MIDDLEBURY — Maxine Beasey grew up on a farm in central Indiana, married a truck driver and moved to Elkhart County about 50 years ago to raise their family here.

Now a widow and living in an apartment a couple blocks west of downtown Middlebury, she has stayed busy the past six years helping people sign up for Medicare.

Beasey was busy Thursday helping to train two other volunteers on how to fill out paperwork to help people get enrolled with Medicare Part D. The enrollment period begins Nov. 15 and continues to Dec. 31, she pointed out.

“In 2005 there were 30 people doing this in Elkhart County. Now, I’m the only one,” she said and has recently helped a missionary serving in Scotland and also received a call from a resident of Texas.

“I don’t charge,” Beasey said, for the services she offers to others. She said she has worked in accounting all her life so this paperwork is easy for her to complete.

Some people are confused and unable to complete the application paperwork or complete the enrollment on the telephone, she said, but it is second nature for her.

Beasey said sometimes people come to her with tears in their eyes, so she gives them a glass of water to help calm them down and then get started on their paperwork.

“I’m 79, but I have to do something. I have to do this,” she explained. And she has been helping people the past six years. She said every pharmacist in the county has her name and number to give to customers who need help.

Before retiring, she worked in her last job as national sales manager for a local firm, traveling sometimes to collect on accounts. She retired at age 68.

Raised on a farm

Beasey explained she was born in 1930, the oldest of six children on a farm in White County. She learned to drive a tractor, so she was able to drive a truck later on. She said during the winters, her father opened his shop and worked for others, where she received experience in recordkeeping and billing as she helped him.

Beasey explained that her father “had flat feet” and was not drafted during World War II. But she said she has had a relative in every war since World War I.

Beasey said her mother “made her own ‘Velveeta’” processed cheese at home. And she explained that one winter times were so tough, she knew her family was not going to have a Christmas.

She was 12 years old, so it would have been 1942. She said the family set about making things for each other that Christmas. She explained her mother made “sock dolls” for the girls, buying used doll heads at The Salvation Army. For the two boys, they made wooden checkerboards by painting scrap plywood and checkers cut from a broom handle. For her youngest brother, they made a “hobby horse” with a dowel rod and wheels on the bottom end.

Beasey explained she surprised her mother by sewing a dress for her from old feed bags. Her mother asked “How did you do that?” and Beasey explained she used one of her mother’s dresses as a pattern and used the family’s treadle sewing machine.

While Beasey said she was sure she was not getting anything that Christmas, her dad disappeared and returned with a doll her mother had made that included a crown and a cape.

“We had one of the best times,” she said of that Christmas celebration.

Beasey graduated from high school in May, 1948, and was married that June to Keith Beasey.

She wanted to attend nurse’s training, but as a married woman she was unable to do so. So she went to Purdue University to study accounting.

Going to work

After one year of schooling, she went to work in West Lafayette, rather than continue classes. She said she went from job to job her entire life.

Keith worked driving trucks and she began raising their daughter, Vicki Myers, now living in Goshen, and son, Michael. After about five years, the couple visited relatives in Elkhart County and Keith said, “I could live up there,” so they moved here.

Beasey explained they moved into a house that needed extensive fixing. When the bottle gas was delivered, Keith got a job from that company driving a truck and went to White Pigeon to work

“That first summer we had a garden and I got a milk cow,” she explained. “A Jersey cow.” She said she has always made her own cottage cheese and explained her procedure. She said she prefers her own to store-bought.

She mentioned strong winter storms in the winter of 1959 and Keith drove a snowplow to open the roads.

Beasey explained that the family helped raise about 50 other children who were unable to live at their own homes.

“We had kids at our house all the time,” she said. She assigned chores to the kids, she said, and “we got along. We never had a problem.”

Over the years she said she has lived at four different homes here She explained that Keith died in 1991 and she continued to work until she was 68. She has been at Crystal Valley Manor the past 12 years.

She also enjoys sharing a meal with some of her neighbors. She points out she can seat 10 people around her table in her small apartment.

She said her daughter Vicki turned 60 in July and Mike, a retired sheriff’s deputy, was 58 in August.

While she has two new knees, survived a broken foot and other problems, she said she is going to Curves, is losing weight and plans to get her legs stronger.

But she said she gave up her car a couple years ago and has to rely on others to get her where she needs to go. She said sometimes a shopping trip can take nearly a whole day, depending on what her driver wants to do.

She is a member of the Faith Baptist Church and has a list of people she can call upon for help.

“I’m an independent person, so it bothers me that I can’t go when I want to,” Beasey said.

But she enjoys where she lives, pointing out that two of her neighbors are 100 years old and four people are 90.