Eileen Montecalvo, a Malden resident and lifelong learner, is set to graduate with a master’s degree in nursing at 81 years old after being inspired by a newspaper photo decades ago.Montecalvo was a 29-year-old mother of three when she saw a picture that changed her life’s path.”On this particular day, there was a picture on the front page of a nursing school graduating class,” Montecalvo said. “I looked at the picture and I noticed they were not all young kids in this picture, they were older people in there.”Montecalvo showed the picture to her husband, John, who encouraged her to consider nursing.”He said, ‘Is that something you might be interested in?’ I said, ‘Well, I never thought about it, but I have three little kids here,’ and he said, ‘Well, so do I,'” Montecalvo said.This marked the beginning of Montecalvo’s long career in nursing, supported by her husband. She became the first of three generations in her family to work in the field, with her daughter and grandchildren also becoming nurses. Montecalvo has never stopped learning, advancing from an LPN to an RN and earning her associate’s, bachelor’s and now her master’s degree.”So when I was 78 years old, I stopped working, and my grandchildren were saying to me, ‘You need to keep your brain going,'” Montecalvo said.In just over a week, she will graduate from Worcester State University with a Master of Science in nursing. “It is a profession, but it’s a calling for me. It’s a calling to help people,” she said.With her new degree, Montecalvo plans to volunteer as a tutor to help the next generation of nurses find their calling.

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