Play about CSI prof sings her praises as a lifeline for seniors

Staten Island Advance
Monday, December 8, 2003

Based on journal of an elderly woman, drama reveals how much social workers can ease the pain of loneliness

Much has been said and written about the importance of senior centers in our city, about how they provide nutritious meals, and more importantly, socialization and companionship for the elderly. But if there was ever a doubt about how senior centers function as a lifeline for the elderly, one need look no further than the case of Jessie Sylvester and her connections to a College of Staten Island professor of social work.

In 1988, playwright Ellen Cassedy inherited an old bureau from her Great Aunt Jessie, a maiden aunt who had worked for half a century, lived alone, and died alone in her Brooklyn apartment at age 89.

"In the bureau, I discovered an amazing journal Jessie had kept about the final years of her life," said Ms. Cassedy. She transformed selections from her Aunt Jessie's journal into a one-act, one-character play titled "Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn." The play enjoyed a limited run in Manhattan last month and received favorable reviews.

In her journal, Jessie wrote about attending the John Jay Senior Center in Brooklyn during the city's fiscal crisis in the mid '70s -- a time when budget cuts threatened the existence of the centers and many other city services. The center was run by a young social worker named "Sunny," who conducted a poetry class for seniors. It was "Sunny" who introduced Jessie to the poems of Walt Whitman, in particular, Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."

In her journal, Jessie writes extensively about her poetry class, about "Sunny" and her family, and makes references to Whitman's poem in her journal.

The character of the social worker, "Sunny," is based upon real-life social worker Sondra Brandler, now an associate professor of social work and coordinator of the Department of Social Work at the College of Staten Island.

When Ms. Cassedy adapted her aunt's journal for the stage, she made "Sunny" the heroine of the one-act, one-woman play. The senior center and the social worker are depicted as a lifeline for Jessie, as she faces increasingly desperate daily circumstances and confronts the end of her life. Ms. Cassedy also uses Whitman's poem, and his recurring theme that each of us is part of the whole in the ebb and flow of life, as a metaphor for her aunt's life and the aging process in general.

Professor Brandler was moved that she had had such an impact on her former client, and astounded to hear the words of this quiet and unassuming woman on stage.

"I remember Jessie very well," said Professor Brandler. "She was a lonely lady, but learning that I had impacted her life in such a significant way was a bit of a surprise to me. There are many people over the years you know you've helped; others you feel you've failed. But some you just never know. It gives me great satisfaction as a social worker that I made a difference in Jessie's life. It just makes me feel good about what I do," she said.

Jessie's story also illustrates the importance of social workers and senior centers in the fabric of urban life, she said. "There's a relationship, a comfort that comes with belonging, with being part of a neighborhood senior center," she said.

Professor Brandler took about 30 of her CSI students to see a performance of "Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn" last month to show them the importance of senior centers to the elderly; to show them that social workers can have an impact far beyond what they imagine, and to demonstrate how poetry can be an effective tool in working with the elderly.

She believes "Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn" reads like a casebook for aging people coping with the last stages of their life. "Jessie's story is a painful story about the misfortune of growing old, but it is also life-affirming," she said. "I hope the play can become an educational tool."

She said she would like to see the play performed at CSI, which offers courses leading to a bachelor's and master's degree in social work.

CSI students who saw the play came away impressed.

Kelly White, 23, of Oakwood, is working toward a bachelor's degree in social work. She said she was moved by Jessie's story.

"It shows how a social worker can really make a difference in one person's life, and it shows how important our senior centers are to our aging population." Without the senior center, Jessie would not have met Sunny, and would have remained isolated in her apartment, she said.

Kathleen Dunn, 55, of Westerleigh, another social work student at CSI, said: "I learned a lot about what it means to grow older and about the services that can help ease the aging process, and about how we each have the power to touch another person, whether we know it immediately or not," she said.

Professor Brandler, 54, a Brooklyn resident who holds a doctorate in social work from Adelphi University, believes more trained social workers are needed to work with the growing elderly population on Staten Island.

"The senior population on Staten Island is considerable and is growing, and we are going to need more social workers trained and skilled in working with the issues of aging." Professor Brandler said.

Without support for senior centers, more services for the aging, and more social workers trained to work with the aging, she commented, there could be stories far sadder than Jessie's in our future.

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