What would you define as successful aging?
I think the basic bottom line thing which I have learned recently is how important health is. And because the organization I direct spends all of its time working with very vulnerable people-many of whom are very sick, very sad and in pain you really get in touch inside. This hits me particularly because of where I am with my age. Fortunately, I have been blessed with the absolute miracle of health. If you are in very poor health that necessitates institutionalization, or round-the-clock care, it will be more difficult to look at it and say, "I'm doing this successfully." I think that's sort of an underlying requirement to successful aging.

And then what you build on that comes from a lifetime of how you see the world. I have two posters I'm going to hang in my office that are reflective of my philosophy. I got them at the Holocaust museum in Washington. Their messages help me realize that's why I'm still in here, doing my job. One is by [sociologist] Margaret Mead and says two people can make a difference, and the other one-from the Talmud says a single life can make a difference.

What do you do to keep your health at a high level?
My life is quite different from many older people and much different than you might expect. I've been a widow for 20 years, my children are grown, and they and my grandchildren all live out of town. I am a professional, and what I discovered living alone as long as I have is there are really only three things in my life right now that turn me on: Work-this work is my life-and my family and some very close friends. But my job is my personal and professional reflection of success. It's not a separate thing from a personal life. That's an important thing I've learned. I don't apologize for that.

People say, "Why don't you retire? Why don't you work less?" And what I say to myself is how can I work more? How can I have the energy to work more and not challenge my physical health and not compromise that? I work six days a week. I don't work nine or 10 hours a day necessarily, but I'm almost always here on Saturday. And that's fine. I love it.

The only other thing I do is exercise. I spend a fair amount of time outside here at the Judson Wellness Center. They are marvelous in terms of giving people in the community access to all of their areas; their pool, their water aerobics and their strength training and treadmills. So I'm there four times a week. The rest of the time I'm with friends, or with my dog at home. The work merges in as my personal life. My husband died, and he was a best friend, but it's not like this is a make up for his loss. Instead, I think, "This is the way I want to spend my leisure time."

Does the fact that you are advocating for older people who are younger than you give you a unique perspective on aging?
Your self-awareness is not, "God, I'm old." If you're keeping up with what's going on, you're not aware of that age difference. It doesn't come to the fore. This organization ranges in age from about 30 to me at 75, and it's interesting, that as director I'm the oldest. Age is irrelevant. When I'm feeling well, I have as much energy as any of my staff, and I have directed energy.

As director of the agency, part of my job is the vision. I have blue slips of paper. And my staff look in their boxes on Monday morning and they say, "She was here on Saturday again," or, "Eleanor has created more ideas, I don't want to read this." I have a wonderful idea about creating more work. When I write my blue slip, I know exactly who to send it to. I'm very proud of this staff for their skill and talent. We have 15 staff people including me, and 10 of those are ombudsman. All of our staff could be making more money elsewhere.

Has your attitude toward aging changed since you were a young woman, and if so, how?
Aging is not an issue when you're young. First of all, you're immortal. And secondly, that's not the primary awareness you have, being afraid of the future. Having been blessed with good health, that was not an issue for me; I never thought about it. I didn't start to think about it until after my husband died, and he died young enough when I knew I had to do some thinking about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. It wasn't as though I could just retire. He died when he was 50.

So I had a lot of years ahead of me, and that was when I began to think about what am I going to do with these years that would be fun. And that's an interesting thing I haven't mentioned; that this work is fun. Everybody here complains about being stressed, but it's that they're energized by injustice. And as part of the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries, that's part of the mission of this agency. We're one program of it. We are imbued with their mission. They have a lot of different programs serving different populations, such as the disabled, or teens. Our people get empowered by the fact that all those people purporting to give long term care to very vulnerable people, can do better; they can have a better perspective.

The ombudsman who came in with the following story is a fighter. She's a lawyer who has a background in sociology. She went to a nursing home on an allegation of verbal abuse. She came into the lunch room yesterday just beside herself. What happened was a nursing assistant mocked a woman who was very demented. The woman called out, "Help me, help me, help me." She'd go on for a very long time. With people who have dementia, this is not uncommon. But he would mimic her, and he would go right up into her face and say, "help me" every time she'd say that. Then he'd go up and down the halls screaming, "Help me, help me, help me." So everybody in the nursing home could hear it. When the ombudsman asked the administrator how could he let this happen, he said, "Well, a lot of the staff do that." He didn't get it. Nobody there seemed to understand that this is demeaning. Old people living there who might not have been demented were hearing that parroting of a demented person. At the heart of the matter was the question, how do you really feel about older people; how do you really feel about your fellow human beings?

For the most part, we get along very well with the nursing homes. My philosophy with the nursing homes is we want to build credibility with them, and we expect that in return. It works a lot. There are some really good people out there. But that incident really struck us.

How would you describe your role as head of this agency?
I used to be an ombudsman; I carried 40 nursing homes. In other words, I was a line worker, just like the rest of the ombudsman. So my staff knows whatever they're being asked to do is something I've probably been asked to do. I do understand the perspective of being out there. I spend a lot of time with the staff. It's remembering when they've done a good job. It's telling them. It's writing little notes. Or sharing incoming calls from people that such-and-such ombudsman did a wonderful job. I put it on the general voice mail. I bring it up at a staff meeting. My role is to make it possible for them to go back out there.

When you were younger, did you see yourself doing this type of work for a living?
I had been a social worker for all ages of people in southeast Cleveland with Murtis Taylor. She has a health center named for her now. She ran a big neighborhood center and she was wonderful, she was a real mentor. So that was outreach work I did. Then I went to back to law school, and I sort of fell into working with older people, because it's a good combination for law and social work. There are a lot of legal problems affecting older people, like guardianship and protective services. I helped draft the protective services law with Georgia [Anetzberger, Benjamin Rose's associate director for community services].

What I see now is more older people are wanting to work, probably because they need the money, but also because they've got a lot to offer. At 65 you don't suddenly retire to Florida. I'm not putting that down, but there other options.

To get information about long term care, or discuss a problem with a long term care provider, call the Long Term Care Ombudsman program toll free at 800/365-3112, or 216/696-2719, or visit the following two web sites:
http://www.ltco.org/home.asp or
http://rhic.org/ltc-ombudsman-info.asp