In Minnie Kaufman’s apartment at Lions Gate, the first thing you notice is the art. Paintings line the walls, including one framed piece of colored bubble wrap with people drawn around its center.
Kaufman’s artwork has won multiple blue ribbons, which she proudly displays on a side table.
When asked how long it took to create a particular painting, Kaufman responded, “I don’t understand why people ask that question. It took me my whole life.”
Kaufman was born in Poland on April 1, 1918. Her family came to America in 1925, when she was 7, to escape the Nazis. Later, the period of her life she most enjoyed was when she worked as a controller for a paint manufacturing company. Kaufman stayed for 22 years, retiring at 78. She was proud to be a woman working in a male dominated industry and was unapologetic in displaying her femininity.
“When I became controller of the firm, I never wore pants again. That’s why you see that I started to design the skirts.” Kaufman said as she gestured to the outfit she was wearing. She had designed it from the shirt she wore all the way down to the strap on her shoes.
“You see this? This is a protest against them damaging fabric on the jeans,” Kaufman said of pants purposely made with rips. “I can’t stand — you know, when that first came in, and I saw that, it hurt me. It really hurt me.”
Throughout her life, Kaufman has always been passionate about education. When she was younger and working, she took night classes at the local colleges in New York City, including Fordham, City College, Queen’s College and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). She took the classes more to learn than earn a degree.
“I didn’t go where I had to pay. I had to take an exam, and that was it,” Kaufman explained.
Her eyes lit up as she talked about designing and the different skills she learned at the fashion institute, like Italian dressmaking and stitch making.
Kaufman continues to learn new things through classes offered at Lions Gate, her Voorhees residence. She has lived there for a little over a year, after her son, David Kaufman, an infectious disease doctor, gave her an ultimatum: Have someone stay with her or find a place where she would be safer. She went with the latter, and moved from the Towers Apartments in Cherry Hill to Lions Gate in Voorhees during February 2020, right before the COVID lockdown.
“It (the lockdown) was certainly disappointing; I am a very social person but I knew I was in the best place,” Kaufman related. “Lions Gate is very strict with their health safety rules, so I always felt safe. And of course, I have a son in the infectious disease business who kept me abreast of all the latest news about COVID, so that helped too. But I was never bored.”
Now as a well-educated 103-year-old, Kaufman has words of wisdom and interesting thoughts on the world. She thinks the younger generation is overly reliant on computers, and fears that we’re more apart than together when it comes to socializing online. After fighting for equal pay and equal rights, she’s learned how to advocate for herself.
“You don’t say, ‘Well he’s getting this.’ That’s wrong to compare yourself,” Kaufman shared. “You say, ‘I’m doing this, I’m doing this, and I’m doing this’ and I deserve more money.”
When she came to America at 7, Kaufman spoke no English.
“I just used whatever I had to the limit,” she reflected. “And I think we all got something. But some of us aren’t ambitious enough to use it, or they’re afraid, or when they look in the mirror, they self doubt.
“You have to like the person that you see in the mirror.”
One year ago, Kaufman celebrated her 102nd birthday over Zoom, seeing friends and family from afar. This year, she celebrated on April 23 with two other centenarians, Inek Esinzinger who turned 102, and Rose Whinston, 100. It was the first in person birthday celebration held at Lions Gate in over a year, and the first since the dining area reopened on April 19.
“You’re talking to someone that had, and still has, a lot of energy for self- improvement,” Kaufman noted. “I don’t say, ‘Well I can’t do it,’ I just say, ‘I want to do it.’ And I will.”
