Nancy Kessler was just featured on Daring.
November 11, 2014
by Nancy Kessler
At age 58, I just started my own business! It’s the most daring accomplishment of my life. My business is called Memoirs Plus — I write memoirs for seniors. It is, by far, the most authentic profession for me.
I have been a single mother for twenty-two years, since my children were one and three. And I thought that was daring. Staying single was daring. I have learned how to handle most emergencies and household annoyances on my own — from overflowing toilets to a squirrel running loose in my house, or burning ten pounds of asparagus while trying to cater a dinner for fifty because my rambunctious child ran out of the house and down the street naked!
In my first career, I was a Curator at the Museum of the City of New York in the Department of Paintings, Prints and Photographs. One day I received an anonymous donation of a scrapbook/memoir of a woman named Adie Walford. She was the first woman to cross the Williamsburg Bridge, and she did it while it was under construction.
This year, after being laid off from my job at the age of 58, I took two business classes and started a networking group in Westchester for businesses providing services to seniors. I decided to combine my interest in keeping seniors independent and intellectually stimulated with a business.
Memoirs Plus is created to engage and stimulate active, independent seniors with sophisticated cultural, intellectual and creative activities which will enable them to tell their life stories in the form of a memoir book, film, collage, presentation or other media. I want to pioneer innovative programs for Boomers. Part of my business involves forming focus groups for people in their 60’s and 70’s, trying to determine how they envision their lives in their 80’s and 90’s. The process of telling our stories validates the many obstacles and changes that we — and women in particular — face on a daily basis.
