Irving and Beatrice Silver:
Leader Enjoys Representing Residents

They can finish each other’s thoughts and they feel like one entity instead of two individuals, and yet they aren’t identical twins. What are they? They are long-time married couple Irving and Beatrice Silver, who recently celebrated 61 years together, and are a model for others facing this Valentine’s Day.

“You want to know our secret to happiness?” repeats Irving, somewhat incredulously. “It’s never going to bed angry. And, a little humor really helps.”

Indeed these native New Yorkers, both from the Bronx, share frequent chuckles and nods of agreement. They are genial, respectful, considerate -- and still courting, if you ask a visitor to their apartment at Vantage House Retirement Community.

“I try to do things to please him, just little things that make him happy,” says Beatrice, 88. “He is just the nicest guy.”
           
“It’s her devotion that is so amazing,” says Irving, 90, a retired chemist whom his wife calls “brilliant.”

The Silvers moved to Vantage House two years ago, after having lived at Leisure World for 20 years. Their three children -- Kenneth, Richard and Jane -- all live in the Baltimore-Washington metro area and so they can regularly visit them and their eight grandchildren. The couple was “beginning to slow down a bit” and also felt they needed the security of knowing their present and future health care needs would all be met.

“Slow” is a relative term, especially when applied to the Silvers. Beatrice quickly adds she “would travel all the time,” if she could get her husband out of his chair. He smiles at her teasing remark. Irving says he sometimes longs to be young and vigorous again, adding that old age makes you realize that “Life is too beautiful to give up… and I haven’t quite figured it out yet.”