Senior's Passion Projects Highlight Benefits of Community Living
Margo Euler's founding of multiple musical groups and a singing kayaking organization demonstrates how senior living communities enable residents to pursue lifelong passions while eliminating home maintenance burdens.
Margo Euler, a resident at Linden Ponds, an Erickson Senior Living community in Hingham, Massachusetts, has channeled her lifelong passion for music and kayaking into creating multiple community organizations that showcase the benefits of senior living environments. Her story illustrates how such communities facilitate continued engagement with personal interests while providing freedom from home maintenance responsibilities.
Euler founded three distinct musical groups over the years: Broad Cove Chorale, a women's ensemble established in 1975; Unicorn Singers, a mixed ensemble formed in 1978 that performs classical choral music, close harmony, jazz, and Broadway; and Aquapella, an innovative group of singing kayakers. After moving to Linden Ponds on Thanksgiving in 2014, she continued conducting these groups while integrating them into the community's activities.
The ability to maintain outside interests while building new community connections represents a significant advantage of senior living arrangements. Euler notes that moving to Linden Ponds offered "the best of both worlds," allowing her to remain active in established pursuits while meeting new neighbors and volunteering within the community. This balance enabled her to schedule performances at the community's performing arts center, where several chorale members now reside alongside a supportive fan base.
Euler's recent retirement from conducting in 2022 marked a transition rather than an end to her musical involvement. She continues singing with the Unicorn Singers and has increased her dedication to Aquapella, the singing kayaking group she founded while living on the Weir River. The group, which meets at various harbor and pond locations from Hingham and Weymouth to Scituate, Duxbury, and Plymouth, completed 163 outings between Easter and Thanksgiving last season, demonstrating remarkable activity levels possible in senior years.
The underlying significance of Euler's story lies in how Linden Ponds' worry-free lifestyle enables residents to focus energy on meaningful pursuits rather than home maintenance. She emphasizes this benefit, recalling how the community provided security during the four blizzards of winter 2015 while eliminating concerns about gutter maintenance, cooking, and other household chores. This environment has allowed her to organize community garden songs, lead singalongs for continuing care residents, and share photographic presentations in the media room.
Euler's experience demonstrates how senior living communities can successfully support both the continuation of established passions and the development of new social connections, providing families with peace of mind while enabling residents to maintain active, engaged lifestyles focused on what matters most to them.