need to take that seriously, but it is a privilege."
"If you don't go out and vote, you cannot say a word about what happens in this country," Morgan added.
The three encouraged new voters to do the homework, and then go to the polls to make their voices heard.
"No major elections have I missed," Morgan said. "I feel empowered!"
