BRAINTREE, Mass. − Laid low this summer by a nasty bout of Lyme disease, Barbara Serena is embracing the things she likes to do the most to spur her recovery.
That’s her nature: positivity.
Barbara, who will turn 89 on Jan. 2, 2024, is golfing again and looks ahead to reaching a new decade at 90: “I think it’s going to be great.”
Recently, the petite Norwell resident arrived at the Braintree Municipal Golf Course with her grandson Patrick Collins, 31, to play nine holes of golf.
With short curly white hair, she was wearing a snazzy black-and-white outfit and first went into the pro shop to greet staffer Ed Corcoran. He was happy to see her again and checked her in.
Then she headed to the first tee to find the starter. Ahmed Raiss, a retired European history teacher at Braintree High School, assigned her one of the electric golf carts lined up nearby. Carrying her clubs, she hopped in, put it in reverse, turned it around and was off to pick up her grandson, who had parked the car.
A few minutes later, the pair were starting their round. Barbara played from the red tee, used by golfers who prefer a shorter distance to the hole. After she took her first shot, she relaxed.
“It felt good. … I’ll get there,” she said.
Barbara is the oldest member of the Braintree Women’s Golf Association. Denise Wessman, the assistant tournament director, who is 72, calls her “an inspiration.”
“She plays wonderfully and she hits the ball well,” Wessman said. “I hope I’m doing the same when I get to her age.”
Barbara Serena, 88, of Norwell, and her grandson Patrick Collins, 31, played golf together recently at the Braintree Municipal Golf Course. Barbara is the oldest member of the Braintree Women’s Golf Association. (Photo by E. Gene Chambers)
Although she has won tournaments in her flight, or handicap group, Barbara has another valued quality.
“She doesn’t get discouraged,” Wessman said. “She doesn’t let golf get her down.
“And as more and more people are living to a ripe old age, to stay active the way Barbara does is an accomplishment.”
Older golfers are a growing swing group
Senior golfers (age 50 and over) are the only age group that has been showing significant growth, according to the National Golf Foundation. Some 6.4 million senior golfers represent 26% of all golfers.
“I’m a late bloomer,” Barbara said about her zest for sports in her ninth decade. “I didn’t start golfing until I was 60, when some friends suggested we all take lessons, and I just got hooked. When I was 80, I had a hole-in-one. I just love it.”
The longevity odds seem to be on her side. Her mother lived to 106, her father to age 91 and she has two brothers, one 86 who works out, the other 78.
“My dad was an avid golfer and at that time, if I had been a boy, he would have taken me golfing,” she said.
In June, Barbara began feeling very tired and had a persistent pain in the back of her neck. After a month, doctors diagnosed her with Lyme disease. She was placed on medication, and it took another month for the drugs to work. As soon as she took her last pill, she began swimming again in August. That’s when I met her in the pool at the Emilson South Shore YMCA in Hanover, where she swims a half-mile five days a week.
Barbara Serena had a very good day when she was 80 and she hit a hole-in-one in September 2015 at the Braintree Municipal Golf Course. She was at the 16th hole.
That day she came in beaming. She said it was her first swim in three months, and looked so resolute when she started her steady crawl that later I asked her age. She told me about her illness.
“I bounced back pretty fast,” she said.
Besides swimming again, she was playing golf again and recently resumed bowling with friends at the Boston Bowl in Hanover.
Born Barbara Marnoni, she grew up in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. She graduated from Jeannette High School in 1953, worked for Bell Telephone Co. (now AT&T) and in 1957 married businessman Ernest Serena, now 89.
His career took them to several locations. They have three children, Dr. Thomas Serena and Christi Collins, of Norwell, and Annette McGraw in Kansas; 10 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
When they lived in New Jersey, and her children were in school, she and a friend opened a dress shop. She later worked as a buyer in a small department store in Pennsylvania.
Ernest and Barbara Serena on their wedding day in 1957 in Pennsylvania.
Find the exercise you like and have fun
She never was especially athletic but was always active and finds that if she keeps moving, she has more energy. When she comes home from swimming, she feels invigorated for three to four hours. And sustaining this pace has not been a chore at all so far.
“People see my age and what I do and the shape I’m in and they tell me I inspire them,” she said. “I am an upbeat person.
“I just tell people, ‘You have to find the exercise that you like and then you will do it.’ ”
Her spiritual life is also part of what sustains her. She belongs to Our Lady of the Angels Parish in Hanover. She describes herself as “a believer,” has had long, very helpful discussions about faith with her brother-in-law, who is a priest, and also meditates.
“I was brought up Catholic and as I got older, I started thinking more about it all, and I joined a prayer group,” she said. “I discovered that God is really in my life and that gave me self-confidence. It becomes a growth experience; it grew and grew.”
Sometimes she has the desire to be in a room quietly by herself to meditate. Sometimes she wakes up in the morning and does this before she gets up. She describes how she gets everything out of her mind, and when she is done, she feels peaceful, without worries.
Barbara Serena, 88, says it feels good to be back on the golf course.
Occasionally, her grandson Patrick Collins will meditate with her. It is a bond between them. She finds all 10 of her grandchildren very interesting and different.
“We’re a very close family,” she said. “We still have Sunday dinner together and we have a lot of fun.”
A few weeks ago, dinner was at her house and there were 14. This past Saturday, her daughter-in-law was cooking.
Looking back over her life, she finds the past 30 years have been especially fruitful and happy in ways she might not have expected.
“I’m better now than I was when I was younger,” she said. “I have more self-confidence.
“When I started doing things that made me feel successful, just little jobs that brought me success, it surprised me. I started golfing and I was good. I started swimming and bowling and I was good. That gave me self-confidence.”