Of sound mind and body…still

There’s a lot to learn from SuperAgers, people over the age of 80 with the mental faculties of people decades younger. Meet two SuperAgers in our community who are sharp and energetic, and not slowing down.

A Woman Who Speaks Her Mind: Phyllis Willer

Friends and relatives agree that Phyllis Friedlander Willer–now 94– is the same person she was at 24, 54, and 74: feisty and outspoken, as well as completely unapologetic about her ribald humor, salty language, and off-the-cuff opinions.

Willer, who has spent her entire life in the Chicago area, would not disagree with that assessment. “I’ve always spoken my mind,” she asserted.

That take-me-for-who-I-am mindset has served Willer well, allowing her to age into her 90s with relative grace and without major health complications. Good genes, no doubt, have also played a part: Both of her older sisters lived to almost 100.

But the stamina that Willer boasts to this day very well might stem from a sense of resilience she developed at an early age. A hardscrabble childhood on Chicago’s West Side and in nearby Cicero served as a cautionary tale.

“My grandmother has told me stories of being born during the Depression … when she and her mother couldn’t rely on anybody but themselves,” Katie Andrews said of Willer.

Willer’s mother, a Polish Jewish immigrant, opened a cleaning store in Cicero to support herself and her young daughter after the early death of the family patriarch. It is a lesson that Willer took to heart: Do for yourself.

While Willer’s late husband was a successful businessman, she always enjoyed working and feeling autonomous. For many years, she was an assistant at the now-defunct Maine Township Jewish Congregation.

After living in Buffalo Grove for many decades, Willer sold her home and moved into a retirement community where, from morning to night, she is still known to create a minor tsimmis , or commotion, when she is not playing poker and bridge–among the many games in which she has become a maven.

“She says what she thinks,” said Andrews. “Women of her generation didn’t speak up… but she did.”

A Man Looking Forward: Yevsey Skepner

At 96, Yevsey Skepner refuses to take it easy.

“I have been active all my life,” said Skepner, speaking through a translator in his native tongue, Russian. “I never sit down. I am always looking for something to do…something that will give me pleasure.”

Skepner, who had been a mechanical engineer in the former Soviet Union, continues to employ his professional skills–fixing small appliances, such as clocks, and doing repairs for his neighbors in his senior residential community.

Using the tools of his trade, he said, has kept his mind sharp. But so have other interests, such as chess. Skepner has played the game his entire life, and he continues to do so–online. An avid techie, he takes to his computer frequently–to email friends and relatives, to FaceTime with his overseas granddaughter; and to track his eBay and Amazon purchases.

Skepner has had a lot of practice in adapting. He was well into his 60s when, in 1992, he immigrated to the United States with his late wife and daughter. He said that it was difficult for his daughter to tolerate the level of antisemitism in their native Ukraine, and that she pushed for the family to leave. He himself only knew too well the difficulty of being a Jew in hostile territory–his immediate family fled the Nazis to Uzbekistan, but not all his relatives survived. It is a subject that remains painful for him, and he only wants to look forward.

“I love [the U.S.],” he said. “I loved it from the first day I was here. The United States has given me everything.”