Downsizing without giving up the memories
Mary Pogson started riding horses at 5 years old. Her first horse, Babe, was her transportation to a one-room schoolhouse when she was 9 years old. At least that’s how old she thinks she was. “It was so darn many years ago, it’s hard to remember sometimes,” she says.
The 91-year-old has loved horses all her life — giving up riding them only at age 79 when she rode in her first English fox hunt — so she surrounds herself with them in art, photos and collectibles at her McCrite Plaza apartment in Kansas City.
The independent living facility is a transition in her life, but it doesn’t mean she has slowed down much: The sharp-dressed and quick-witted great-grandma maintains a busy calendar and entertains friends. Although hearing is more of a struggle as of late, she carries on a conversation with 17-year-olds just as easily as with her best friend, who lives upstairs. “She’s five years younger — just a kid,” Pogson says.
The building’s European-style architecture is a fitting addition to Pogson’s lifelong love of homes and history.
She grew up in an antebellum house near Higginsville, Mo., where her great-grandfather moved after the Civil War. When it was time for her to move out, world events led her to Kansas City General Hospital (now Truman Hospital).
“The war was on and I wanted to do something constructive with myself, so I went to nursing school,” Pogson says. “And it’s a good thing because that’s where I met my husband, who was in med school.”
She and George II raised their family in a Cape Cod in Pittsburgh, Kan., where George established his medical practice. Pogson thought she’d never see a horse again, but George was inspired by a patient to raise cattle.
The couple built an English Tudor modified from a Kansas City Star article (back when readers could order floor plans from the paper) on acreage outside of town. He and Mary owned 200 head of Charolais, a French breed that Pogson adored, and she was happy to work the ranch on her horse, Blue, a surprise gift from George and the second love of her life.
“I’ve had a lot of horses, but that one had a lot of spunk, and he lived to 36. I thought he was going to break a record,” Pogson says.
When her husband passed away in 1996, Pogson continued managing the cattle business for another decade, before finally moving to a patio home in Liberty close to her daughter, Mary Ellen. Nine years later, she downsized again to this three-room apartment.
The first move forced Pogson to let go of a large portion of a lifetime of collecting. “I’ve always collected things I like,” she says, mostly English and French antiques, along with some Oriental pieces, influenced by her husband’s stationing in Japan early in their marriage — their wedding portrait was painted by a Japanese artist.
“It was an extreme challenge moving her from Pittsburgh,” Mary Ellen recalls. “She’s from the generation of the Depression, where they don’t get rid of things.”
The second downsizing was even tougher. Mary Ellen drew out a floor plan and photographed furnishings ahead of the move and consulted with friend and designer Jill Rice, who helped stage the living room salon wall with Pogson’s favorite horse paintings.
A few of the furnishings she kept were made by her husband or inherited from a dear friend. The adjustable bed was purchased new to fit the space, but most everything else is an object of importance from Pogson’s life.
They remind her of amazing travels, interesting people met throughout her life, and, of course, keep her near her beloved horses.
The “tomboy with pretty jewelry,” as her daughter sums her up, is the embodiment of a life well-lived. “She chooses to look at life like the glass is half full,” Mary Ellen says.