Old age ain't for sissies.

— Bette Davis

Her father had lived for a decade and a half in a big house on the Eastern Shore. Then he started showing signs of dementia. In 2008, Barbara Turner finally had to take the reins.

It was tough enough that Turner, a retired newspaper journalist, was forced to move her dad into assisted living. But what should she do with his stuff? She wanted to keep it all — the chairs, the old photos, even the lawn equipment. But her own home started filling up.

Then it hit her. "There's an opportunity cost for everything you keep," she says. "You have to stop and ask yourself: 'Is this [object] going to make my life better? Will I love it? What right does it have to be in my space?"

She's one of a growing number of Americans dealing with questions of space brought about by aging — and one of more than 30 who filled a classroom at the Pascal Senior Center this month for a talk by Susan von Suhrke, a Crownsville resident who left corporate life not long ago to join the expanding and often emotionally charged field of senior move management.

"We [all] need to surround ourselves with things that support who we are and where we want to go right now, and get rid of the things that undermine [that]," says von Suhrke, a certified relocation transition specialist. "As the population ages, and more people find themselves downsizing or just moving, the choices are hard. But it's liberating to make them."

At the seminar, Pascal Center manager Nancy Allred makes a few opening remarks, and as the talk begins, many listeners wear anxious expressions. As it unfolds, some loosen up and laugh. With her tall stature, operatic voice and overhead slides, Von Suhrke, 61, makes for a reassuring guide.

But aging in modern America is complex, and our best hope in managing it might lie in facing a simple question that predates von Suhrke's industry by centuries. "It's a way of asking, 'Who am I?'" she says.

Moving boxes

Professional organizing got its start, some say, about three decades ago, when it became clear that American life had grown faster-paced, careers more changeable, relocations more frequent — fertile conditions for chaos and stress.

Whenever it was born, the field's top trade organization, the National Association of Professional Organizers, which turns 25 this year, boasts more than 4,200 members. About 90 of those, including von Suhrke, live within an hour's drive of Baltimore.

Von Suhrke ("it rhymes with 'turkey,'" she says) was a ripe candidate to jump in.

Born in Colorado and raised in New Mexico, she has moved a dozen times in her life, weighing anchor in places as wide-ranging as Kansas City, Augsburg, Germany, and New York. "I certainly know my way around a moving box," she says.

Tailoring her belongings to those new homes forced von Suhrke to develop a few basic culling principles. "Sometimes you keep things because they were a gift from someone, or you think you might get around to using it," she says. "Sometimes a thing might even bring back unpleasant memories, but they're linked to someone you've lost. But guilt isn't a good reason. If a thing doesn't enhance or support who you are or want to be at this stage, let it go."

In a field known to attract workers from many backgrounds, von Suhrke accumulated experiences the way someone who lives in the same house for years gathers possessions. Many are useful, she says, as she spends her days helping clients rearrange work spaces or kitchens ("take the items you use less often and keep them in the hard-to-reach spaces"), "de-cluttering" basements or planning for a move. (Professionals generally charge somewhere between $40 and $90 an hour.)

A classically trained vocalist, she performed as a professional singer at 16, then got more stage time while earning degrees in musical theater and dance. A dog lover, she started and ran an obedience-training school (she and her husband used to show Briards), worked as a sales rep at an Army base, even taught swimming.

In Anne Arundel, where she has lived since 1981, she spent a decade as an administrative assistant with an aeronautical communications firm, finding time to become "that person who organizes the events" at church. "I've just always been known as that 'fix-it' person," says von Suhrke, who believes that organized parents tend to raise organized kids.

Three years ago, she saw an article in a local paper about professional organizers. The field seemed to call for skills she had in spades: problem-solving, teaching, encouraging, even public speaking. It called for less startup money than most. And she figured she could work out of the small home she shares "with a 6-foot-2 husband and two big dogs." She downsized into a new career.

The field was surprisingly big. Even before she met with counselors from the county's small business development center, she realized that fewer than 20 CRTS-certified professionals cover Maryland. (The credential means an organizer has taken an intensive three-day seminar, passed an exam and criminal background check, and keeps his or her education up to date.).

Including von Suhrke and her solo business, Timely Transitions LLC, four of those are in Anne Arundel County. Business in general is good enough, she says, that she refers clients to others in and around Baltimore, and they return the favor.

Saddles and settees

Not every organizing business handles the same issues. Patricia DiMiceli, proprietor of Organizing Made Simple in Annapolis, does event planning for businesses and specializes in time management and kitchen organization, among other things.

In addition to handling garages, attics and basements, Amy Rehkemper of Simplify Organizing LLC in Baltimore will work with the "chronically disorganized" and sufferers of attention-deficit disorder.

