From projo.com
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Rhode Island news
6.3.2001
Living longer, living better: With a zest for life's riches, elderly are redefining old age
BY ARIEL SABAR and SCOTT MACKAY
Journal staff writers
They wear a little more floral print than the average student, but their behavior would pass for normal in any high-school classroom. When the teacher asks for the definition of vector, a couple of students shout answers that make the teacher shake his head.
"I wasn't here last week," groans another student.
"That's no excuse," says the teacher.
Finally he relents, telling the class that a vector is a straight line.
The students giggle, then lean over their notebooks to write the answer -- an answer that may help them get the credential that, they say, will open doors in their lives.
This is in fact a form of high school, but the students range in age from 62 to 71, and their classroom is on the second floor of the Cranston Senior Services building. They are working toward their high-school equivalency diploma.
"I want to do important things with my life," says Anna Marie Domassone, 70. She left high school in the ninth grade to work in a bakery and now, in retirement, is learning the Pythagorean theorem.
"I'm looking for a job," she says. "I've been doing a lot of volunteer work -- I want to get paid now."
WITH ADVANCES in health care keeping people alive longer than ever, Rhode Island's elderly are redefining old age.
A time of life long equated with nursing homes and bingo halls is undergoing a transformation. More and more older Rhode Islanders are enrolling in high school and college, taking lessons in tap dance, learning how to e-mail, finding romance, holding jobs -- into their 80s and 90s.
They are also staying in their own homes longer than ever before. And their desire for independence has fueled demand for home-health aides and a construction boom in assisted-living centers.
According to figures just released from the 2000 census, Rhode Island has the highest percentage of elderly residents in New England, and the sixth highest in the nation: nearly one in seven Rhode Islanders is aged 65 or older.
The ranks of Rhode Island's very old -- defined as aged 85 and older -- grew 30 percent in the 1990s, to nearly 21,000. The only age group that grew faster was the historic baby boomers (aged 45 to 54 in 2000).
The aging of the population will put new strains on the state's health-care system and will create demand for new kinds of housing. But because Rhode Islanders are staying healthy longer, it is also creating a new class of productive citizens -- people who will contribute to the economy and to society for longer than was once thought possible.
Americans who reach age 65 are now expected to live an average of another 18 years: more than 6 years longer than people aged 65 in 1900. And over the past two decades, the proportion living with chronic disabilities has fallen markedly.
"Years ago, we thought that it was wonderful if we had large numbers of people attending ceramic classes and knitting and sewing," says Corinne Calise Russo, a geriatric social worker who in 1976 became the first director of North Providence's activities center for the elderly.
"And now we find the numbers have transferred to people who want to get into tai chi, exercise, and yoga; learning foreign languages and computers; returning to school . . ."
AT 90, Frances Coleman is still buzzing through life.
Every weekday, she awakens at Arlington Manor, a federally subsidized apartment house in Cranston, at 2 a.m. "A beautiful time to get up," she says.
She has a cup of coffee and half an English muffin, and then whiles away the hours till dawn bent over crossword puzzles and other word games.
At 6:30, she boards a shuttle bus for the Cranston Senior Services snack bar, where she puts in a six-hour shift of volunteer work.
Dressed the other day in a pink-and-purple paisley ensemble, she moved through the lunch crowd with her clipboard in hand, apprising the lunchers of the menu -- chicken cordon bleu was the special.
"People say to me, 'You work so hard,' " she said. "I say, 'Look, I do it because it's good for me.' "
She had a heart attack in 1985, and has had a kidney removed. But apart from taking heart pills, she has the sprightly air of someone decades younger.
There has even been some workplace romance. Since her husband died, in 1976, Coleman says she has received three marriage proposals -- not to mention bundles of roses, boxes of chocolates, and gallon jugs of wine. Two of her suitors have since died, and she says she recently told the third that she just wants to be friends.
