Once they graduated from high school in 1981, and most ...

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MAY 16, 2009

The Ties That Bind

Linked by 30 years of experiences and memories, 10 women from Ames, Iowa, are a lesson in the power and lifelong benefits of friendship



They were 11 girls growing up together in Ames, Iowa. Now they are 10 women in their mid-40s, spread all over the country. And they remain the closest of friends.

Whenever "the Ames girls" get together, it's as if they've stepped into a time machine. They feel like they are every age they ever were, because they see each other through thousands of shared memories.

As 12-year-olds, they'd sit in a circle, combing each other's hair. As 17-year-olds, they'd go to parties together deep in the cornfields outside Ames. As 30-year-olds, they'd commiserate over the challenges of marriage and motherhood.

Like the Ames girls, millions of us have nurtured decades-long friendships, and we don't always stop to recognize the power of these bonds. As we age, friendships can be crucial to our health and even our sanity. In fact, a host of scientific studies show that having a close group of friends helps people sleep better, improve their immune systems, stave off dementia and live longer.

I've just spent two years immersing myself in the friendship of the Ames girls for a book project that grew out of my Wall Street Journal column, Moving On. I had written a column about the turning points in women's friendships. My story focused on why women, more than men, have great urges to hold on tightly to old friends.

That day I got hundreds of emails from people telling me about their groups of friends: Teness Herman

The Ames girls today. Top row: Karla Blackwood, Cathy Highland, Sally Hamilton, Karen Leininger. Middle row: Jane Nash, Angela Jamison, Marilyn Johnson. Bottom row: Diana Sarussi, Jennifer Litchman, Kelly Zwagerman.



"We've gotten together twice a year since we graduated from high school in 1939. "

"We met in Phoenix and call ourselves Phriends Phorever. "

And then there was the email from Jennifer Litchman, an assistant dean at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Jenny from Ames.

She told me about her friends, the Ames girls, and I got the sense that they had a moving and sweeping story to tell. Born at the end of the baby boom, their memories are evocative of their times. Their story is universal, even common, and on that level, it can't help but resonate with almost anyone who has ever had a friend. And yet some of their experiences together were so one-of-a-kind that I asked if they would let me chronicle their story.

The Ames girls agreed, and I set about writing a biography of their friendship, finding lessons for the rest of us.

* * *

In their adult lives, the Ames girls have gone in many directions. There's Jenny in Maryland. Kelly Zwagerman and Sally Hamilton are teachers in Minnesota and Iowa. Cathy Highland is a makeup artist in California. Karen Leininger, Karla Blackwood and Marilyn Johnson are stay-at-home moms in Pennsylvania, Montana and Minnesota. Diana Sarussi works at a Starbucks in Arizona. Jane Nash is a psychology professor in Massachusetts. Angela Jamison runs a public-relations firm in North Carolina.

But at the center of their relationship is the town of Ames, home to Iowa State University. All around Ames sit cornfields, with a farmhouse here or there, and not much else off into the horizon. But in the town itself, home to some 50,000 people, there was an energy, with adults falling in love and doing meaningful work, making mistakes and paying the price, and taking the time to teach the girls life lessons they've never forgotten. For the girls, who often say they feel like sisters, Ames was their shared womb.

Growing up, the girls often landed in each other's lives by virtue of alphabetical order or a class seating chart. They came to know and love each other in part through all the goofy things they said and did when they were young.

Like the time Karen, too anxious about spending a night away from home to have sleepovers, made up an odd excuse for why she could never stay at the other girls' homes. She said it was because she hadn't yet been baptized. Unbaptized Catholics must sleep in their own beds, she told Jenny. "Otherwise, if they die in their sleep on a sleepover at some other kid's house, they won't go to heaven."

Pop culture often bonded the girls. When the movie "10" came out in 1979, the girls convinced Karen that since she had the longest hair, she needed to get the full Bo Derek cornrow treatment. It took the girls hours to get the job done. But then, because Karen looked so good, the others got jealous. And so someone had to say it: "Who does she think she is? Bo Derek?"

The girls were always observing each other closely. They were constantly speculating, judging, measuring. They wanted to know everything about hygiene, acne, puberty, sex, and they learned by monitoring each other.

Have you maintained friendships from childhood? What have these relationships meant to your life? And what were some of the biggest challenges your friendships faced? Are there others you regret that you failed to preserve?

Plus, see a photo essay about the women whose friendship inspired Jeffrey Zaslow's latest book, "The Girls from Ames."

The Juggle: The Power of Longtime Friendships

As a group, the girls sometimes seemed like they had an overabundance of self-confidence. When they were high-school sophomores in 1979, they loved to strut around singing Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" But most of them, as individuals, were insecure. They didn't really want to ask the question, and they didn't want to hear the answer.

Once they graduated from high school in 1981, and most made plans to move away, they maintained their bravado about remaining close forever. In their hearts, however, they struggled with the uncertainty of splitting up.

Late one night, before leaving for college, Jenny sat with her father on the family's front porch. Talk turned to the girls going separate ways.

For years, her dad had watched the loving chemistry between the 11 girls. But as an insurance executive, he was aware that in any group of people, odds can be determined for almost every outcome and tragedy that might befall them.

"You've got to look at the odds," he told Jenny. "Odds are you won't all be friends as years go by. And it's unlikely that everyone's life will go smoothly." Her father's actuarial instincts overtook him, and he couldn't resist being specific: "My guess is, in 15 years, one of you girls will be estranged from the group. Two of you will be divorced. One of you will still be single. One of you may be dead. You have to expect that. Because that's just how life works."

Today, Jenny has vivid recollections of that conversation-how her dad's words hung in the air, and how she sat there thinking he had to be wrong.

* * *

On several fronts, her dad was right. One of the Ames girls would die mysteriously at age 22. Three would get divorced. Two would struggle with breast cancer. One had a child with a grave illness, revealing to the other Ames girls a depth of heartache no one could have imagined back when they were childhood friends.

But there has been no estrangement. Through all of the setbacks and losses in their lives, the Ames girls have been there to support each other. And though they haven't tracked all the scientific studies about friendship, they feel the benefits.

The research is clear about the positive implications of friendship. There was, for instance, a 14-year project at Flinders University in Australia that tracked 1,500 women as they aged. The study found that close friendships-even more than close family ties-help prolong women's lives. Those with the most friends lived 22% longer than those with the fewest friends.

All sorts of studies make similar points. Duke University researchers looked at hundreds of unmarried patients with coronary heart disease and found that, of those with close friends, 85% lived at least five years. That was double the survival rate of those lacking in friends.

Gerontologists say longtime friends are often more understanding about health issues than family members are. Friends are more apt to acknowledge each other's ailments without dwelling on them. The Ames girls do their share of talking about the aging process, but then they move on to the next conversation. And given how much they laugh, and how laughter is good for anyone's health, they figure their time together is completely therapeutic.

"It's good for my mental health to know there's a group of people I can turn to at any moment in my life, and they'll be my safety net," says Marilyn.