STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Many listeners to this program will recall that in our personal finance series last spring, we met three families who were taking care of school-age or college-aged kids, and caring for an aging relative - three generations under one roof. You heard the phrase "the sandwich generation" just a moment ago.
It's in that series that we met AnnaBelle Bowers - or "Snootzie," as she was called. She was 87 at the time, living with two of her grandkids and their families, going back and forth between the two homes every two weeks.
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ANNABELLE BOWERS: I just feel like I'm a burden, but the girls don't even think that way of me. I make their day miserable, but I make it.
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: AnnaBelle Bowers died over the weekend, at the age of 88. She took on a lot of jobs over her life - telephone operator, bartender, housecleaner, mother. After a life of working hard, in her final years she could be found in one of her grandkids' homes; feet up in a recliner, singing along to her iPod or watching television. She also enjoyed her six great-grandchildren.
Here's another bit of the conversation that NPR's David Greene had with Bowers and her granddaughter-in-law LaDonna Martin.
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BOWERS: Oh, we have a good time last night.
LADONNA MARTIN: We almost went for drinks. How about it?
BOWERS: Yeah, we needed our margarita.
MARTIN: We don't always tell everyone.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: I said, we don't always tell everyone.
BOWERS: No.
MARTIN: That's our little secret.
BOWERS: That's our secret.
INSKEEP: Bowers' grandchildren told us it was not always easy caring for her. But they did that, all the way. AnnaBelle "Snootzie" Bowers died at the home of her granddaughter Kelley Hawkins.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.