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January 17, 2003
Walking
on Water: Mount Holyoke’s Fitness Swim Program Offers Up
Miracles in the Pool
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Photo: Fred LeBlanc
(Front to back) Swimmers Carl
Bathelt, Jean Schauer, Roy Belliveau, Josephine Lizak, Dolly
(Dorothy) Crossland, Rita Mahoney, and Irene Cronin
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The swimmers change
into bathing suits, caps, and goggles well before their lifeguards
arrive at 11 o’clock, then gather at the locker room door
in Kendall Sports Complex, as eager as a varsity team on the morning
of a championship meet. But these athletes aren’t looking
for medals or glory. They are participants in Mount Holyoke’s
Fitness Swim program, and they say they have loftier goals, like
making friends, recovering health, and—as many announce bluntly—staying
alive. “I’m exhausted now, but when I get in there I’ll
be a different person,” says Ruth Elvedt, Professor Emeritus
of Physical Education and Athletics. And Elvedt does look different
the moment she trades her walking cane for the warm, supportive
water of Kendall’s eight-lane pool. Suddenly agile and limber,
the eighty-three-year-old leans into a back float, props her heels
on the pool’s edge, and sweeps her arms back and forth at
the water’s surface. “I wouldn’t be alive today
if I hadn’t come here to exercise after every accident,”
she says, recalling various broken bones—leg, hips, and wrist.
“I’m here the day after the cast comes off!”
Josephine Lizak, Irene Cronin, Ralph Blank, Dorothy (Dolly) Crossland,
and dozens of other retirement-age residents of South Hadley are
equally faithful to the hour-long open swim program that began
(as Therapy Swim) in 1951, when a South Hadley resident asked
to use MHC’s pool for rehabilitation purposes. “It was
the tree warden, whose wife had been paralyzed from complications
during childbirth,” Elvedt recalls. “The doctor said
he couldn’t do anything for her, but her husband took her
to Upper Lake, where he saw her move her fingers for the first
time. With aquatic exercise in the pool, she eventually walked
again. It was incredible.” Elvedt was inspired to spend a
sabbatical year, 1978–1979, studying aquatic therapy, then
to supervise the program for more than twenty years.
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Photo: Fred LeBlanc
Poet
and Fitness Swim participant Martha Johnson Gilburg
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Miraculous recovery in the pool doesn’t surprise Fitness
Swim’s sixty current members. Many of them are “regulars”
who participate in all three program sessions—fall, spring,
and summer. Blanche Cooke credits laps of freestyle for keeping
her limber since knee replacement surgery twenty years ago. Roy
Belliveau and Carl Bathelt swear by swimming to ease back pain,
rheumatism, and arthritis. “Priscilla Obremski moves all
over the place in here,” say her friends, pointing to the
hydraulic lift that lowers her from a wheelchair on deck. “I
come in feeling bad and go out feeling wonderful,” says Norman
Reed, who is trying to strengthen and improve range of motion
in a recently dislocated shoulder. Even when she’s nursing
a cold and can’t do the exercise that keeps fibromyalgia
pain at bay, Agnes Roux shows up fully dressed just to socialize
and encourage her friends. Others participate to increase lung
capacity after pneumonia, improve mobility after strokes, or simply
strengthen arms for carrying groceries. “They all seem to
have an extra little skip in their step and a rejuvenated look
on their face when they leave,” said administrative intern
Debra Soucia, who has been coordinating program registration and
payment since September 2001. Elvedt continues to advise participants
about individual exercise regimens.
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THERAPY
SWIM
(at Mount Holyoke College)
It’s been years since I’ve played tennis
I can no longer run
(Although last night I dreamt myself jogging comfortably)
I no longer walk any distance
So I go to therapy swim and exercise
With the “retired, over 70” crowd.
While all of them are older than I
Some are fatter and some are thinner.
Most walk faster and
A few walk slower.
Some attend for the swimming
And others for the talking.
They seem to be a network of support for each other
And, amazingly, even for me.
Norm introduced me to my Tai-Chi program
Harry and Dolly invited me to Barbershop
June suggested where I could read my musings
And find a writing group.
All greet me by name, even though Norm forgets,
And comes out with Sara or Barbara.
These “old” people are not old in spirit
They are living full lives
With spunk, irreverence, and joy.
What great models for me
As I try to do the same.
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Martha Johnson Gilburg, now sixty-two, joined the program two
years ago to combat the physical deterioration caused by multiple
sclerosis. “The program is about hope for me,” says
Gilburg, whose book about her journey coping with chronic illness,
Musing along the Way, includes the poem “Therapy Swim at
Mount Holyoke.” “Swimming makes me feel mobile and normal,
and that is a good feeling,” says Gilburg, who walks with
a limp and can no longer jog or play tennis. “The pool is
forgiving of the things I can’t do on land, but I figure
the better I get in the pool, the sooner I will be ableto do it
on land.” She demonstrates how she can climb quickly out
of the pool by placing one foot, not two, on each ladder rung.
“I remember the day I was first able to do this,” she
says. “It’s a little thing, I know, but it was a huge
step for me. You measure small steps in this world.”
By noon, most of the swimmers have returned to the locker rooms
for hot showers. Buoys, flippers, and kickboards are packed away,
caps
and goggles stowed—but only until tomorrow.
The
counter is
1,811
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