Pines Village resident profile: Ellen Silberman

At least twice in her life, Ellen Silberman has piped up about community problems in need of solving.  And sure enough, as reward for her effort, she was the one picked to implement a solution.  Both times, her involvement has helped improve the health of her community.

In the late 1960s as the mother of three in Baldwin, New York, Ellen voiced her concern about the growing teen drug problem in the Long Island community.  Other parents sent her to a conference on the issue and she soon found herself a co-founder and executive director of the Baldwin Council Against Drug Abuse.

Ellen earned a master’s degree in social work and remained as director of the drug abuse treatment and prevention program for a quarter century, often working 18-hour days to organize school presentations, dances, intervention programs and community-building strategies, as well as raising funds.

Later, after retiring to Valparaiso to be near one of her sons, Ellen took up line dancing at Village Park Enrichment Center, then known as the Banta Center.

“It was fun!” Ellen says with the same enthusiasm she seems to bring to everything.

But one day the instructor quit and the line dance class was left adrift.  Ellen helped organize the students, who began a rotation sharing the teaching duties.  Eventually, though, Ellen again rose to the top, took on the full-time responsibility and has now been teaching line dancing to Valparaiso seniors for a decade. 

After an illness last winter sidelined her, Ellen set a goal of teaching her dance class again on her 87th birthday in May.

"And I did,” she says, with justifiable pride.

Now she’s looking at the possibility of starting a line dancing class at Pines Village and hoping to get back to her yoga classes at the Valparaiso YMCA just around the corner.

Since moving to Pines Village several months ago, Ellen has thrown herself into all the opportunities available. She works out regularly on equipment in the fitness center and she has joined committees involved in activity planning, welcoming, the menu and the book club.

“I’m a joiner,” she explains.

Pines Village, she says, has opened up new avenues and new people to her.  Seniors faced with downsizing and moving to a new home have two choices, she believes.  They can feel down about what they’ve lost.  Or they can connect with others, join in and make new friends.

“There’s a lot to do – if you partake,” she says.  “It’s up to the individual and your frame of mind.”

Ellen has favorite places around Pines Village.  She loves the breezes and sunshine on her apartment balcony and she finds the library a comfortable spot to read. But her most favorite spot is what she calls “the rotunda” – the gazebo-like retreat along the enclosed walkway between the independent and assisted living wings.

"It’s so pretty just to sit there and look at the gardens and read, and people are walking by so you can say hello.”

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We Celebrate Life is a collection of portraits, in words and photographs, of just some of the wonderful, extraordinary people who live, work and serve Pines Village Retirement Communities. View more >