Radio Diaries · Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

The Last Place

August 7, 2025·30 min·2 clips

Former traveling salesman Joseph Peine says Sinatra had it right — 'I did it my way' — until the day he couldn't open a door himself.

Joe Richman opens by noting that people living into their 80s is now the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S., driving demand for retirement communities. He became obsessed with this world and spent months at Presbyterian Homes in Evanston, Illinois, giving residents tape recorders to keep audio diaries. The first voice is Joseph Peine, 88, who lives in a two-room apartment he calls a cubicle. Joseph was a men's clothing salesman who traveled constantly — New York one day, New Orleans the next, San Francisco after that. He sold his beloved Cadillac Sedan DeVille with red leather lining and wire wheels to move in, and the loss of that car symbolizes his lost freedom. He invokes Frank Sinatra's 'My Way' to describe his former self, and says he resents needing someone to open doors for him. Eleanor Erickson, nearly 96, smoked cigarettes from age 12 for over 70 years and now wheels an oxygen tank everywhere. Her daughter allows her three cigarettes a day. She also eats nine gin-soaked raisins daily, a folk remedy for arthritis. Eleanor has lived in her room for over five years and has placed her assets in a lifetime care trust, finding a kind of peace in knowing the home must care for her until she dies. Betty Appleyard records domestic scenes with her husband Dev — his freshly shampooed white hair, his Beethoven records, their gentle bickering about haircuts and whether he could attend Chicago musicals without her. Betty underwent two knee surgeries and was told by a doctor there is nothing more to be done, with amputation mentioned as a distant option. She processes this quietly, resolving to find things she can still do. Joseph describes the dining room dynamic: eight men he calls 'the pallbearers' who speak in well-modulated tones — bankers, lawyers, former executives — with whom he shares no common language as a clothing man. He sits apart with his oxygen tank. A romance blooms between Jack Barwaldus and Evelyn Jo Johnson, both widowed, who met at meals and eventually married in a ceremony at the home, with guests joking about tying cans to their walkers. Eleanor reflects on writing letters of gratitude to people who shaped her life, noting that all her closest friends are now gone. She observes that building deep friendships takes time, and at this stage of life, that time no longer exists. Betty wakes at 5:15 a.m. in pain, watches morning light refract through a crystal bowl onto the white wall, and notices the dust she can no longer clean. Eleanor learns a friend died that morning — someone she had seen just the day before — and reflects that she used to attend weddings but now it is only funerals. She says she has friends who are ready to die and hopes to reach that same acceptance. The episode closes with Eleanor saying she does not want to relive her life, only to go forward.

As heard by us

An intimate listen about aging, companionship, and the daily work of staying oneself.

Radio Diaries turns a retirement community into a place shaped by small daily decisions: who needs help, who still wants to go out, and who is trying to hold onto a life through routine. It stays close to the people inside it, and that is the point.

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Press play for a close, humane look at life inside a retirement home.

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