Introducing our Retirement Couples

Left to right: Carol Gregory, Muriel Schloss, Tony Gregory and Lou Schloss

Today sees Lou and Muriel Schloss wake up on their first day at Audley Clevedon. The couple travelled up by train yesterday afternoon and left the gloomy skies of London to arrive in sunny Yorkshire (not often it’s like that!). Having spent most of the day with Mr and Mrs Gregory, meeting them, sharing stories, swapping notes about their respective villages and passing on messages to neighbours back home, the US couple were very excited about spending their first night at an Audley village.

Meanwhile, Tony and Carol Gregory will also be heading to sunnier skies this morning as they fly from Heathrow to Santa Barbara, California, to start their exchange programme. The couple will be met by the SRG Maravilla team and this evening will be treated to a Camerata Performance in the on-site clubhouse.

This blog will be following the couples over the next 10 days as they experience retirement living across the pond. By way of introduction, we’ve pulled together a brief background on both couples for you to find put more.

Lou and Muriel Schloss

Age: 86 and 84 years old

Live: SRG Maravilla, Santa Barbara

Lou was born in Heilbronn, Germany in 1925. As Lou is Jewish, when tensions increased in Germany, he was taken out of his current school and sent him to a boarding school in Switzerland until he and his family moved to the United States. In 1938, after an agonizing four year wait to receive permission to immigrate, Carl Laemmle (a German born movie pioneer in Hollywood) sponsored many German Jewish families, including the Schloss family, to come to America. They travelled from Le Havre, France to New York by ship and then continued to California by way of the Panama Canal.

Three months after Lou’s 18th birthday, he was drafted into military service. By early 1944, he had completed infantry basic training, was made a U.S. citizen, and sent to Europe. There he served for a year and one half – partly in the Infantry and partly in Military Intelligence. Thanks to the GI Bill, following the war, Lou returned to school at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). There in addition to studying and working he played on the soccer team. In 1948 Lou left school to get married – to which he says, “the smartest thing I ever did.”

Muriel was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1927. When she was eight, her family moved across the country to Los Angeles, California. Three years after the move, her parents divorced and her mother returned to Michigan. At that time, Muriel began travelling back and forth by car, train and eventually by plane until she went to college. By the time she enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Muriel had attended 13 schools and moved 15 times.

Married for nearly 64 years, Lou and Muriel have two children and four grandchildren.

Tony and Carol Gregory

Age: 70 and 68

Live: Audley St Elphin’s Park, Derbyshire

Tony and Carol are childhood sweethearts. They went to the same school, where Tony was head boy and they started ‘courting’ when Carol was 14 and Tony was 16, after being introduced at their local youth club. The couple married five years later and will be celebrating their 48^th wedding anniversary this year.

Tony’s first job was as a miner in the pits, he then spent nearly 29 years in the police force and finally took a job as a loss adjustor in an insurance company before retiring.

Carol left school and worked in a drapers shop, she then worked for the local council before spending 23 years as an accounts clerk.

Mr and Mrs Gregory moved to St Elphin’s Park in April 2010. The couple are originally from nearby town Alfreton and have always lived in Derbyshire. They chose to retire to the Derbyshire Dales area as being near Matlock meant they were closer to family and friends.

The couple have two daughters – one lives in North Carolina and the other near Toronto in Canada. They have two grandchildren in North Carolina who they normally see once a year. Unfortunately they won't get to see them on this trip, but are planning on visiting sometime in 2012.

Remember you can follow the exchange day by day on the Audley Retirement Facebook page and Twitter feed @AudleyAdviser.