Women Over 70: Aging Reimagined

Cheryl Keen, EdD—scholar, activist, Quaker—has always tried to follow her callings which personify commitment, connection, and community. As a pioneer in significant movements--peace education and justice, service-learning, and progressive higher education--Cheryl job-shared seven leadership positions with her husband, Jim. They are parents/grandparents to one biological family as well as three ‘m...

Meet Beige. Beige is reliable, practical, sensible, and safe. Beige doesn’t put up a fuss; it follows the rules, blends in, doesn’t want to stand out. Now meet  Liz Kitchens. She is more of a magenta. Magenta is rich, dynamic, loud, sometimes garish, and not easily overlooked. While that does not exactly describe Liz, she is the author of Be Brave, Lose the Beige: Finding Your Sass After 60. It fo...

Author of more than a dozen books, Noelle has appeared on national and international radio and television, been interviewed, quoted or written about in dozens of publications and has spoken on the subject of appreciation before audiences in the U.S., Canada, England, The Netherlands and Australia. Noelle did not come into her own until she was in her mid-thirties. Life growing up was difficult. Sh...

Born in Athens, Greece, Esther Gandica came to the United States, on her own, on a Fulbright scholarship in 1967. She was born in 1949. Her parents lived in Salonica, Greece, which had the largest Jewish population at the time, outside of Israel. The family spoke Ladino, a form of archaic Spanish. Esther is a Sephardic Jew. Her father’s family did not survive the war. Her Mother’s family survived...

 Dr. Val and Byrdie are co-founders of Boom Home Medical, a “lifestyle brand that makes home medical products.” Dr. Val, a public health and preventive medicine physician, and Byrdie, a literary agent turned health care leader, recognized that home medical equipment is outdated, inconvenient, and a sightly embarrassment. Designed for both attractiveness and function, their products allow women to...

This cross-generational pair—Phoebe 76 and Erica 43—believes that younger women don’t hear enough from older women about what it looks like to keep “living out loud…and contributing actively” during the later decades. Why should women accept the cloak of invisibility when they continue to be curious, inventive, and full of light? Their feature documentary profiles eight professional women over 70...

Living through the unimaginable - caregiving her son from his diagnosis of carcinoma at age 13, and through a 2nd diagnosis at 19, completely altered the trajectory of Allura's life. Her son died at 20.  Even before that, Allura’s brother, with whom she was very close, also suffered from cancer and died on her son’s 18th birthday. Her marriage crumbled, and she was left with her grief and younger...

“There will be junctions where it will be important for you to ‘just let it happen.’ We ourselves are many people at the same time.” Deanna Berman is an interior architect working with the bones, geometry and structure of 3-dimensional living and working spaces. She believes it is important to connect historic images with contemporary ones and says, “The old and new inform each other. You need to...

[spp-player] Roxanne Lorch, age 85, from Cary, NC, is a full-time artist with a studio in Durham NC who exhibits her work in juried shows and wins awards. Roxanne was among the first women to work in commercial design and graphics (who was not a secretary) and then in sales. In 2001, Roxanne became one of the original 17 members of The Transition Network (TTN) and currently is on the steering comm...

Playwright, director and collaborators for 50 years, Terry and Carolyn fearlessly tackle lesbian and feminist themes. They are thrill-seekers. While Carolyn is married with children, the pair seize every opportunity they can to work together.  Terry moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1974 and founded Lilith, a women's theater collective, which she led for five years. Carolyn, the engine that p...

Celina Edelstein lived in New York, was married and had a son. They divorced while their son was young. With a background in chemistry and a love for science, she sought a job in research. Angelo, a research doctor, offered her the opportunity to help him open a research lab. Together they wrote grants, studied molecules that carry cholesterol and cause atherosclerosis and thrombosis and published...

Joyce Klowden Porter, 73, has been an actor in 60 films, taught college for 30 years and is a non-fiction author. She recently won several awards for the film, Stairs, and continues to act as roles become available. Joyce’s late husband, Paul, gave her occasion to learn many things in relation to his multiple illnesses. Her book, Mastering Senior Life: Thriving and Surviving, is a testament to her...

