WT is retiring District Overseers, has sent older JWs serving at Bethel packing despite years of faithful service, and as of June 1, 2014, has announced that any elder that has reached 80 years of age is no longer valued or wanted as a COBE. In WT Land it would appear that older people have little or no value, and WT sees no reason to use them in any meaningful capacity. I wonder how this makes older ones feel after devoting their lives to WT's interests while shelving their own hopes and dreams?
In light of Watchtower's recent corporate policy changes in regard to older JWs, especially men, I thought it would be interesting to see what people have accomplished in life in their later years. Here are a few examples I've found:
achievements at an advanced age
Many well-known people made major accomplishments in old age. The following is a list of such examples.
1. At 100, Grandma Moses was painting.
2. At 94, Bertrand Russell was active in international peace drives.
3. At 93, George Bernard Shaw wrote the play Farfetched Fables.
4. At 91, Eamon de Valera served as president of Ireland.
5. At 91, Adolph Zukon was chairman of Paramount Pictures.
6. At 90, Pablo Picasso was producing drawings and engravings.
7. At 89, Mary Baker Eddy was directing the Christian Science Church.
8. At 89, Arthur Rubinstein gave one of his greatest recitals in New York's Carnegie Hall.
9. At 89, Albert Schweitzer headed a hospital in Africa.
10. At 88, Pablo Casals was giving cello concerts.
11. At 88, Michaelangelo did architectural plans for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
12. At 88, Konrad Adenauer was chancellor of Germany.
13. At 85, Coco Chanel was the head of a fashion design firm.
14. At 84, Somerset Maugham wrote Points of View.
15. At 83, Aleksandr Kerensky wrote Russia and History's Turning Point.
16. At 82, Winston Churchill wrote a History of English Speaking People.
17. At 82, Leo Tolstoy wrote I Cannot Be Silent.
18. At 81, Benjamin Franklin effected the compromise that led to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
19. At 81, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe finished Faust.
20. At 80, George Bums won an Academy Award for his performance in The Sunshine Boys.
http://www.medrounds.org/encyclopedia-of-aging/2005/12/achievements-at-advanced-age-action.html
75 yrs old- Warren Buffett set up a $30 billion contribution to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for use in various world-wide charitable causes. + Cancer survivor Barbara Hillary became one of the oldest people, and the first black woman, to reach the north pole.
80 yrs old – Jessica Tandy became the oldest Oscar recipient for her work in Driving Miss Daisy.
85 yrs old- At 85, "Coco" Chanel was the head of a fashion design firm.
90 yrs old- Pablo Picasso was still producing drawings and engravings.
95 yrs old- Nola Ochs became the oldest person to receive a college diploma, a degree in general studies with an emphasis on history.
100+ yrs old - Alice Porlock of Great Britain published her first book, Portrait of My Victorian Youth, when she was 102 years old.