National Life means a lot to many of us. But probably not as much as it has to Cathy Aylward.
“The company was very, very good to me at that point. They actually saved my life,” Cathy said.
Cathy reflected on a difficult time in her life made better by the people at National Life as she prepared this week to retire – for the second time, actually – after a remarkable 53 years.
Her first retirement came in 1997, but it didn’t last for very long.
“A tragic event happened in my life,” she said. “My husband died at age 56. … John had only been gone for about a month and the company called and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
She came back to work on a special project related to National Life’s reorganization as a mutual holding company. And once that project was done, Cathy stayed on.
Over the years, Cathy has worked in several areas of contract change and most recently has been in agent contracting.
She’s seen a lot of change. In 1964, there wasn’t much in the way of automation.
“We didn’t have computers. We didn’t have email,” she said. “We used the old thick calculators that went ka-clunk, ka-clunk, ka-clunk.”
For a while, Cathy typed policies – “on a manual typewriter. And we pulled all the forms manually, everything was done manually.”
For now, Cathy is a little apprehensive about retirement. But she will spend her time on deferred projects at home, including cleaning out some closets and unpacking some of those boxes that she hasn’t had a chance to go through since she and her husband moved in September. They might even be able to spend a little more time in their kayaks.
And she will take with her very fond memories of the people of National Life, a company that treated her like a member of the family when she found herself in unimaginable circumstances.
“National Life to me has always been very fair to me,” she said. “I don’t think people realize what a great place this is to work. They took care of me when I desperately needed to be pulled out of a hole.”
Cathy, we all wish you the best in your retirement.