"I said, 'Stop bringing me the roses, because these people think I'm shacking up with you!' "
Coleman likes the solo life: "For 25 years, since my husband died, I'm free -- like a bird."
FROM 1985 to 1995, a federal survey has found, the percentage of Americans 65 and over who described their life as sedentary declined: from 40 percent to 34 percent.
And a highly publicized private study in 1999, by Hart Research Associates, found that the traditional view of retirement as canasta games in Florida was on the wane. Nearly two out of three of the 50- to 75-year-olds surveyed described retirement as "a time to begin a new chapter in life by being active and involved, starting new activities, and setting new goals."
The more traditional definition of retirement, as "a time to take it easy, take care of yourself, enjoy leisure activities, and take a much-deserved rest from work and daily responsibilities," appealed to just one in four of those in the Hart survey.
Meanwhile, elderly Americans have become more independent than in the past. According to a report last month from Duke University's Center for Demographics, the proportion of old people needing help with such basics as eating and bathing has dropped over the last two decades: from about one in four to about one in five.
In Rhode island, this change is reflected in where the elderly live. In 1992 the nursing-home population totaled 9,350; in 2000, it was down to 9,000.
IN FEW ARENAS is this shift as striking as at the Ocean State Senior Olympics.
When the games began, a quarter-century ago, it attracted about 150 elderly people to what was little more than a small track meet. This month, some 1,000 older athletes will descend on Rhode Island College to compete in 15 sports, ranging from a mile-long "fun walk" to the more strenuous 10-kilometer cycling and 400-meter swimming events.
Among this year's competitors are an 86-year-old retired lawyer, a stroke survivor in his late 70s, and a shot-putter with a prosthetic leg.
James M. Murphy, 90, of Little Compton, a retired aircraft-parts worker, has competed for the last five years in swimming, tennis, and track. "I go in for the sprints," he said the other morning, just back from a jog.
He likes to talk about his 23-second 100-yard dash, which he believes may threaten the world record for his age group. "That's the only reason I go into the Senior Olympics -- I thought I could break the world record."
Chest beating, it seems, does not diminish with age. Says the Senior Olympics commissioner, Michael E. Lyons: "We have some who, the minute they throw the hammer, want an official to go out there to see if they broke a record."
AT THE STATE'S job-placement program for the elderly, most of the applicants need money for prescription drugs, health care, and other expenses that increase with age. But many also come to regain a sense of purpose after retirement.
A decade ago, many elderly took jobs as food workers or custodians. But now many want to work as administrative assistants, teacher aides, graphic artists, and health-care workers.
The trend, say the experts, is a result of this generation's higher levels of education and longer work experience.
"Our older people are more savvy than they were," says Marilyn A. Sayles, the Senior Workforce Development director for the state Department of Elderly Affairs. "Their expectations are higher."
And employers like their dependability. "If it's a beautiful day," says Sayles, "they don't head to the beach -- they go to work."
IN THE OFFICE of the Capitol Region Retired Senior Volunteer Program, on Providence's Federal Hill, Susan Contreras oversees a pool of retirees who believe they have a lot to offer the world.
These 650 "RSVP" volunteers teach English, give golf lessons, deliver meals to the housebound, stuff envelopes for causes, and serve as environmental watchdogs by testing waterways for pollution.
Contreras has seen an evolution in the group over the past few years.
"They don't just want to come and knit booties anymore," she says. "They want to be more action takers -- they want to be there fighting a cause."
They are hardly, she says, "sitting in their rocking chairs feeling sorry for themselves."
Contreras attributes the change to a generation that is more worldly and activist than earlier ones. After all, she says, today's retirees took part in World War II, Korea, and the 1960s social upheavals.
THE "SENIOR-CITIZEN center" filled with people eyeballing bingo cards and puffing cigarettes is mostly a memory.
Nowadays, the typical gathering place for the elderly is, at once, a health club, medical clinic, and adult-education center.
The Salvatore Mancini Resource and Activity Center, in North Providence, is leaving its 19,000-square-foot building next year for a 28,000-square-foot structure half a mile away.
