[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 137 (Monday, September 12, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1247-E1249]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HONORING MARIAN LUPU

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 12, 2016

  Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Marian Lupu, a 
zealous warrior for the elderly, who died on Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 
age 91 at her home in Tucson, AZ. Marian's impact on the field of aging 
and the development of programming designed to help older adults cannot 
be over-estimated. She pioneered efforts to improve services to the 
elderly through both the development of model

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programs and the influence of local, state, national and even 
international policy. She originated or advanced many health and social 
care delivery models for older persons that have been widely 
replicated.
  Born in Chicago, Marian grew up during the Great Depression in an 
observant Jewish household. Her education may have sewn the early seeds 
for her advocacy approach. She took one of the first courses ever 
taught on aging when she was a graduate student at the University of 
Chicago and was a student of famed community organizer Saul Alinsky. 
``I soon decided,'' she said, ``that all the research in the world 
wasn't going to help the aging population unless it provided services 
and advocacy.'' After completion of a degree in industrial relations, 
she worked for the National Opinion Research Center at the University 
of Chicago, first as an interviewer, and then a supervisor of a 
nationwide, multi-year survey about issues facing the elderly.
  Marian married Charles Lupu in Chicago in 1948. Their nearly sixty 
year union was a source of great joy and stability for her. Charles was 
unusual for the era in being completely supportive of his wife's 
professional career, never looking at her accomplishments as in any way 
diminishing his own. After living in Chicago, New Orleans, 
Charlottesville, and Pittsburgh, they settled in Tucson in 1966. A 
child of the Great Depression, Marian could never quite believe her 
good fortune in actually buying a house--her first--when she and her 
husband moved to Tucson. It was located in the now historic Harold Bell 
Wright neighborhood and she delighted in finding old copies of Harold 
Bell Wright's once popular novels at yard sales and flea markets.
  Shortly after moving to Tucson, Marian became the founding executive 
director of the Pima Council on Aging (PCOA). When she retired from 
PCOA in 2007 at the age of 82, she had the distinction of being the 
longest serving Area Agency On Aging Executive Director in the nation. 
But it was not so much the length of her tenure as the tenacity and 
skill of her advocacy that won her wide recognition and admiration. She 
saw the increasing ranks of the older population not as a problem, but 
as a resource. In 1978, when she was president of the Western 
Gerontological Society (now the American Society on Aging) she said, 
``I don't see increasing number of elderly persons as a problem . . . 
Just as we changed from a frontier society to a manufacturing and 
agricultural society, we will change . . . because the demographics of 
our country are changing.'' The older population will be ``pioneers, 
thinkers and dreamers for the future.''
  An early demonstration program developed in 1972 through Marian's 
leadership at the Pima Council on Aging, and funded in part through the 
Model Cities Program of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, 
served to define the now common concept of continuum of care. Central 
to the delivery system was the idea that each person participating in 
the program would be assigned a facilitator--a social worker 
responsible for identifying what services were needed, arranging for 
service delivery, and monitoring appropriateness of care. The services 
selected as most critically needed by Pima County residents included 
health-homemaker, home delivered meals, social and nutrition services, 
day care, and transportation.
  Other innovative programming that Marian helped develop and implement 
included comprehensive adult day health services, senior socialization 
and nutrition programs in senior centers, senior art fairs (the ``Sun 
Fair'' in Tucson), the role of case managers in coordinating multiple 
services for older adults offered through a variety of providers, 
living environments for older adults that accommodate for sensory 
changes, and comprehensive hospice care.
  Many of these programs were developed in concert with other community 
leaders, with academic partners at the University of Arizona, 
especially Dr. Theodore Koff, and with elders themselves. Her career-
long association with Dr. Koff was an unusually strong example of 
academic/community partnership.
  Marian was well known in the halls of Congress, in the Arizona state 
capitol, and in county and city agencies. Whenever an issue of concern 
to the elderly arose, she would make sure that the galleries were full 
of senior citizens willing to speak out. Former Tucson Mayor Lew Murphy 
recalled in a 2003 interview with the Arizona Daily Star this well-
known tactic of Marian's in advancing funding for seniors. She was 
relentless. ``Marian, just tell us what you want, and we'll get this 
over with,'' Murphy would direct her.
