by Krista Madsen
On a stifling hot Friday in Sleepy Hollow, the adjacent playground is empty – even sprinklers aren’t motivating the kids to come out. But a handful of seniors are enjoying the air-conditioned Senior Center on Elm Street to knit and chat.
“I just sit in on the knitting,” said Lucy Ackerly, treasurer for Sleepy Hollow Seniors. “I don’t knit. I just socialize.”
Some of the Sleepy Hollow Seniors from L to R: Josephine Galgano, Eileen Meade, Lucy Ackerly, Roberta See, Susan McCarthy (photo by Krista Madsen)
Socializing is the key component of any senior center, but an unfortunate recurring topic of conversation these days is who is missing – those many members in their 90s who have moved into nursing homes or have passed away.
“We’ve lost 33 people since my time here,” said Josephine Galgano, referring to the last four years she served as President in the building with her deceased husband’s name on it. “I’ve attended so many wakes and funerals.”
She fondly remembered “Cookie Mary,” Mary Pastell, who died at the age of 104 and was renown for her long career at Alter’s bakery; then there’s all the “vital people, people who worked at GM… I love these people.”
It was under the administration of Jim Galgano, mayor of North Tarrytown in the mid-‘70s, that the organization for village seniors was first founded. For decades since, the seniors had only temporary meeting spaces – from Holy Cross Hall to St. Teresa’s basement. Josephine Galgano honors these early members every time she goes to Village Hall and sees the quilt composed from handmade squares. “I think it’s a beautiful thing. I admire it every time,” she said.
The long dream of getting a dedicated building for the seniors finally came in 2010. “And here we are,” Galgano said.
The building is modern, roomy and well-serves the needs of the seniors – it’s when the Recreation Department they share the space with needs to use it for children’s activities that things get a bit hectic. The seniors eagerly anticipate the plans in the East Parcel portion of the former GM lot development to house a new recreation center. “The kids have a right to have something,” Galgano said.
Still, they’ll believe it when they see it. Since 1996 when the car plant shut down, Galgano recalled the reassuring refrain of “two more years, two more years.” Now she and Ackerly look out in amazement through the fence behind their building at the work crews digging up concrete slabs below.
Only a few years ago during Galgano’s term, most everything in the annual village budget was cut, including the funding for the senior transportation, but the following year they got it back and then some. Beside that fiscal blip, “the village has been very kind to us,” Galgano said. The former president is still very involved in the organization as an active and vocal participant.
With funding from the village, donors, a modest annual $10 fee for membership, and certain pay-as-you-go events, the group is able to host numerous in-house and outside activities. “You get your $10 worth,” Galgano said.
The Sleepy Hollow seniors take monthly excursions and host a special event here monthly, said new president Susan McCarthy, who attended high school with most of the knitters in her midst.
Weekly classes arranged by the rec department – from yoga, to strengthening classes for the arthritic – are free. A ceramics class started with people painting lighthouses and headless horsemen but has moved on now to other shapes. The requisite bingo games happen on Tuesdays; member meetings are on the first and third Mondays.
Chartered buses generally transport about 30 people to destinations such as the Culinary Institute of America or Ace in the Hole dinner theater in New Jersey, City Island. The group had a tented luncheon at the Washington Irving Boat Club for everyone in their 90s, a tradition they hope to continue.
The problem with a senior organization is its members age out and are slow to join in the first place. While you can join by the age of 60, people tend to be too busy at this age or just uninterested. “Senior is a dirty word,” Galgano said. Or they are still working, added Ackerly, who retired at 68. Residents of Kendal-on-Hudson do their own thing, and the core membership seems to come from the inner village within close range, “which we’re hoping to change,” McCarthy said.
Membership is down to 89 paid members from 145 when they first moved into the Elm Street building. “We try but it’s hard. No one wants to say that they’re ready for this,” McCarthy said.
The seniors in the near future look forward to a new local transport van arriving in the fall. Then there’s the Sept. 7 picnic in Kingsland Point Park. For Galgano, this close group of people is just the icing on the cake of living in such a place as this. “I’ll take Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown any day. Sleepy Hollow is my last stop.”