LINN, Mo. - Clarence Voss will be 93 on April 29.
And he's lived and worked in Osage County for his entire life - except for that time in his 20s when he "traveled" in the South Pacific with the U.S. Army during World War II.
While some veterans after the war moved to new places, Voss said he came back home because of "my family, my girlfriend and things like that. She waited for me all the while I was in the service.
"And, I thought, if she waited for me that long, we needed to get married."
Voss and his wife had one son, "and we were lucky to have him," he said.
The son moved to Houston, Texas, about 40 years ago to work in the Space Program - then stayed with an oil construction company and still lives in Texas.
Also, soon after Voss returned from World War II, he took a job as a lineman with Three Rivers Electric Cooperative.
"I took it easy for a month - just laid around and done nothing," he recalled. "Then I decided it was high time to get a job. So I got a job with Three Rivers - and stayed there for 39 years."
Document set
Going For Broke: John David Lindsey
In the early days, he was helping the co-op build electric service into the rural areas that, until then, had not enjoyed it.
"I was a lineman for about seven or eight years," Voss said, "and then they made me a foreman.
"I'd be in charge of, maybe, two or three men - and, depending ontwhat we were doing, it might be a dozen men."
He said he enjoyed everything about his job and his years at Three Rivers.
"It didn't have a worst part," he said. "I enjoyed all of it."
His wife died in August 1991, and he's been on his own ever since. He began going to Linn's Senior Center for his mid-day meal - but the center closed in 2013.
"There was a lady there who helped with the cooking," he said. "She was really nice - she helped everybody.
"I told her one day, as the center was closing down, "I need the meals on wheels. I can't afford to be running to (buy) it all the time.' Two weeks later, I was getting them."
And they've been coming ever since - now with 14 frozen meals a week that Voss can warm in a microwave.
"I have to have it because I wouldn't have anything to eat in the evening," Voss said. "I'm not able to fix anything (for myself)."
He also has an in-home health aide who assists him.
Voss has lived in his home in eastern Linn for about 40 years.
It's the one-story home he had built when his wife - who had severe rheumatoid arthritis - no longer could handle the stairs in the two-story home they had lived in south of town.
The meals program helps Voss continue to stay in that home.
"I want to stay home as long as I can," he said. "I want to die here, instead of someplace else."
Those meals come to Voss's Osage County home courtesy of Cole County's Senior Nutrition Program - part of the Central Missouri Area Agency on Aging's services.
"We offer one nutritious meal a day," Program Administrator Frankie Reames said. "They used to be hot meals, when there were not so many people.
"But now we have over 130 people, just in Cole County alone."
That makes it hard to do daily food deliveries, so the agency switched to providing seven frozen meals, delivered once a week - with additional visits providing milk, juice and bread.
When the Linn Senior Center closed in 2013, the Cole County Senior Nutrition Program "took over all of Osage County's homebound" seniors who had been served by the Linn program, Reames said.
The Jefferson City-based program also serves a few clients in Callaway, Boone and Maries counties because their homes are closer to the Jefferson City program than to other AAA agencies.
The meals program, whether home-delivered or in "congregate" settings - like Jefferson City's Clarke Senior Center at the Hyder Apartments or at Capital Mall - serve anyone who is at least 60 (or whose spouse is at least 60).
"We don't charge for the meal," Reames said. "We just ask a suggested contribution of $4."
Medicaid pays for an extra seven meals for those who qualify, like Voss.
The congregate program also provides educational classes and social opportunities, including groups that play cards or Bingo together or watch movies.
The University of Missouri Extension Program soon will be offering a class at the mall on cooking and "teaching seniors how to cook on a budget and shop on a budget and that kind of stuff," Reames said.
"I'm trying to get some new stuff out here to get more people interacting, and more things for them to do.
Reames, who is 39, "loves" the program. She began about five years ago as a cook, then became Brenda Doyle's assistant.
Reames was named its director when Doyle, the previous director, shifted to heading the Senior Nutrition Program in the Fort Leonard Wood-Waynesville-St. Robert-Dixon area.
The CM-AAA uses federal money from the Older Americans Act to fund the centers.
"Once the federal money runs out, our local board picks up the tab," Reames said. "The local board pays for the homebound services" and gets help for that service from the United Way of Central Missouri.
This year's United Way contribution is $50,000.
"We end up pretty much on an even keel," she said. "We're nothing like back when (we) first started and always were in the red."
But, she added, "Without the United Way, we would have homebound people on a freeze," where they would be on a waiting list until more money was available.
"Right when I first started," Reames recalled, "we had just come off a freeze. I haven't had to put anybody on a waiting list."
The Cole County Senior Nutrition Center has a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/Cole-County-Senior-Nutrition-Program, and can be called at 573-634-8020 (Clarke Center) or 573-635-4120 (Capital Mall).
Reames said the program needs more volunteers, especially to help deliver meals to the homebound.
"For some of those, the meals that we deliver to them are the only meals that they get," Reames said.
She wants people to remember the Senior Nutrition Program is open to anyone who is at least 60 - there are no financial requirements.
During last week's interview, Voss several times talked about the program's importance.
"There's no way that I could do without it," he said.
How to donate
In order to be tax deductible, checks must be made payable to the United Way of Central Missouri and the United Way must retain the right to specifically determine who the donation will benefit.
The United Way will establish "A Christmas Wish" fund, and donors can give a gift "in the name of" someone specific, or a United Way partner agency.
A volunteer committee will oversee the distribution of these funds.
If you want to help fill a Christmas wish, mail checks to United Way of Central Missouri, 205 Alameda Drive, Jefferson City Missouri 65109. "News Tribune Christmas Wish Fund" should be noted on the memo line of the check.
Questions may be directed to Ann Bax, President of United Way of Central Missouri, 573-636-4100, or [email protected].