Nominator

Katie

Essay

This August, Ms. Dorothy Schaller will celebrate her 85th birthday as she continues to embrace each and every new day. Choosing an individual whom consistently displays vitality was simple considering Ms. Schaller is a strong and healthy individual, who is exceptionally optimistic about life and the progression of aging.

Ms. Schaller was born in New York, August 30, 1927.  Most important, Ms. Schaller has healthy nutritional eating habits and engages in physical activity on a daily basis. In addition, Ms. Schaller has volunteered, mentored, and still takes part in intellectual activities such as social groups.

At age 63, Ms. Schaller won 1st place and was titled Ms. Senior New York State. Contestants were judged in 4 areas; appearance, talent, a personal interview, and providing a personal philosophy of life. She has been a part of the Senior America board for 20 and was even president of the board for some time. Senior America endeavors to present a more positive profile of senior women in order to dismiss common stereotypes given to aging women. Through Senior America, Dorothy helped organize a dance troop which she herself titled “The Seasoned Steppers”. This dance team consisted of 17-20 active female senior citizen tap dancers. Practicing was key considering tap dancing was new to most of the members of the group. As a team, they traveled around the country to preform; they performed in Las Vegas, California, Atlantic City, and many other states. Ms. Schaller stated that “the main goal of preforming is to present the positive image of today’s senior women, not just to entertain”.

Ms. Schaller worked until she was 82 years old. For 23 years she taught elementary school grades K-6. Once widowed, she educated college students for an additional 15 years. She mentored numerous individuals through the ESL program, which she proclaimed made her life “very colorful”. Since Ms. Schaller has retired, she has kept busy with physical activities, volunteering in libraries, clubs, and nursing homes, all while keeping up with her health.

Ms. Dorothy Schaller is intelligent, brave, courageous, studious, caring, generous, helpful, and wise.  I find that she is not only inspiring and motivating to aging individuals, but younger generations as well. As Ms. Schaller stated, “don’t despair, the blue days do come” however it’s important to “embrace each new day”.