Betty Yoelson: 104 and still dancing
By Jill Nossa
Betty Yoelson has seen it all. At 104, the Rockville Centre resident has lived through world wars, civil rights movements, labor movements and countless advancements in technology, and throughout her life, she has embraced change and remained active, within her community as well as physically. A birthday brunch was held in her honor on Friday, Oct. 11, at Sandel Senior Center, where center members and staff wished her well and sang songs to her. Mayor Francis X. Murray gave her a proclamation from the village and Yoelson shared some words of wisdom with the crowd.
She stressed the importance of community and in particular her Sandel community, where soon, after joining she made good friends through teaching yoga, folk dancing and playing Scrabble.
“We do not have to be alone; I depend on you and you depend on me,” she said to her friends.
Her life started on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she was born in 1915, and over the course of her “upwardly mobile” life, as she called it, she moved to Brooklyn as a child, lived in Queens after first getting married, spent 36 years in Baldwin and has been in Rockville Centre for the past 14 years, since 2005.
When she graduated from high school, Yoelson’s family could not afford to send her to college, so she decided to get a job. As employment prospects were bleak at the time, she worked in several factories that she described as having “terrible working conditions” and “unfair labor practices.” However, she became involved in the early years of the union movement — a fact she’s very proud of — and worked to help improve the working conditions in the factories and gain equitable pay for workers.
A mother of two daughters, Yoelson took on part-time secretarial work in the New York City school system when her oldest daughter was 5.
“Everybody felt sorry for me,” she reflected, “which is funny because now, women have to justify it if they don’t work.”
In addition to working and raising her children, Yoelson spent a lot of time volunteering throughout the years, serving as the program director for a Parkinson’s support group and tending to disabled babies. She also made a point to stay active throughout her life: she began teaching yoga in 1969 (when it was “exotic”) and discovered a love for folk dancing in 1951, which she also taught for a number of years. There are videos online of Yoelson dancing at 100, and her friends, Ann Casey and Ellie O’Brien, said she danced at her birthday celebration last year.
She attends the senior center twice a week, and met Casey and O’Brien upon joining. The friends engage in a weekly game of Scrabble.
“She mostly wins,” Casey said.
At Sandel, Yoelson also regularly attends other classes, including Tai Chi, Headlines and Stretch and Balance. She is an avid reader and said her philosophy is to “use body and mind to devote yourself to something beyond yourself.”
In addition to her daughters, Yoelson has four grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and judging by the turnout and remarks made at her birthday celebration, many friends who are impressed with her spirit, vitality and independence.
“Seeing a person like Betty, who leads such a rich life at this age,” Chris O’Leary, director of the Sandel Senior Center said, “gives inspiration to all of us.”