Francesca James, age 71, from Ingelwood CA, is a full-time intuitive wellness coach and energy healer. After a life-threatening bout with cancer, Francesca gave up high-stress work as a successful Black woman in white corporate America to connect “more deeply with my inner world.”  This journey inspired her book, Resurrecting the Muse: Woman’s Guide to Rising Above Societal Conditioning.  These ar...

As a voice coach, singer, and songwriter Barbara McAfee’s mission is to ‘midwife’ women’s voices. “Tell me your story about your voice” is Barbara’s invitation to help aging women break the sounds of silence, express new sounds for healing, and experience singing for the joy of it. Her original music taps into jazz, gospel, and folk roots. In 2007, Barbara founded the Morning Star Singers, a volun...

Edwige Gilbert is French. As founder of New Life Directions, she guides women to reinvent their lives and create fresh starts driven by a purposeful vision. She is passionate about women taking care of their bodies and allowing themselves to feel sexy even as they age. “It is vital that we eliminate stress from our lives and not feel victimized by our age. How are women to age gracefully if age is...

Crowned Ms. Senior World 70’s for 2023, Debbie Watts’ mission is to empower women, especially as they age. Debbie’s talents as an author, educator, playwright, songwriter and performer, and producer of film and stage plays prepared her to enter the world stage at age 70. Currently she can be seen at the historical Hermitage Hotel in downtown Nashville where she performs historical interpretations...

Connie Kiosse is a complex woman. A deep thinker whose life has taken many twists and turns. A lover of women’s literature and the authors who write them. She is always questioning how to use the artifacts of her past and asks, “Art and words - how do they fit together?” Born of immigrant parents, life was a closed book, until at 18, Connie broke free and the world began to open up. She wrote her...

Anne fell in love with nature as a young girl spending summers on her grandparents’ farm in north Georgia. Often alone with “nothing to do,” she read books and made friends with the insects, plants, snakes, and trees. After several decades as an environmental justice advocate at the national level, Anne ‘retired’ in 2007 to serve as a full-time volunteer. She uses her political savvy to promote cl...

A true Renaissance woman, Kathryn Grody is an actor, playwright and activist. She wanted to act since childhood. While born in Los Angeles, she recognized that living there was a cosmic error and never felt at home until she moved to New York City. Well-known in regional theater, on and off-Broadway and, most recently for her 1-woman show, The Unexpected 3rd, a Work in Progress, she is the recipie...

Karen Egoff realized at a young age that she has extra gifts. She didn’t know what to do with the energy she felt from others until she became a young woman. Through practice, Karen has learned to manifest healing energy and help relieve aches, pains and chronic conditions in those she works with. She believes in natural, spiritual lifestyles, especially yoga and meditation.  Older people benefit...

Sara Paretsky is a lifelong reader of crime fiction. She developed her social conscience early on, realizing that women were so often represented in negative ways, and so often invisible. Years later when she began to write crime stories herself, she turned the tables on how women are depicted through her well-known series of books featuring V.I. Warshawski, a tough, intelligent private detective...

Dr. Robin H. Miller is a general internist and integrative medicine expert who founded and directs Triune Integrative Medicine in Medford, Oregon. Dr. Miller came close to quitting medicine altogether until, several decades ago, she completed a fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona with Dr. Andrew Weil. She has written multiple medical books, including Healed! Health and...

Bold and vivacious herself, Diane’s 2nd book: Too Young to Be Old: How to Stay Vibrant, Visible, and Forever in Blue Jeans: 25 Secrets from TV's Jean Queen shows women how to face life with unfailing optimism and be risk-averse.  As she reached her 60’s, Diane found there were no jeans in the marketplace that fit her well. She created her own brand and took them on the Home Shopping Network. One h...

Helen Shiller, age 75, was a six-term alderperson in Chicago’s poor and oppressed communities where she advocated for radical changes to police misconduct, poverty, and racism. Starting in the early 1970s, Helen’s activism took a page from the Black Panther Party’s 10 Point Program. Fifty years later she concluded her book---Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win: Five Decades of Resistance in Chicago’...

Joyce Feustel earned three degrees: BS in English Education, MS in Health Education  and MA in Health Services Administration. While pregnant with her first child, she was elected to the County Board of Supervisors. After her daughter was born in December 1980, she remained on the county board but resigned from being executive director of a mental health advocacy organization to focus on being a M...