102-Year-Old Woman Gives Babies Swimming Lessons For Over 5 Decades & Says 'It Keeps Me Going'

Aug 11, 2023

Retirement is the time in an active worker’s life when they decide to permanently leave the workforce. The traditional retirement age for exiting the workforce is different for different countries, usually in the age range of 60 years.

In the US, the Full retirement age (FRA) is the age at which you can receive pension benefits from Social Security. The FRA varies with the year a person is born; it is 66 years and two months for people born in 1955, and it gradually rises to 67 for those born in 1960 or later.

In the past, seniors were enthusiastic about leaving their jobs and spending the rest of their lives traveling and visiting their kids and loved ones. But that has changed in recent times. The traditional concept of retirement age has experienced some paradigm shifts. These days, some seniors work years after their retirement age, others phase their retirements into stages, another group works part-time after retirement, and a fraction of seniors do not have any plans to exit the workforce at all.   

The fear of running out of money, more opportunities, flexible pensions, and enjoying working lives are some of the reasons seniors continue to work way past the stated retirement age. For several, enjoying their working lives is one of their key reasons. After working at a job or developing a skill for years, it becomes a part of your identity, and letting it go is synonymous with letting a chunk of your life go.

One such case is that of 102-year-old Peggy Konzack. Konzack is a swim teacher at the YMCA of Douglas County in Roseburg, Oregon, and has taught babies how to swim for over 50 years and has no plans of retiring from her beloved job.

Konzack focuses on teaching swimming to kids within the age group of 6 months to 3 years. She has been teaching kids to swim for over five decades and has no plans of stopping.

“I often said that I will keep teaching and swimming until they can wheel me in a wheelchair and dump me in the water,” she told People.

Konzack and her husband moved to Roseburg in 1945, and she immediately became active in the community. She would go swimming at the YMCA and participate in the parent-child swimming classes with a friend.

After about a month, Konzack, who had been training to be a hairstylist, was informed of an opening as a result of one of the instructors leaving the community. The then-46-year-old, who didn’t have formal experience and was deemed too old to learn, took it upon herself to get a teaching certificate in Sutherlin.

Since then, Konzack has been teaching kids to swim. Not only does she love taking swimming lessons, but she derives great joy from the relationships she has built over the years.

“It makes me happy,” she said. “I'm glad to work with the kids (and) the babies …and I enjoy the relationship that I have with the parents.”

“The parents, and the babies, and the lifeguards who are standing there watching, and all of the people that I meet from day to-day," she added.

At 102 years old, Konzack still revels in her active lifestyle.

“At this age I can be very lazy, and this way I come over and do my swimming or teaching and I go home, and I feel good and I'm ready for the rest of the day,” she said. "It keeps me going."

Konzack added, "I’m going to keep going as long as I can.”

What do you think of Peggy Konzack still teaching swimming lessons at 102 years old? Would you like to do something you are passionate about until you are old and gray? Let us know and — and be sure to pass this article on to friends and family members.