North Hill Retirement Community’s Quality of Life Attracts Second Generation Residents

Press Release

For Immediate Release Contact: Patricia Cusack

January 27, 2025

 

It was good enough for Mother!

North Hill Retirement Community’s quality of life attracts second generation residents

 

Needham, MA…Meet Phyllis Gibson.  Her mother came here in 1984, making Phyllis a “second generation” resident.   “She had a wonderful experience and …never looked back,” she says.  “Why wouldn’t I come?

Like most people who resist a major move, Phyllis was happy in her home. Widowed for many years, she was thriving with an active lifestyle, good health and great neighbors who were there when she needed them.  “Five more years,” she’d tell her children when they suggested she sell her house in Wellesley, “five more years.”

A health scare accelerated her decision, and in 2011 at the age of 76 she sold her house, divested of a  lot of furniture (remembering her mother’s good advice) and moved in to a one bedroom apartment at North Hill.  Once again healthy, she enjoyed being liberated from the work that comes with home ownership, and could watch her grandchildren doing happy cartwheels and somersaults on her grassy new lawn.

Life at North Hill is different from the one she had for 44 years in Wellesley where she and her husband raised their children and ran their business, World Eagle from their home.  Producing maps, facts and charts for social studies teachers grew into producing a monthly publication, with maps and atlases sold worldwide.  Soon college libraries and textbook publishers were citing from World Eagle. Running the business meant traveling too, and their children came along. When her husband Duncan died in 1993, Phyllis sold the business and moved on.

Typical of the busy and active life she’d enjoyed in Wellesley, Phyllis jumped right into life at North Hill.  She and a few other second-generation residents had a lot in common, and it was fun to talk to team members who remembered their relatives.  She marvels at the memory of her mother and other octogenarians learning synchronized swimming from the pool instructor at the time!