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In 2022, when Eileen Lavine was 97, she wrote her life story. “A Medley of Extemporanea,” she called it, after a line in the sardonic Dorothy Parker poem about life’s unpredictability.
It’s fitting since little in Lavine’s life adhered to the status quo. “This is my medley,” Lavine writes in the opening pages.
By 16 years old, the native New Yorker had graduated from high school and left for college in Wisconsin, years before her fellow classmates. At university, she reported for the Daily Cardinal and became the first woman to serve a full term as editor — her column was named for the Dorothy Parker poem, too. After undergrad, she earned her master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. A spontaneous six-week trip to Paris became a year in France. Then she rerouted to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
A journalist to this day, Lavine has reported for papers in Massachusetts, worked at The New York Times and in public relations, written radio scripts, and served as an editor for Better Times.
At 32, after moving into her first apartment, a basement unit in Greenwich village, she met her husband, Richard, a lawyer, musician and “all-around incredible guy,” Lavine recalls to TODAY.com. They had two children, Amy and Micheal.
Now 101 and a half years old, Lavine still leads a robust if slightly slower life. She shared some of her longevity tips with TODAY.com.
Exercise Your Mind
Lavine is quick to point out that she uses a walker, doesn’t swim, and only takes the occasional walk around the block. But her mind, she says, is where her strength is. “I’m not an athlete,” says Lavine. “I’ve got it up here.”
“There are people here (at her assisted living complex) who forget what they had for breakfast,” she adds. But her mind can easily recall names and details, and she keeps it stimulated.
Every morning, in an apartent where she lives alone, Lavine prepares her breakfast — Raisin Bran, orange juice, bread with cream cheese and jelly, and a cup of coffee. Then, Lavine reads the day’s edition of The New York Times and The Washington Post, which she gets delivered every day. Next, she makes her way through that week’s New Yorker. She’ll complete the crossword before shifting to her inbox for the collection of Substack newsletters she subscribes to. On a different browser tab is the latest from ProPublica, Columbia Journalism Review and The Hill.
She’ll occasionally tune into a Zoom lecture or stream her son’s cabaret performances. He inherited his mother’s love of musical theater.
At night, Lavine makes time for television — gameshows to be exact. She watches “25 Words or Less” and “Jeopardy!,” which has long been a family affair.
Contribute Something Meaningful
Lavine’s mother taught her to maintain her optimism, “to look on the best side of things all the time and to really feel that you’re making contribution,” says Lavine.
She describes an idea that came to her in 1962. Noticing that friends regularly asked her to edit and proofread their work, she and seven others chipped in $50 to fund a company they called Information Services. “We farmed ourselves out! We were writers and editors, program developers,” says Lavine.
“A lot of nonprofit organizations, mostly in education and medical and health couldn’t afford to have anybody on their staff as editor or writer, so they would hire us to write publications and studies and do all kinds of editorial jobs.”
Lavine worked for pathology societies, the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Education and more. The company no longer exists, but she hasn’t stopped.
Every Wednesday, Lavine signs on for a virtual meeting for her job at Moment, a publication about Jewish life partly founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, where Lavine’s been a senior editor since 2008.
These days, she copy edits original content for the publication for typos and errors.
Maintain Community
“I keep reading stories about widows and loneliness,” Lavine writes in her memoire. “But I guess because I still enjoy a lot, I have enough to keep me busy. I’ve never really felt lonely!”
Lavine and her husband would play bridge with friends. After his death in 2014, she continued the tradition. “My neighbors come to me in my apartment, and we play in my second bedroom,” she writes.
On Thursday night, she plays poker. And when her children come over in the afternoon, they’ll watch the latest British spy thriller available on streaming platforms — after “Jeopardy!” of course.
Lavine’s daughter describes her mother’s friends as multigenerational. Family members, she says, visit regularly and that “also keeps her really, really sharp.” And anyone who can’t come by in person, Lavine will keep up with via email.
At the end of her book’s epilogue, Lavine writes: “It’s been amazing to look back on it all.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
