QUINCY — Bob Poindexter has worn a variety of hats throughout his life as a military chaplain and even more since he arrived in Quincy years ago, as a pastor, a social worker a board member for the Quincy Valley Medical Center. Poindexter, 82, has also earned the title of author as he published a book titled “Who Do You Think You Are?: Retaking Control of Our Life” last July.

“Everybody knows me in town, and I don’t know why,” said Poindexter. “I guess if you stay here a long time then people know you.”

Poindexter and his wife of 60 years Sandra moved to the Quincy area in 1997 from Southern California when his wife and her friend had the idea to start a plant business in Washington.

“She said, ‘I follow you all over the world, so why can’t you just go to Washington with me,’ and so I did,” said Poindexter.

The business was never able to start up, but the Poindexters made their way to Quincy where Poindexter became a pastor at the Quincy Community Church, he said. There he served for 21 years before he retired. 

During this time, he also worked as a social worker for the state of Washington for 15 years. He provided care for people in the home who were unable to care for themselves.

“Primarily I went to work there to find out what was in the future for me in case I needed it,” he said. “You’ve got to figure out where you’re going before you get there.”

Poindexter said he took a special interest in cases involving dementia and Alzheimer’s while working as a social worker.

“I could see it coming into my family because my mother-in-law had it,” he said. 

In the last seven years of his time as a social worker he led dementia seminars and did all the work involved in the process. He had six groups, each in counties throughout Washington, where he had individuals with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers come, and he would teach them how to live with the disease.

He said because Alzheimer’s is a disease that would never go away, it comes down to the caretakers to adopt different behaviors to make helping those living with it easier.

Poindexter has stopped doing his support group sessions since he retired but said that if enough people approached him wanting to do the sessions, he would start them back up voluntarily.

“It’s so important for people to learn how to deal with folks that have dementia and Alzheimer’s,” he said. 

He said that the two most important lessons for any caregiver to learn when assisting those with those diseases are to learn to divert the individual’s attention and to take care of themselves.

“If you’re a caregiver for somebody who has Alzheimer’s or dementia, you’re still the most important person in the whole world, not only to yourself but to them now,” said Poindexter. 

Poindexter is best known for serving on the Quincy Valley Medical Center Board of Commissioners, where he has had a seat for the past 21 years. During this time, the board has been able to achieve its goal of building a hospital

“I don’t think it’s due to anything I did except long suffering,” he said. “I had nothing to do with making it happen, paying off the bills, making the money. I don’t understand any of that. I just know we needed a hospital; we finally got one and I’m pretty proud of that.”

His book “Who Do You Think You Are?: Retaking Control of Our Life” covers a lot of aspects from his own life and is overall his way of helping people learn to take charge of their own lives. He said there are too many people that don’t take responsibility for what happens in their lives and wants them to realize that their lives become easier once they take that responsibility.

“For 40 years I saw people coming into church waiting for God to fix them, waiting for Jesus to fix them, waiting for their neighbor to fix them, waiting for somebody to fix them,” he said. “And all the time they’re the only ones that can fix them.”

This mentality has helped Poindexter in his own life as he now can move forward confidently knowing everything he does is his own choice. He said there will always be circumstances that are outside of our control that enter our lives, he said, but everything else comes around to an individual’s own actions.

One thing Poindexter emphasized in his book is to have people give themselves the confidence to believe in themselves. He said the mentality of having an attitude that you can accomplish the things you set your mind to is what sets people on the path to do bigger and better things.

Soon after the publishing of the book, his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and he had to become her primary caregiver. They have since gone through the process of getting a caregiver for her, which took some time, but now they have one in the home for her, he said.

“I’ve just gotten a caregiver in for my wife almost full time and so now I’m free to do a few things for Bob,” he said.

Poindexter said his plans now are to focus on giving away his books as much as possible rather than selling it to try and help as many people as he can. He is planning at some point in the future to make his way to the Quincy Library to give copies of the book to people who are interested.

“If I get one person to read it, and it helps them, I’ve done a good job,” he said.

    From left: Project Manager Joe Kunkel; Commissioner Michele Talley; CEO Glenda Bishop; Commissioners Bob Poindexter, Anthony Gonzalez, Sherri Kooy and Randy Zolman and Quincy City Administrator Pat Haley at the groundbreaking of the Quincy Valley Medical Center in 2023.