Visitors, says Karen Testa, the executive director, will be able to "eat lunch, have an aerobics workout, take a dance class, get their blood-pressure tested, and get their hair done -- all under one roof."
Few questioned the new center's $3.5-million price tag. Over the 1990s, North Providence surpassed East Providence as the Rhode Island community with the highest percentage of elderly residents. The 2000 census found that nearly one in five North Providence inhabitants is 65 or older.
SOME VERITIES of old age never change. The elderly will always face the death of spouses and friends, failing health, reduced mobility, and, often, depression.
So not everyone is able to participate in the much-hyped "best years of your life." In fact, say the experts, the frothy celebration of vigorous old age weighs on those too sick or frail to take part in it.
"The people who are the dyed-in-the-wool golfer or the dyed-in-the-wool sailor -- these people are agonizing over not being able to go out there and be as active as they used to be," says Susan W. Graefe, a Warwick social worker who counsels the elderly. "It makes them feel that they're worthless, because they can't be out in the mainstream."
Graefe says that one of greatest psychological strains of old age is a feeling of lost direction. The children have left home, the career is over, the husband or wife may have died.
"Although medical science has had great advances," says Graefe, "it has also made people live longer with more problems.
"A key to staying mentally and physically healthy is having a sense of purpose: something that makes you feel you're valued -- that there's a reason to be on this earth."
AFTER HIS WIFE died, in 1990, Bill Della Valle, 92, filled the void with dance classes. He took 10 line-dancing classes a week -- five during the day, and five at night.
One afternoon seven years ago, at North Providence's center for the elderly, his eye fell upon another dancer. She struck him as a "very pretty woman," who wasn't, however, so hot with her steps.
"I saw how pretty she was and how she needed some help, so I went right over to her," recalls Della Valle. "I can't explain it -- I don't know what the hell happened -- but the chemistry was there. I fell in love with her."
Her name was Irene Pickles. Her husband had died in 1983.
Sitting in the center one recent morning, the 78-year-old woman smiles widely and then blushes. Recalling the first time she met Bill Della Valle, she says: "I had two left feet -- I needed somebody to show me how to dance."
Della Valle, of North Providence, and Pickles, of Smithfield, have been inseparable since their eyes and hands locked over the lineoleum dance floor. They still hold hands and gaze into each other's eyes. They finish each other's sentences.
They are proof, they both say, that love can bloom at any age.
"This is the best thing in the world that can happen to any widow or widower," says Della Valle. "To find a companion they can really open up to and trust and love."
When Pickles battled colon cancer six years ago, Della Valle was at her hospital bedside. "He was more worried than I was," she says.
They each continue to live in their own houses, but they see each other almost every day. And they each still drive their own cars. (Della Valle, who learned to drive in a Model T, says he now eschews Route 95 and night driving.)
The couple say that their families -- children and grandchildren -- approve of the relationship. Pickles, says Della Villa, "has one daughter who is outspoken, and she once said to me, 'You know, you are robbing the cradle, dating someone so young' " -- 14 years his junior. "So I said, 'Well, you know, I'm taking good care of my baby.' "
Except for mowing his half-acre lawn, the nonagenarian Della Valle does all his household chores, including ironing and snow shoveling. His daughter would like him to get someone to help, but he resists the idea.
He exercises nearly every day, doesn't smoke, and drinks a little wine with dinner.
"At my age, I'm just trying to stay a few feet ahead of the undertaker," says Della Valle -- a line that drew big laughs at a recent luncheon held for North Providence residents aged 90 and up.
As far as love goes, both Bill Della Valle and Irene Pickles say that they'll keep going steady.
"It is never too late if you find the right person," says Della Valle.
"I definitely believe that," says Pickles.
-- With reports from staff writer David Herzog .
