Vee Roebuck: I have been damn lucky

From the time the nurses carried me around the hospital where I was born to show off the red ringlets on my head to my 70s, my hair has been my distinguishing feature.

My first 10 years were spent on the ranch where I had 3,000 acres to run and roam. In Colorado Springs, we lived on the edge of the Garden of the Gods, where I was able to climb in the caves of the gigantic red rocks.

In Inglewood High School, I took four years of Latin and developed a halfway decent game of tennis. I was able to attend the University of Redlands, thanks to my father. While there, I was inducted into the honorary society for sophomore women.

I worked for Pacific Telephone for 30 years when it was only a telephone company.

I met the love of my life when I was in my early 30s. Charlie was well worth the wait.

I had three sons without having to go through the pangs of childbirth. Kenneth, Mark and Gary all grew up to be respectable adults.

For the past 35 years, I have lived in the best unit in my apartment complex, with a view, privacy and quiet.

In my early 60s, I discovered The Center for Inquiry and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, giving me a cause to devote my energy and resources to.

I have had no chronic or long-lasting illnesses and no major injuries until I fractured my hip at age 86.

I have endured no natural disasters or severe accidents of any kind.

I have had sufficient income throughout my life to provide everything I need or want. Luckily, neither Charlie nor I had extravagant tastes.

My friends are my major asset. I have made long-lasting friends in high school and college, at the telephone company and at my apartment complex. 

Vee, 89, a longtime major supporter of FFRF, was born in 1932. Her husband Charlie died in 2019 at age 87. Vee says her father was an agnostic, her mother “vaguely religious,” who went to Sunday school, but didn’t attend church. Before her baptism in her early teens, Vee asked her minister a number of questions, which he did not answer to her satisfaction. “I never went back,” Vee said.