She loved working with seniors, even before she was one

By Cynthia Henry Hoopla Publisher

Gloria Kilgore spent a bulk of her life in the real estate industry, but now she spends her days doing God’s work.

About a year after she made the decision to move into the independent living wing at Legacy Oaks of Azle, COVID-19 shut down many of the weekly activities residents enjoy. Visitors were discouraged at the start of the pandemic, and that included those who led the weekly Bible study. So, Gloria decided to start a resident-led Bible study.

Three years later, the group continues to gather each Wednesday.

“You’ve got to fill your mind with the word of God and the love of God to survive now, I do believe,” said Gloria.

The 89-year-old Fort Worth native was raised in church but found herself drifting away midlife.

“I’d kind of walked away,” she said. “I tell people that I wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t right, and they think that’s hilarious. But it’s true because I wasn’t doing a lot of things that were considered major sins. Yet, I wasn’t in church, I wasn’t in fellowship, I wasn’t reading the word or any of the ordinary things that go with being a Christian.”

That all changed when Gloria met the love of her life in 1987. He was a minister, and one of the first trips the couple took was to Israel.

When they returned home, she immersed herself in volunteer work at Jewish Family Services in Fort Worth, helping hundreds of seniors who migrated from Russia and neighboring regions after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

“There’s still a major Jewish community in the Fort Worth area here. I started volunteering there because God had connected my heart to the land of Israel, to the Jewish people,” she said. “I just felt led to do that.”

She played piano, called bingo, and helped out wherever she was needed.

“I went over there to bless them, but they ended up blessing me,” she said. “Being with them is where I learned unconditional love.”

She loved working with seniors so much, she told her husband she wanted to become an activity director. She attended classes at Tarrant County Community College to become certified and then started working part time in a memory care unit.

As part of her duties, she often led seniors in gospel hymns. She recalled one of many special moments during that time.

“We finished a song, and this young girl raised her hand and said, “I’m here from California to visit my grandmother. This is my grandmother. She hasn’t spoken a word in two years.”

Yet, the grandmother had sang every word of the song. It was that sort of reaction that made Gloria’s job so rewarding.

When she wasn’t working with seniors, she was volunteering with seniors.

“My husband and I did volunteering, even on Sundays, we did services in nursing homes,” she said. “We did one at 9 in the morning before our own church service where we were on staff and then 2 in the afternoon.”

So it only made sense that Gloria would head up a Bible study in her own senior community. She even encourages other residents to volunteer within the community.

“I just enjoy people, you know, to motivate them to do things that left to themselves they would not do,” she said. “And I think that’s why I loved being an activity director so much.”

She says helping out at Legacy Oaks helps her as well.

“I have purpose,” she said. “What we see in seniors so much is that they lose purpose. They listen to voices that tell them that they’re of no more value. If they can’t get in a car and physically go somewhere, or they have to quit driving and all those things, so many are inclined to just sit down in the recliner and not do a whole lot. They don’t feel needed or wanted. But if they’ll just come forward, I can usually find something for them to do because there is a lot of volunteering that’s needed.”

She even brought one of the retired pastors living at Legacy Oaks out of retirement to lead worship services on the second Sunday each month. The senior com- munity welcomes leaders from several nearby churches during the month. On every fifth Sunday, Gloria and her greatgranddaughter lead a gospel sing-along.

Memory care patients cannot attend the Sunday service, which is held in the assisted living wing, so Gloria decided she would start a Sunday service specifically for the memory care residents.

“I just felt compelled,” she said. “I can’t explain it. I just it gives me so much joy.”

Gloria knows that senior living residents often need a little extra care.

“I have read a lot about the power of touch,” she said. “You can just touch them, and it means so much to them. Sometimes I’ll say, ’Could you use a hug?’ And they’ll say, ‘sure’ and they’ll just smile and kind of reach for you. That is so emotional and so sweet for me — who knows when they were touched last?”

When Gloria is not lifting the spirits of her fellow residents, she enjoys water aerobics and exercise at Legacy Oaks. She starts each day listening to Christian stories on tape and reading Psalms 91.

“If you don’t know the word of God, you don’t have any direction for your life. I don’t care how many GPSs you have,” she said with a grin.