Rockville Centre resident Betty Yoelson dies at 106

Betty Yoelson

Betty Yoelson died on Feb. 18 at her Rockville Centre apartment. She was 106.

Yoelson lived for 106 years, four months and 11 days, and it was a life well lived. She was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Oct. 7, 1915, to Louis and Rivkah Epstein.

She lived through two world wars and two global pandemics. She embraced change and fought tirelessly to help others during the civil rights and labor union movements. Yoelson remained active right up until the last few years of her life, proudly extolling the benefits of yoga and dance for the well-being of body and mind. For all who knew her, she was the poster child for longevity and a cheerleader for all forms of physical activity.

Yoelson’s family could not afford to send her to college, so after graduating high school with honors, she had to enter the workforce. Since employment prospects were bleak in the 1930s, she worked in several factories that she described as having “terrible working conditions” and “unfair labor practices.” This led to her involvement in the early years of the union movement, during which time she fought to help improve factory working conditions and gain equitable pay for employees.

Over the course of her “upwardly mobile” life, as she called it, she moved to Brooklyn, where there were trees, and married her beloved husband, Sanford “Sandy” Yoelson, who died in 1989. She then migrated to Queens, graduated to a house in suburban Baldwin and made her final move to an apartment in Rockville Centre in 2005, where she remained until her death.

Yoelson often stressed the importance of community. She enjoyed her contact with the Sandel Senior Center community in Rockville Centre.

“We do not have to be alone; I depend on you and you depend on me,” she told her friends there. Yoelson was also part of a folk dance community on Long Island, forming friendships there that endured until her last days.

In addition to working as a school secretary and raising her daughters, Martha and Rebekah, Yoelson spent a great deal of time volunteering throughout the years, serving as the program director for a Parkinson’s support group and volunteering as a reading helper in local elementary schools.

She also made it a point to stay active throughout her life: she began teaching yoga in 1969 (when it was “exotic”) and discovered a love for folk dancing in 1951, which she also taught for a number of years. She was an avid reader and said her philosophy is to “use body and mind to devote yourself to something beyond yourself.” On top of that, she was a self-proclaimed world class Scrabble champion.

In addition to her daughters, Yoelson is survived by four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and many more in-laws, extended family and close friends who will miss her dearly and continue to quote her.