Nestled among accounts of local marijuana raids is a profile of Lillian Brown Vogel in the Ukiah (CA) Daily Journal. It’s her 99th birthday. Vogel is at work on a memoir about the secret of her longevity, but readily parts with some of the factors at work in her case:
• daily exercise (yoga, dancing and stretching exercises)
• A healthy diet
• meditation
• maintaining ties with family and friends
• a pet (her cat, Rosie, has kept Vogel company since the death of her husband 13 years ago)
• accepting changes in life
• and what she calls “cognitive control,” which journalist David Minter describes as “monitoring your thoughts and feelings so you can keep them positive.”
I’d add a few more:
• physical courage (a recent trip to South Africa — Vogel travels a lot — included a trip to “the poor side of Capetown”)
• intellectual appetite — at age 50 she returned to school for a Ph.D. in psychology and became a practicing psychologist.
• and a readiness to reinvent herself. Vogel also credits her surroundings with contributing to her long life. She moved to Ukiah at 87.
I just saw your piece from a year ago about my mother, Lillian Brown Vogel. You mention that she was working on her book. Well, it is now available in print, and tomorrow, September 11, she will be 100 years old. I will soon feature her as a guest on Radio Curious, a weekly public radio interview program I host and produce. Take a look and have a listen, http://www.radiocurious.org
Thanks
Barry Vogel