WINNEMUCCA - Whenever the opportunity presents itself Margaret (Peggy) Lister is on her Yamaha Kodiak 450 Special Edition 4X4 checking out the countryside where her boundaries are few and her spirit roams free.
She started using Peggy rather than Margaret when some new teachers overheard her parents calling her Peggy and asked her which she would rather they use, and for the rest of her life Peggy has been her preferred name. The years may be flying by, but they have not diminished Lister's zest for life and she said she feels younger than ever.
"It's something that really surprises me, because I do feel younger," she said. "I am 74 years old and I feel more like I'm back down, oh, say, around 50 or something like that. It seems like that happened about the time I turned 70."
Lister doesn't see age as limiting for herself or for other seniors she has met at lunch at the Pleasant Senior Center or in attendance at the resistance exercise classes held there.
She was born in the heartland of the American Revolution outside of Concord, Mass., the third child of a family that would eventually include four children. Her father was a preacher that felt called to minister to small rural churches where income was not always good and life could sometimes be hard. So, shortly after she was born her family moved to the "Duck Capital of North Dakota," Cando, N.D. Her dad would eventually minister in three different churches in North Dakota over the next several years.
Lister admitted that her favorite thing to do when she was a young 'un was to get into trouble, oftentimes along with her younger brother Jon.
"Everybody thought we were twins. We were always getting in trouble, doing things, running around. I had a much better childhood than kids have now," she said.
Lister attributes that, at least in part, to the lack of things they had back then. Some of her early years were during World War II when rationing was in force. She feels that nowadays children want things that cost a lot of money and parents feel that they have to get those gadgets for them.
"We just kind of made our own toys, our own things to play with," she said, "We had fun all the time." A fire escape at a school she would soon attend was a tube that allowed students to evacuate quickly by jumping in and sliding down to the ground. Her older sister used to take her and her little brother there when school was out and let them crawl up the tube and slide down. "It was so much fun," Lister said. Although numbers are not necessarily everyone's idea of fun, math was her favorite subject. Her older brother Clarence (Ken) was too old to be bothered with the little kids.
Halfway through high school her family took off again and this time to Nebraska where she would graduate high school. She said growing up a preacher's kid was not a problem in the lower grades, but in high school some distance developed between her and the other students.
But after high school she went to Doane College in Crete, Neb., where she found herself surrounded by people that she enjoyed being with; however, college is not for everyone and after three years Lister realized that it was not for her and moved on. At one time she had considered going to seminary after college, but then she might have ended up marrying a preacher.
"I wasn't sure I wanted to do that," she said, laughing. "I think that's why I quit. I just didn't want to do that."
So, she moved on to spend time with her older sister Carolyn in Kellogg, Idaho. After her first marriage there, which produced two children, ended she found the love of her life in James Lister. She married him in 1971 and lived happily until his death in 2007.
Her sister and Jim's mom had introduced them and from the beginning she recognized him as a nice guy. He taught her how to play billiards. He helped her on with her coat. He opened her car door. He followed her home to make sure she got there safely. And that was all on their first date!
"Once they got us together, we were together an awful lot," she said. "Then we got married and the kids were just tickled to death. They just loved him." Jim was the one who got her started on the joy of riding ATVs.
"We were on those things any chance we got and we did a lot of it. We were going all over the place," she said. "I think that was our main thing to do. I'm still doing it!"
They were both working at mines in Idaho when they decided to move to Winnemucca as those mines were shutting down. And on her 49th birthday they waved goodbye to Idaho and adopted Nevada as their new home. Jim eventually retired from Newmont Mining Corporation's Lone Tree Mine. Her son Terry lives in Spring Creek and Tim in Meridian, Idaho.
Lister enjoys spending time with her friends and going on walks with her dog Maggie. When she was introduced to the border collie at the veterinarian's office several years ago the dog had lost an eye from a gunshot wound and had a broken leg.
"I took one look at her and I said, 'If she doesn't get claimed I want her,'" Lister told the vet.
Nowadays she is enjoying riding ATVs with her friend Ron Johnson. Having a partner to do things with has brought an extra layer of joy into her life. "I'm not lonely anymore," Lister said.
She said that since her father was a pastor she had been brought up in church and had continued going with her boys for years, but at some point many years ago she got away from attending until just a couple of years ago.
"One of the very very best things that has ever happened to me was going to (Grace Baptist) Church," she said. "Everybody was so happy. I had never been anywhere where a group of people - every single one of them - was happy! And everybody was so nice. It was just wonderful. It's kind of hard to turn away from people like that."
[[In-content Ad]]