  Marian's early success in building a model network of services in 
Tucson was showcased in a 1976 Working Paper of the Special Senate 
Committee on Aging, which highlighted many Tucson agencies working 
together to deliver adult day care, home care, and special 
transportation at a time when these services were novel. Marian 
attended four White House Conferences on Aging in 1971, 1981, 1995 and 
2005 and made many other trips to Washington D.C. to advocate for 
senior services.
  She relished telling the story of how she had chided President Carter 
during one of those trips to Washington. Nelson Cruikshank, President 
of the Federal Council on Aging, had arranged for a number of senior 
advocates to meet with the president. They had 15 minutes. The 
President entered the room and began speaking about the Panama Canal 
treaty, which was very much on his mind at the time. The clock was 
ticking and Marian was anxious that the allotted time would soon run 
out. As soon as she could, she rose and vigorously told the President, 
``We are here to talk about what seniors need, not the Panama Canal, 
and we don't have much time left.'' Years later, she was on an airplane 
when President Carter emerged from first class, started walking down 
the aisle, greeting passengers and shaking hands. When he got to the 
row where Marian was sitting with her husband Charles, he paused, 
turned to Charles and said, ``You must be a very patient man.'' Charles 
demurred and asked why he said that. President Carter replied, ``This 
woman here is the only one besides Helen Thomas who dared to interrupt 
me and shake her finger at me while I was in the White House.''
  Marian made an impression on many of the politicians who worked with 
her because she built bridges and expected cooperation across 
customarily divisive lines. She found ways to bridge differences 
between political parties, government and business, ethnic communities, 
academia, and service delivery. In an era before conference calls were 
ubiquitous, she was known for having two phone lines on her desk. She 
would call up someone at the state level on one phone and someone at 
the federal level on another phone. She would say ``Washington--you say 
X, State you say Y. What am I supposed to do here in Pima County? I 
need to resolve this regulatory problem in order to. . . .'' Soon 
enough, she would get a resolution to whatever was impeding the latest 
innovative idea she wanted to put in place in Tucson.
  Her contributions on the local, state and national level have been 
recognized as significant by those who understand the impact of her 
efforts and accomplishments in helping to improve the lives of many 
thousands of individuals and multi-generational families. Numerous 
awards decorate the halls of her home, but it was clear to all that she 
did not pursue her fierce advocacy in order to gain personal 
recognition, but in order to fight ageism, improve the lives of elders 
themselves and of the families that love them, and create an age-
friendly society. She thoroughly believed the PCOA motto, ``If aging is 
not your issue now, it will be.'' Whenever someone said to her, ``you 
don't look 60 (or 70 or 80 or 90), she would reply, ``This is what (60, 
or 70, or 80 or 90) looks like!''
  When Marian retired from PCOA at the age of 82, she took her own 
advice and began an ``encore career.'' She served as president of the 
board, back office staff, hall monitor and fairy godmother for Dancing 
in the Streets, Arizona (DITSAZ). DITSAZ, founded by her daughter, 
Soleste Lupu, and husband, Joseph Rodgers, is a ballet school in South 
Tucson serving a diverse population of students of all shapes, 
backgrounds, economic levels, and special needs. Seventy-five percent 
of the dance school's participants are on partial or full scholarships 
due to poverty in the region. Marian attributed this poverty to both 
``our prejudice and the lack of jobs.'' ``I thought I saw poverty in 
the '60s and '70s when I was involved in bringing the needs of the 
elderly to the community,'' she says. ``But you very rarely heard of 
the homeless elderly. For kids today it's different. I've never seen 
poverty among children the way you see it now.''
  Marian saw working with children as a natural extension of working 
with older adults. She would say, ``We are all part of a family. If the 
grandparents aren't safe and happy, then the children and grandchildren 
are worried. And if the grandchildren aren't safe and happy themselves, 
then the grandparents are worried. We need the children to grow up to 
be strong, contributing citizens in order to support the services 
elders need. And we need the elders to contribute their wisdom and 
perspective and vision to help the next generation flourish.'' During 
her encore career, Marian often spoke up about the need for a 
comprehensive view of education. ``We need STEAM, not STEM, to power 
our society'' she would say--referring to the inclusion of arts in a 
science, technology, engineering and math-focused curriculum.
  Marian is survived by her children and their spouses: Dale Lupu and 
Richard Gladstein; Jarold and Jana (Daniels) Lupu; Soleste Lupu and 
Joseph Rodgers, and by her grandchildren: Ariella Gladstein; Noah Lupu-
Gladstein; and Emily, Cydny, and Neal Rodgers.
  The Tucson and the entire national aging community will miss Marian's 
dedication and passionate advocacy.

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