Volunteering, lifelong learning enriches lives of Cedar Rapids couple after retirement

This story first appeared in Prestige - December 2025, a biannual special section distributed in The Gazette dedicated to Iowans 55+.

Recognizing opportunities to build on lifetime experiences and interests has been key to Rich and Marion Patterson’s retirement strategy.

“Society tends to encourage people to prepare financially for retirement,” Rich said one recent morning. “It tends to be not so good at urging people to prepare intellectually, mentally, for retirement. One of my theories is that a lot of older people are bored: ‘I don’t have to go to work today, what do I do?’ It’s what’s fueling casinos, I think.”

Rich guided the Indian Creek Nature Center as its director from its early days to its present status as a popular recreation resource and educational institution. He retired in 2014.

Marion had a wide-ranging career as an educator before — and after — retiring from Kirkwood Community College in the early 2020s. Both are 76.

“I’ve done everything from pre-natal classes like Lamaze childbirth classes, toddlers, preschoolers, elementary, middle, high schoolers, Kirkwood Community College adults and students there, and senior citizens,” Marion said. “All the way through the spectrum.”

Preparing the Nature Center for Rich’s departure inspired the couple’s intentional approach to retirement.

“My board and I developed a succession plan for what would happen after I left the Nature Center,” he said. “That got us thinking: ‘We need our own succession plan. What are we going to do after we are not bound to full-time jobs?’”

Drawing on their expertise and hobbies, the Pattersons launched their own consulting business, Winding Pathways (windingpathways.com), to advise the development of sustainable homes, landscaping and even backyard chickens, applying lessons from their own southeast Cedar Rapids home.

“The idea behind that was to encourage people to create and enjoy wonderful yards,” Rich said. “It was tips for managing yards and homes and energy efficiency.”

“We have a wonderous yard,” Marion said. “We have the birds that come here, the deer have been running around. We have done some planning, and we have also branched out because not everybody is interested in backyard chickens. We want to keep relevant and find new things to explore.”

Rich consulted Curt Nelson, director of the nonprofit Entrepreneurial Development Center in Cedar Rapids, for advice in setting up the business.

“One of the things he said was, ‘Have a business plan, but don’t spend lots of time on it because as you get into it, there will be barriers to things you want to do, and there will be opportunities you can’t imagine that will open up,’” Rich said. “That was very good advice.”

Even a bout with prostate cancer produced such opportunity. Rich’s treatment at the Helen G. Nassif Community Cancer Center led to new opportunities for Marion.

“He was talking to the manager who said, ‘We’re looking to expand our programs in healing energy work,’” she said. “And Rich said, ‘By the way, my wife is trained in that.’”

Marion volunteers three days a week at Nassif, along with related work at UnityPoint Health - St. Luke's Hospital. She applies the principles of Reiki, the Japanese discipline that emphasizes relaxation and stress reduction.

“What we try to do is to help people by saying, ‘Be calm as you look at your diagnosis. Be calm as you look at your different options. Be calm and have a plan as you move through treatment,’ and there’s a supportive staff, so I fit right in there,” Marion said. “It was an unexpected thing that happened, and we said, ‘This is a great opportunity,’ so we took that and blended it in to the Winding Pathways.”

While at Indian Creek, Rich was a regular contributor to The Gazette, with columns on local flora and fauna’s seasonal changes. He’s continued writing columns, expanding them to cover the couple’s travels.

The Pattersons often visit their children — their daughter lives in Alaska, their son in New York City — but their trips aren’t the lavish cruise experiences seen in glossy retirement ads.

“What I like to focus on is (destinations) for the family income — not terribly expensive, interesting places that you may not have heard of that are not far away,” Rich said. “Blindfold yourself, take a map of the United States, throw a dart and wherever the dart hits, go to that place and you’d find interesting people and interesting things you can’t imagine.”

The Pattersons’ approach can be adapted to other work-life backgrounds.

“If you’ve been a plumber, you might not continue doing that as much,” Rich said. “The plumber may have hobby interests or skills they could apply to help people after they leave employment, instead of wearing out a chair.”

“There may be people around who cannot afford a plumber,” Marion said. “You join an organization, and they can say, ‘Can you go to this person’s house and help?’ There are opportunities. We have to look for them.”

That extends to simple day-to-day changes, even to the weather.

“Stay engaged, look for opportunities, and take time to be still once in a while,” Marion said. “Last Saturday afternoon it started to rain, and it was cold and drizzly. I thought ‘this is a great time to make New England baked beans.’ So I did that. Be still at times and just reflect and be engaged with things in the community, because it gets you out and being social.”