Thu Feb 09 2012
Six women mark birthdays, lifelong friendship
by Jeff Saunders
Reporter
Nordonia Hills -- Many high school friends may lose track of one another or reunite every five or 10 years, but one group of women has remained much closer for more than 60 years.
"We're calling ourselves the Circle of Love today," said Macedonia resident Evelyn Eyring, who hosted a get-together with five other women at her Primrose Lane home Aug. 20.
"We try to stay together, call each other, occasionally, meet," she said.
The women are all members of the Marymount, now Trinity, High School Class of 1948 in Garfield Heights. Eyring said the group came together slowly during high school, with perhaps one girl knowing two others separately and acting as a bridge to bring them together as friends. Two of the women, Macedonia resident Rita Guarniere and Northfield Center resident Phyllis Angersola, have been friends since they were 6 and lived across the street from each other in Garfield Heights, where their friend Mary Moritz still lives.
"Even in high school, we were meeting every Tuesday night," said Broadview Heights resident Mary Aguier.
The women are now 80, or nearly so.
Aguier's birthday was the next day, Eyring's is on Aug. 27 and Twinsburg resident Eleanore Kraiger, who Eyring called the "baby" of the group, turns 80 in November.
"I'm celebrating my last day in the 70s," said Aguier, adding that she planned to mark the event at a party with her cousin, who was about to turn 90.
"I'll feel like a kid," she said.
They do not meet weekly anymore and the group has gotten a little smaller with time.
"We've had a few other girls, three of them, who have passed away," said Eyring.
But they say they still get together three or four times a year, going to restaurants or meeting at one of their homes, as well as celebrate Christmas together.
"We love each other," said Guarniere. "We may not see each other for months, but when we do, we can start up the conversation."
Over the years, they and their husbands and families have celebrated holidays, taken vacations and gone on picnics together.
"We helped raise each others children," said Aguier.
Four of the women are now widows and Eyring said that after the women did some arithmetic, they calculated that among them they have 23 children, 44 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
As they sat around a table in Eyring's home during the afternoon, the conversation drifted in a relaxed way to a variety of topics, including marriage, pets, and driving -- all the women except Eyring still drive.
Angersola commented that her mother got her driver's license at age 75, but it was not easy.
"She went through three or four driving instructors," she said. "Her car had about 50 dings in it from backing in and out of the garage."
They also talked about what they remember of riding streetcars, the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the Great Depression. The women said that as children, they did not have the sources of information that children today do, so they were less aware of what was going on in the world.
"We lived in the best of times," said Angersola. "We were too young to know there was a Depression."
At times, the conversation turned to family. Kraiger talked about her son, a psychologist, and Moritz mentioned a granddaughter in Afghanistan.
"She works for the government and can't tell us anything. It's scary," she said.
Other serious topics come up.
Aguier talked about her husband, who has had serious health issues and is in a hospice.
Guarniere said that with members able to talk about these things, the group has often provided "therapy."
"The meetings are where we can talk about what was troubling us and know it was reaching the ears of people who are our very best friends," she said. "And we can talk about anything."
The women say that when they were in high school, it never occurred to them that they might still be meeting more than 60 years later.
"We never thought that far," said Aguier.
But they say that friendship has kept it going.
"We had a lot of fun growing up and we're still growing," said Eyring.
"I think the Lord's been real good to all of us," she added.
E-mail: jsaunders@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3169
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