From fleeing Nazis to a Whole Foods gig: Turning 90, North Jersey woman reflects on life
In comfortable tan sneakers and a black apron stamped with a green company logo, Evelyn Turkell happily talks to customers and stocks the vitamin shelves at the Whole Foods Market in Ridgewood.
She swiftly moves around the supermarket aisles, ready to use her price-tagging gun on the hundreds of products and answer customers' questions.
Days away from her 90th birthday, Turkell is happy to have a job where she gets to interact with people, talk about health products and move around, rather than a boring desk job.
"I feel good when I do good to other people," Turkell said. Perhaps she's just returning the favor for the kindness bestowed on her and her family as they fled from Vienna, Austria, and Hitler's Nazis when she was a child.
From mother to working woman
Customers seek out Turkell for her kind demeanor and her extensive knowledge of vitamins and healthy living.
After years as a stay-at-home mom, and because of her interest in a holistic lifestyle, Turkell took a job at a vitamin store in Valley Stream, New York. After 10 years there, she opened her own business and called it Earth Bounty. The shop became her sanctuary.
"I was strict on what I would sell and made sure sugar was not in any of the ingredients of the products I sold," Turkell said. Sugar, she said, is bad for your health. Her customers, she said, trusted her judgment.
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Twenty-two years ago, after nine years in business, she closed her shop due to a lack of help and steady employees and went to Whole Foods, where she continues to work a full-time schedule.
"I still work because I need the money, and when I'm home, I'm tired and not happy," Turkell said.
Being busy keeps her happy, and even during her downtime at home, she cooks, cleans and looks forward to family and work.
Turkell can be found in the vitamin aisles four days a week, mostly afternoons and nights.
"I don't love that she works nights," said her daughter Patrice Turkell Schaeffer. But her mother wouldn't have it any other way, Schaeffer said, because she's just not a morning person.
Being on her feet all day is very tiring, Turkell said, but her sneakers help — and anyway, she would never work a desk job, no matter what. She said that has to be the "most boring thing in the world."
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Turkell's love of a holistic lifestyle and her customers is obvious to see, said her manager of two years, Sofia la Rosa. The near-nonagenarian, la Rosa said, taught her everything there is to know about the products in the department.
Turkell says "How may I be of help today?" with a positive attitude to everyone, la Rosa said, adding, "She says something to every customer." The manager said if Turkell ever decides to retire, she will really be missed.
Turkell took some sick time in the last few years as she recovered from COVID, twice. The virus, she said, was just one of the many obstacles in her life that have served to make her strong.
Difficult beginnings
Some of her inner strength, Turkell said, comes from overcoming odds at an early age.
She was born in 1933, the same year the Nazi Party became the sole legal party of Germany, and fled her home in Austria in 1938 at the age of 5 with her family, just before the Nazis arrived. Remaining would most likely have meant a death sentence for the Jewish family.
She credits an uncle with bringing her family to the United States: He procured a visa for the family.
"We were one of the last people who were let out of the country with a visa," Turkell said.
The difficult journey took the family first to Naples, Italy, then to Cuba for two years, and eventually to Daytona Beach, Florida. From there the family moved to Borough Park, Brooklyn, and later to Jamaica, Queens.
The United States' borders were closed to them during their journey from Europe, so they took the long route, she said. Turkell remembers the journey well.
"I had fun as a 5-year-old on the boat to Cuba," said Turkell, who now lives in Ridgewood.
She recalls the family fleeing with only a few possessions, but still considered herself and her family lucky, because they were safe.
In the United States, there were great times, and years flew by amid many milestones.
People were friendly, outgoing and welcoming, and no one was concerned about crime, Turkell said, remembering that she never locked her home or worried about intruders.
In the mid-1950s, when she was about 20, she, like many women at the time, married and soon started a family. In 1955, when her first daughter was a few months old, she and her husband, Howard, who died in 2004, moved to Long Island. There they added to their family and raised daughters Patrice, Roberta and Susan.
In 1995, Turkell finally returned to Vienna to visit her childhood home.
"My only goal when I was a young girl was to be a housewife and care for the children," Turkell said.
That's all she knew, she said, but now, looking back, she has some regrets about not having a career.
She had aspirations to work for the FBI, but quickly gave up the idea at the behest of her parents. If she had it to do all over again, Turkell would do things differently.
Retirement? Not so fast
She laughs when she's asked about retirement.
Now that she has found a place where she fits, Turkell said, she won't soon give it up.
Working, she said, keeps her sharp and young.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ woman, 90, recalls fleeing Nazi rule as a child, becoming strong
