Linda Zlatin Gaibel

561-644-5670

I graduated from Brandeis Univ. in 1966 and then went on to get my Master's Degree in Social Work from the University of Chicago. There I met my husband, Zalman Gaibel, who was getting a PhD in Chemistry. We got married in 1968, just two weeks after I received my MA. We spent two years in Raleigh, N.C. where I worked as a social worker in a family service agency and my husband did his Public Health Service research work. When our first son was age 2, we went to live in Haifa, Israel where my husband did a Postdoc at the Technion. We moved from there to Chicago where we had 25 years of happy married life, but then my husband was diagnosed with Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma and after an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant, he died in 1995. My youngest son, Ben was still in High School when his father died. The loss of his father influenced him to later become a Hospice Social Worker.
While I was raising three children, I worked as a social worker for the Council of Jewish Elderly for five years. Then I went on to work first for a community college teaching Gerontology and developing a Certificate Program in Gerontology. Just three months before my husband died, I was hired by Dominican University in River Forest (near Chicago), to be in charge of developing a Gerontology Program. I was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department and developed a Gerontogy major as well as a Certificate program for returning adult students who wanted to work with the elderly. I worked there 9 years and retired in 2004. By then I had met Art Weinberg and he became my significant other. We decided to move to Delray Beach, Fl, where we bought a three bedroom house in a 55plus community, seven years ago. My mother was living in a retirement community a half hour away and I could be of help to her in the last five years of her life. I also gave presentations on topics related to positive aging at her retirement home. I have been working part-time as a geriatirc social worker for a home health agency and doing some private practive work. I was just hired to work a couple of mornings in a neurologist's office, doing counseling with older patients.

We love living in this community, Valencia Palms. where the average age is mid-60's. We both play tennis and are very involved in the various activities here. Art works part-time as a computer consultant.
We enjoyed going on a trip to Japan last April, to visit my son, Josh, and two grandchildren (ages 10 and 12). Josh works as an aeronautical engineer for Raytheon and is assigned to work in Japan for three years. We were very lucky to be in Japan for the cherry blossom season.
. My youngest son, Ben, got married two years ago in Colorado, so we are hopeful for more grandchildren from them and from my son who lives in Ithaca, NY. Art has one daughter and three grand-daughters in Chicago. In our free time we enjoy visiting family.
It has been an interesting life in the last 50 years. I look forward to hearing what everyone else has been up to and look forward to going to the reunion in September.

I was happy to be part of the school orchestra and my fondest memories are those related to the "Walnuts" productions. It was fun to be involved as a member of the orchestra, playing the cello. I remember playing cello while James Levine (we knew him as "Jimmy") played "Rhapsody in Blue." He used to go to Julliard for half the year. None of us knew at that time that he would become so famous. I used to enjoy seeing him as Conductor for the concerts in Ravinia, when I lived in Chicago.