A coterie of single seniors, all 60-plus, gathered at the Area 10 Aging Endwright Center for the Single Seniors Club.
“What I like best is the friendship,” O’Bannon said. “I like being around people my own age.” After working in the Bloomington Hospital for 30 years, at the urging of her late husband, O’Bannon prepared to retire.
“They were offering early retirement and my husband said ‘You’ve worked a long time, go ahead and take it,’” she said. O’Bannon prepared her paperwork and was set to retire in July. Her husband passed away on June 14. That was 21 years ago. After enduring the loss of her husband and brother-in-law within a six-week span, O’Bannon retired.
“I told them I had to retire, I wasn’t fit to work at that moment,” she said.
The loss of her husband combined with retirement left a social void in O’Bannon’s life, she said
“I missed the people all the time,” she said about her coworkers. “They were like family to me.”
More than two decades later, after seeing an ad in the newspaper and receiving some pressure from her kids, O’Bannon embraced the opportunity to join the Single Senior’s Club.
“My kids said, ‘Mom, you have to get out and do something,’” she said.
Like O’Bannon, many of the elders in the Single Seniors Club are retired and widowed. The attendees come from all around the county seeking companionship, Sandy Stevens, Single Seniors Club organizer, said.
“We’re just all friendly with one another, and we’re all comfortable,” Stevens said.
Stevens decided to organize the club after the death of her husband.
“I was in bed one morning, and I thought there are a lot of people always saying, ‘I’m so lonely,’” she said. “So I got out of bed, got dressed and came up here and said, ‘Could I start a 60-and-over seniors group?’”
Stevens said the Single Seniors Club is not a matchmaking group.
After sitting down and talking for an hour, the club meets at Golden Corral to continue enjoying fellowship. The club has also started a dancing group in Bedford and a group for playing Euchre.
“These are other opportunities for seniors to meet up and be social,” Stevens said. “It doesn’t matter how single you are or how you became single, we just want you here.”