Digital Extra:
Find detailed statistics, maps and charts about the changing face of Rhode Island in projo.com's census section:
http://projo.com/news/census/
Living longer, living better: With a zest for life's riches, elderly are redefining old age
BY ARIEL SABAR and SCOTT MACKAY
Journal staff writers
They wear a little more floral print than the average student, but their behavior would pass for normal in any high-school classroom. When the teacher asks for the definition of vector, a couple of students shout answers that make the teacher shake his head.
"I wasn't here last week," groans another student.
"That's no excuse," says the teacher.
Finally he relents, telling the class that a vector is a straight line.
The students giggle, then lean over their notebooks to write the answer -- an answer that may help them get the credential that, they say, will open doors in their lives.
This is in fact a form of high school, but the students range in age from 62 to 71, and their classroom is on the second floor of the Cranston Senior Services building. They are working toward their high-school equivalency diploma.
"I want to do important things with my life," says Anna Marie Domassone, 70. She left high school in the ninth grade to work in a bakery and now, in retirement, is learning the Pythagorean theorem.
"I'm looking for a job," she says. "I've been doing a lot of volunteer work -- I want to get paid now."
WITH ADVANCES in health care keeping people alive longer than ever, Rhode Island's elderly are redefining old age.
A time of life long equated with nursing homes and bingo halls is undergoing a transformation. More and more older Rhode Islanders are enrolling in high school and college, taking lessons in tap dance, learning how to e-mail, finding romance, holding jobs -- into their 80s and 90s.
They are also staying in their own homes longer than ever before. And their desire for independence has fueled demand for home-health aides and a construction boom in assisted-living centers.
According to figures just released from the 2000 census, Rhode Island has the highest percentage of elderly residents in New England, and the sixth highest in the nation: nearly one in seven Rhode Islanders is aged 65 or older.
The ranks of Rhode Island's very old -- defined as aged 85 and older -- grew 30 percent in the 1990s, to nearly 21,000. The only age group that grew faster was the historic baby boomers (aged 45 to 54 in 2000).
The aging of the population will put new strains on the state's health-care system and will create demand for new kinds of housing. But because Rhode Islanders are staying healthy longer, it is also creating a new class of productive citizens -- people who will contribute to the economy and to society for longer than was once thought possible.
Americans who reach age 65 are now expected to live an average of another 18 years: more than 6 years longer than people aged 65 in 1900. And over the past two decades, the proportion living with chronic disabilities has fallen markedly.
"Years ago, we thought that it was wonderful if we had large numbers of people attending ceramic classes and knitting and sewing," says Corinne Calise Russo, a geriatric social worker who in 1976 became the first director of North Providence's activities center for the elderly.
"And now we find the numbers have transferred to people who want to get into tai chi, exercise, and yoga; learning foreign languages and computers; returning to school . . ."
AT 90, Frances Coleman is still buzzing through life.
Every weekday, she awakens at Arlington Manor, a federally subsidized apartment house in Cranston, at 2 a.m. "A beautiful time to get up," she says.
She has a cup of coffee and half an English muffin, and then whiles away the hours till dawn bent over crossword puzzles and other word games.
At 6:30, she boards a shuttle bus for the Cranston Senior Services snack bar, where she puts in a six-hour shift of volunteer work.
Dressed the other day in a pink-and-purple paisley ensemble, she moved through the lunch crowd with her clipboard in hand, apprising the lunchers of the menu -- chicken cordon bleu was the special.
"People say to me, 'You work so hard,' " she said. "I say, 'Look, I do it because it's good for me.' "
She had a heart attack in 1985, and has had a kidney removed. But apart from taking heart pills, she has the sprightly air of someone decades younger.
There has even been some workplace romance. Since her husband died, in 1976, Coleman says she has received three marriage proposals -- not to mention bundles of roses, boxes of chocolates, and gallon jugs of wine. Two of her suitors have since died, and she says she recently told the third that she just wants to be friends.
"I said, 'Stop bringing me the roses, because these people think I'm shacking up with you!' "
Coleman likes the solo life: "For 25 years, since my husband died, I'm free -- like a bird."
