You don’t have to be shy.
Edith Andrews
Iowa City resident Edith Andrews said one conversation more than 40 years ago changed her life.
Andrews, 91, said she was hosting a visit with her family in her home and her sister-in-law was nagging at her.
“She said to me, ‘Why didn’t you ever accomplish anything?’ I told her ‘It’s because I’m too shy,’” she said.
Andrews, the fourth oldest of 11 children, said her family was full of doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers. Her sister-in-law told her that day that shy people just go around thinking of themselves all the time.
“They wonder if their clothes are appropriate and if their hair is combed and such, and they can’t do anything because they are too worried about what other people would think,” Andrews said.
That fit her. Andrews said when she was younger and wore silk stockings with seams in the back, she never turned her back to anyone because she was worried the seams weren’t straight.
Despite the negative tone of the exchange, Andrews said she didn’t get defensive.
“I didn’t get angry at all,” she said of her family’s wake-up call to her. “That’s just the way I was. That changed my life.”
Andrews opened her own custodial care center in Northwood and took care of other people as a practical nurse until she was 80. Andrews said she is proud of her children and grandchildren, who became the family’s next generation of doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers.
“I think I have a lesson for people, for shy people,” she said. “You don’t have to be shy. You can overcome it. I have advised people being shy — they almost waste their lives, or waste their time anyway.”
Andrews said gaining some confidence was liberating. “I’m not afraid to go into a room alone,” she said. “Even if it is full of people and I sit by myself. It’s so wonderful to be free of that fear.”
— Kathryn Fiegen