But for von Suhrke and others, a key societal trend has proved beneficial — and compelling.

The fastest-growing population demographic in America consists of people 85 or older, according to the National Association of Senior Move Managers. In addition to having more disposable income than most, that group faces more than its share of irreversibly life-altering decisions.

Often, the moments of truth occur at times of crisis — death, illness, infirmity — that call for a sudden jolt of organizing, not to mention reassurance and a helping hand.

As far back as 1997, von Suhrke needed just that kind of support. Her grandmother, who had lived most of her life in the same home in Kansas City, suddenly needed continuous care. It fell to von Suhrke, an only daughter and only granddaughter, to close and sell the place.

Her grandma, she says, was like many who lived through the Great Depression: deeply rooted to one spot and habitually loath to part with possessions. "She had every single birthday, Christmas, Easter and Mother's Day card she had ever been given," says von Suhrke — not to mention the photo albums, linens, old toys, furniture, books and other things that had been the stuff of a well-lived life.

Von Suhrke was lucky, she says. She had lived in Kansas City, so she knew where to look for reputable painters, electricians and real estate agents. But the other stuff was rough. What to do with that saddle from her own childhood? (It was bulky but stirred fun memories.) Or the blue-velvet camelback settee (one-of-a-kind, high-maintenance) or the canopy bed.

Then there are photos. How could you throw any of those out? On the other hand, how often will you or anyone view this one of Cousin Phil's graduation or that one of old Aunt Harriet? Worse, what if there's a cache of people you don't even recognize? "You always think, 'Well, there's someone out there who'd just love to have these,'" von Suhrke says. "But do you even have a way of finding out who?

"I wish I had known [senior move] managers at the time," she says. "I'd have gladly called for reinforcements." As it was, she made some good calls, a few she regrets. The saddle and the canopy bed now sit in a storage shed she and her husband built in their back yard.

The settee? She let it go. "If I'd kept it, we'd have had to replace it by now," she says. "But I miss it. It was wonderful."

Independence

The way she runs a PowerPoint show, gazing over an ever-present pair of bifocals, von Suhrke is like that high school teacher who asked more of you than you knew you had to give: annoying in the short-term, gratifying in the long.

Downsizing — or "rightsizing," as some pros call it — can be a noble task. "Have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful, think to be beautiful, or love," she says, quoting William Morris, a 19th-century British designer.

"Get in touch with your current lifestyle, and purge anything that's not a positive influence," she adds.

But it's so emotionally daunting it usually helps to break the process into parts. Von Suhrke's neat, bulleted slides do that.

First, adjust your mindset. "Clearing clutter clears the mind" and opens the future, she says, so "think of clutter-free living as a choice, not a chore." She turns to the group. "Make a declaration of independence from clutter," she says. Several nod.

The thought of de-cluttering can be overwhelming, so start small — with a room, a closet, even a drawer — and build on that success. "People try to change too much at once," she says. "Let a little success build into another."

Those already under way get pointers. Get your supplies ready (trash bags, marking pens, twist-ties) before you start. Draw a circle around that closet you're cleaning, put a laundry basket inside, and whatever you do, don't leave the space for two hours. Do the easy stuff first ("how many salad tongs do you really need?"), the hardest, like pictures, later.

"And don't keep that sweater-vest you can only wear after you lose 18 pounds," she says, and laughter ripples through the room.

Some have come to the class with weighty issues. After her husband died a few years ago, Shirley Lowe moved from her family's five-bedroom home at Thomas Point to a much-smaller condo in Annapolis.

She owns lots of antiques, including furniture and an heirloom punch bowl, and her grown children do want a few — but until the economy approves, they can't buy homes big enough to house them.

Lowe, a 76-year-old retired art teacher, is paying monthly fees to store the items, a strain on her resources, and has no clue when relief will come. "I have decisions to make," she says resolutely.

The atmosphere lightens as von Suhrke hands out some door prizes, including a book on feng shui: "To Make Room For the Future, Let Go of the Past." The students get to their feet. Most seem glad to have sat in. "I'm glad to realize I'm not alone," says Lowe.

For her part, Turner seems to have had an epiphany. Clutter is a sign of decisions postponed, she proclaims, and after getting to her home in Glen Burnie it takes her less than two hours to clean out six drawers and six cubbies. "[Susan] gave me permission to start small," she says. "I needed that."

A facility official says that Pascal Center is starting a support group for de-clutterers. Von Suhrke volunteers. And Allred, the center manager, steers lingerers to the back of the room, where a sheet cake sits next to some plates and forks.

It was served after a class a week or so ago. Since then it has been taking up space. "As of now," Allred says, "we're right-sizing the freezer."

jonathan.pitts@baltsun.com