FROM 1985 to 1995, a federal survey has found, the percentage of Americans 65 and over who described their life as sedentary declined: from 40 percent to 34 percent.
And a highly publicized private study in 1999, by Hart Research Associates, found that the traditional view of retirement as canasta games in Florida was on the wane. Nearly two out of three of the 50- to 75-year-olds surveyed described retirement as "a time to begin a new chapter in life by being active and involved, starting new activities, and setting new goals."
The more traditional definition of retirement, as "a time to take it easy, take care of yourself, enjoy leisure activities, and take a much-deserved rest from work and daily responsibilities," appealed to just one in four of those in the Hart survey.
Meanwhile, elderly Americans have become more independent than in the past. According to a report last month from Duke University's Center for Demographics, the proportion of old people needing help with such basics as eating and bathing has dropped over the last two decades: from about one in four to about one in five.
In Rhode island, this change is reflected in where the elderly live. In 1992 the nursing-home population totaled 9,350; in 2000, it was down to 9,000.
IN FEW ARENAS is this shift as striking as at the Ocean State Senior Olympics.
When the games began, a quarter-century ago, it attracted about 150 elderly people to what was little more than a small track meet. This month, some 1,000 older athletes will descend on Rhode Island College to compete in 15 sports, ranging from a mile-long "fun walk" to the more strenuous 10-kilometer cycling and 400-meter swimming events.
Among this year's competitors are an 86-year-old retired lawyer, a stroke survivor in his late 70s, and a shot-putter with a prosthetic leg.
James M. Murphy, 90, of Little Compton, a retired aircraft-parts worker, has competed for the last five years in swimming, tennis, and track. "I go in for the sprints," he said the other morning, just back from a jog.
He likes to talk about his 23-second 100-yard dash, which he believes may threaten the world record for his age group. "That's the only reason I go into the Senior Olympics -- I thought I could break the world record."
Chest beating, it seems, does not diminish with age. Says the Senior Olympics commissioner, Michael E. Lyons: "We have some who, the minute they throw the hammer, want an official to go out there to see if they broke a record."
AT THE STATE'S job-placement program for the elderly, most of the applicants need money for prescription drugs, health care, and other expenses that increase with age. But many also come to regain a sense of purpose after retirement.
A decade ago, many elderly took jobs as food workers or custodians. But now many want to work as administrative assistants, teacher aides, graphic artists, and health-care workers.
The trend, say the experts, is a result of this generation's higher levels of education and longer work experience.
"Our older people are more savvy than they were," says Marilyn A. Sayles, the Senior Workforce Development director for the state Department of Elderly Affairs. "Their expectations are higher."
And employers like their dependability. "If it's a beautiful day," says Sayles, "they don't head to the beach -- they go to work."
IN THE OFFICE of the Capitol Region Retired Senior Volunteer Program, on Providence's Federal Hill, Susan Contreras oversees a pool of retirees who believe they have a lot to offer the world.
These 650 "RSVP" volunteers teach English, give golf lessons, deliver meals to the housebound, stuff envelopes for causes, and serve as environmental watchdogs by testing waterways for pollution.
Contreras has seen an evolution in the group over the past few years.
"They don't just want to come and knit booties anymore," she says. "They want to be more action takers -- they want to be there fighting a cause."
They are hardly, she says, "sitting in their rocking chairs feeling sorry for themselves."
Contreras attributes the change to a generation that is more worldly and activist than earlier ones. After all, she says, today's retirees took part in World War II, Korea, and the 1960s social upheavals.
THE "SENIOR-CITIZEN center" filled with people eyeballing bingo cards and puffing cigarettes is mostly a memory.
Nowadays, the typical gathering place for the elderly is, at once, a health club, medical clinic, and adult-education center.
The Salvatore Mancini Resource and Activity Center, in North Providence, is leaving its 19,000-square-foot building next year for a 28,000-square-foot structure half a mile away.
