Betty Finney Is Growing Young

It was 1998 when Betty Finney met the man who did the hiring for the Cincinnati Enquirer’s sales team. She was 64 years old at the time, just about the age that has many others itching to retire. She had never had a sales job before but she wanted to do that.

Not only did she get the job, she won awards every year that she worked there. One day she had a really incredible sale and she wanted her boss to know. It was pretty obvious by her expression she had something important to say. As she paused, he walked over to her. There was a moment of silence…and then she blurted it out, “I am excited, and I want to tell you that I am pregnant.”

I first heard her Enquirer story some 20 years later in a three-minute Toastmasters speech. And through coming to know her since, it has become pretty obvious, Betty is not a woman who is going to let another year around the sun slow her down. She was 78 years old when she earned a master’s degree in natural health. “I got that because I don’t care for doctors and I want to be able to care for myself,” she told me over lunch the other day.

Courageous, tenacious, funny, loyal, kind-hearted, spontaneous. Those are all words that describe this woman with too many goals to let a thing like aging stand in her way. She calls her latest business, Oomph!! Through it she offers talks and strategies for Growing Young. “Be transformed from a frail, stifled brain, dampened spirited person to a blooming mind, high energy, vibrant human being,” she has on her homepage.

It is an attitude that has served her well in life.

Betty and her husband, Charlie have been married more than 60 years. They have seven children and 15 grandkids. They rarely argue. They are independent. They are trusting of one another. They take risks. They love to travel. They love each other. And together, life is never boring.

Their stories are priceless.

LIKE when their seventh child was due and fathers were not allowed in delivery rooms, only Charlie wanted to be there. Betty happened to have read a book that suggested if your doctor would not allow it, to tell your doctor that you would handcuff each other together. Charlie mentioned it to their OBGYN, who, after some thought, told the couple, “Betty usually delivers in the middle of the night so we will dress you in a doctor’s attire and you can hide your camera underneath and I will tell them you are allowed.” And, that is how Charlie witnessed the birth of his youngest child.

LIKE when the couple were vacationing in Costa Rica in their 60s and Charlie mentioned zip lining. Betty didn’t know what she was getting herself into, and then, when it was over, they were asked if they wanted to do the Tarzan swing. “I said, ‘ok’,” Betty told me. “So we did that too. We were told that whoever screamed the loudest would get a gift. I screamed pretty loud.”

LIKE when Betty announced one day after years of staying home to be with her kids that she didn’t want to do the housewife thing any longer. She was prepared for Charlie’s objection…that didn’t come. When asked what she wanted to do, Betty told her husband, “have a career.” And he told her, “then go do it!”

After Betty began working and the realization hit her that keeping a household running and keeping the laundry clean was going to be tough, again she found no resistance. What did he do instead? Betty shared the story. “He said he was going to announce at dinner that everyone will do their own laundry. That means everything,” she told me. “He did that and everyone was like, ‘No Way!’ He also made me promise that if I did any of the laundry for anyone, that he would never make an announcement like that again. A couple weeks later he said that he couldn’t find his blue jeans, the ones he put down the laundry shoot…we negotiated.”

By the way, when Betty was applying for that first job, she didn’t have a whole lot to include on a professional resume but she figured she gained some pretty valuable experience in her years at home. She called that position, “household maintenance engineer”. It was that title that got her the job doing public relations for Kathrine Switzer’s Avon Running.  (It most certainly was not because she told her future boss in the interview that she had never un or even seen a race.)

Fast forward to 2018

Betty and I are sitting across the table from each other having lunch. She wants to know if I have any connections with prisons.

Connections with prisons?

Yep!  You see, she had presented her program three times at a local prison, talking to the inmates about using laughter as a way of removing tension. One of those inmates rolled on the floor, kicking his feet up in pure, unadulterated joy. After her third visit she remembers seeing them line up single file. She had to pass in front of them to exit, and, when she got in front of them, they began clapping in the way that she had taught them until she was out the door. “I cried all the way home because I knew I had gotten to them for some happiness in their day,” Betty said.

A year later she was approached in a card store. “Are you Betty? Did you do the laughter at Riverside Prison?,” he asked as Betty realized he was the man who rolled on his back. “I just want to tell you that I am out of prison. I made one dumb mistake and learned my lesson in prison. Thank you for laughing with me. It made a big impact on me.”

I think Betty has a big impact on everyone who comes in her path. It is just her way.

Question to Betty: What is your personal philosophy on life?
“To love everybody but first love yourself. Be happy. Be positive. Negativity will get in your way every time.”