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Working A Full Life
By:
Patricia Kitchen,
The
Hartfotd Courant
April 7, 2003
Selma Koch - 78 years.
Jack Tamis - 83 years.
Michael DeVito - 75 years.
Think we're telling you how old these people are? Think again. Those
numbers represent how long each has been working. And they're all still at
it.
Koch, 95, married the proprietor of the Town House lingerie shop in
Manhattan, went to work there, and took over when her husband died in
1970.
Tamis got his start in 1919 in the Bowery at what was to become Louis
Tamis & Sons jeweler's - going to work right after high school for his
dad, a cigarette-case, bracelet and compact maker. His job was to sweep
floors and bring in lunch. And, yes, at the age of 101 he's still working,
but now he's designing jewelry for the business.
"It keeps me alive. . . . I don't want to quit," Tamis says.
After 27 years running the company, he turned the management over to other
family members and moved to Florida, where he still shows up three days a
week at his jewelry design workshop. He drove himself the 20 minutes each
way until December, just before he had a cataract operation in January.
His nephew has now been driving Tamis and his wife, 92-year-old Helen, who
until last year did his bookkeeping.
"I send him work," says his son Bill, one of the business' two
managers. "He sends us invoices."
It may be jaw-dropping news to hear of nonagenarians and centenarians
still earning a paycheck. But get used to it. More people are living
longer - and in better health - and more are saying, for a variety of
reasons: "Who? Me retire?"
What's now considered a "gerontological wonder" will in time
become commonplace, says William Zinke, a consultant in Boulder, Colo.,
who focuses on demographic change in the workplace.
Today's employed centenarians are pioneers for those to come, says Dr.
Robert Butler of the International Longevity Center, a nonprofit research
organization - and a lot are coming, indeed.
The Census Bureau says there are 50,454 centenarians in the country, and
perhaps 5 percent of them could be working, says Dr. Thomas Perls,
director of the New England Centenarian Study.
But by 2025, about 313,000 people in this country could be trying to blow
out 100 candles on their birthday cakes, and the number swells to 1.1
million by 2050.
The numbers matter little to Tamis, though. All he knows is that he wants
to keep on designing. "I have new ideas I'm working on," he
says.
At age 95, he taught himself to set diamonds - and yes, more than a few
did find their way to the floor. He bought a computer at 97 - although it
hasn't gotten much use.
And during the past 10 years, he has developed a new type of adjustable
backing for clip-on earrings and created a basketweave design that the
company now uses for gold bracelets.
"Don't let yourself fall asleep," is his advice to older people.
"Find something of interest to do."
Which is also the advice you might get from Perls, a geriatrician and
associate professor at Boston University Medical School.
From his study of centenarians, he says he has found "a tremendous
argument to be made for the power of taking on new and different things -
for exercising the brain." (Needless to say, genes play a key role in
leading a long, active life - he and his colleagues have found a
"longevity gene" that seems to slow the aging process in some
people.)
But there's another personality quality he has noticed - the ability to
manage stress. "They don't dwell on things. They're able to let
go."
Maybe that gene is somewhere inside Michael DeVito of Carle Place, who
turns 90 in July. At 14 he started earning money shoveling snow, went on
to drive a janitorial supply delivery truck in Harlem and, in 1939, landed
a maintenance job with New York City Transit.
His salary back when a token cost 5 cents? A great big 67 cents an hour.
In 1968 he retired as an assistant foreman. By then, he and his family had
moved to Long Island from Astoria. But he wasn't finished with work, going
on to become a construction laborer during the week and a caddy on
weekends - right alongside college students.
In time, his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's - she died in 1986. He
stopped working and moved to a senior-adult living community nearby.
And after a long bout with depression, just last year he managed to ignite
a new spark. "I said to my son, 'Let me get a credit card and let me
be on my own.' I got a credit card. I got an apartment. I bought a used
car."
He spotted the "Now Hiring" sign on Jericho Turnpike in
Westbury, N.Y., for Hicks Nurseries. In he went for an interview, and out
he came with a part-time job, four days a week of watering, sweeping,
stocking and helping customers.
"I adore it. . . . It's one of the best jobs I've ever had,"
DeVito says.
His boss, Peter Neri, nursery department manager, says DeVito has that
old-fashioned work ethic. "If he's here four hours, he works four
hours, nonstop."
Not surprisingly, stories of such highly seasoned workers pop up less in
big corporations and more in small, family-owned businesses or in
professions such as law, medicine, art and higher education.
In the past five years, America's Oldest Worker Award went to a
102-year-old mechanical engineer, a 100-year-old doctor, a 102-year-old
manufacturer, a 100-year-old architect and a 102-year-old environmental
science professor. The award is given by Arlington, Va.-based Experience
Works, a nonprofit group that offers training and employment for mature
workers.
Still, some big firms do value older workers. Pharmacy chain CVS has six
employees in their 90s, one a full-time pharmacist. What's more, Stephen
Wing of CVS expects the number to increase because 123 employees are in
their 80s.
"I'm looking forward to the day one of them turns 100," Wing
said.
Selma Koch speaks with pride of the anachronistic service given to
customers in the lingerie shop she runs with her son and grandson -
personal fitting.
Customers buying bras and swimwear don't have to hunt through the racks
for the right size, as all the sales help is trained - by Koch - in the
fine art of fitting.
Meticulously coiffed and manicured, she comes to work in her lingerie shop
six days a week - for 10-hour days - sitting behind a roll-top desk with a
bird's-eye view of the nine fitting rooms and the brassiere bar. There she
takes phone orders, purchases merchandise and helps with challenging
fittings.
"I'm on top of everything," says Koch, and her family and
employees agree. "I don't want to be at home. I don't want to do
old-lady things. . . . I'm very aware of what happens to you in old age if
you retire. This is my choice, and it's the way I want to end my
days."
Patricia Kitchen is a reporter and columnist at Newsday.
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© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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