Visitors, says Karen Testa, the executive director, will be able to "eat lunch, have an aerobics workout, take a dance class, get their blood-pressure tested, and get their hair done -- all under one roof."
Few questioned the new center's $3.5-million price tag. Over the 1990s, North Providence surpassed East Providence as the Rhode Island community with the highest percentage of elderly residents. The 2000 census found that nearly one in five North Providence inhabitants is 65 or older.
SOME VERITIES of old age never change. The elderly will always face the death of spouses and friends, failing health, reduced mobility, and, often, depression.
So not everyone is able to participate in the much-hyped "best years of your life." In fact, say the experts, the frothy celebration of vigorous old age weighs on those too sick or frail to take part in it.
"The people who are the dyed-in-the-wool golfer or the dyed-in-the-wool sailor -- these people are agonizing over not being able to go out there and be as active as they used to be," says Susan W. Graefe, a Warwick social worker who counsels the elderly. "It makes them feel that they're worthless, because they can't be out in the mainstream."
Graefe says that one of greatest psychological strains of old age is a feeling of lost direction. The children have left home, the career is over, the husband or wife may have died.
"Although medical science has had great advances," says Graefe, "it has also made people live longer with more problems.
"A key to staying mentally and physically healthy is having a sense of purpose: something that makes you feel you're valued -- that there's a reason to be on this earth."
AFTER HIS WIFE died, in 1990, Bill Della Valle, 92, filled the void with dance classes. He took 10 line-dancing classes a week -- five during the day, and five at night.
One afternoon seven years ago, at North Providence's center for the elderly, his eye fell upon another dancer. She struck him as a "very pretty woman," who wasn't, however, so hot with her steps.
"I saw how pretty she was and how she needed some help, so I went right over to her," recalls Della Valle. "I can't explain it -- I don't know what the hell happened -- but the chemistry was there. I fell in love with her."
Her name was Irene Pickles. Her husband had died in 1983.
Sitting in the center one recent morning, the 78-year-old woman smiles widely and then blushes. Recalling the first time she met Bill Della Valle, she says: "I had two left feet -- I needed somebody to show me how to dance."
Della Valle, of North Providence, and Pickles, of Smithfield, have been inseparable since their eyes and hands locked over the lineoleum dance floor. They still hold hands and gaze into each other's eyes. They finish each other's sentences.
They are proof, they both say, that love can bloom at any age.
"This is the best thing in the world that can happen to any widow or widower," says Della Valle. "To find a companion they can really open up to and trust and love."
When Pickles battled colon cancer six years ago, Della Valle was at her hospital bedside. "He was more worried than I was," she says.
They each continue to live in their own houses, but they see each other almost every day. And they each still drive their own cars. (Della Valle, who learned to drive in a Model T, says he now eschews Route 95 and night driving.)
The couple say that their families -- children and grandchildren -- approve of the relationship. Pickles, says Della Villa, "has one daughter who is outspoken, and she once said to me, 'You know, you are robbing the cradle, dating someone so young' " -- 14 years his junior. "So I said, 'Well, you know, I'm taking good care of my baby.' "
Except for mowing his half-acre lawn, the nonagenarian Della Valle does all his household chores, including ironing and snow shoveling. His daughter would like him to get someone to help, but he resists the idea.
He exercises nearly every day, doesn't smoke, and drinks a little wine with dinner.
"At my age, I'm just trying to stay a few feet ahead of the undertaker," says Della Valle -- a line that drew big laughs at a recent luncheon held for North Providence residents aged 90 and up.
As far as love goes, both Bill Della Valle and Irene Pickles say that they'll keep going steady.
"It is never too late if you find the right person," says Della Valle.
"I definitely believe that," says Pickles.
-- With reports from staff writer David Herzog .
Digital Extra:
Find detailed statistics, maps and charts about the changing face of Rhode Island in projo.com's census section:
http://projo.com/news/census/
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