QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
After a Successful Modeling Career, It’s Nice to Sleep In
By Sharon Cohen
I’m just not ready for that yet,” says Jeni Freeland Berry, a senior living resident who is 93 years young. Berry, who calls Brookdale Freedom
“A
Square in Seminole, Fla., home, is the oldest Miss Florida and attends the pageant an- nually where she is honored on-stage. She received her crown in 1945, thanks in part to her singing and dancing talents. Among her more than 15 pageant titles are also Miss Miami and a runner-up in the national Miss America. After the Miss America pageant, Berry
recalls that she turned down movie off ers and Broadway shows because she was engaged to be married. When her fi ancé met her back in Miami, “that didn’t work out” she said, so her mother took her to New York. Through work as a model represented by the Conover Model Agency, her face appeared on many magazine covers, as well as in ads for items such as toothpaste and shampoo. She also did some runway modeling. In 1948, Berry was tapped as the face of
Blue Bonnet margarine and millions of con- sumers saw an artist’s rendering of her face on each package of margarine for 38 years. More than just a pretty face, Berry headed to Wash- ington to lobby lawmakers for the company. “At the time, your grandmother could tell you, margarine wasn’t colored yellow because the [dairy companies] didn’t want it to look like butter.” Margarine was sold in a plastic tub with a tube of yellow coloring to mix in. “We changed the law. Margarine could
be sold yellow! And you know what, after a while, we wanted it in sticks. They said ‘no way’ but we went back to Washington and my claim to fame is partly because of
ge is a number. Old is an at- titude. You can talk old, walk old, act old, and dress old.
me, you can now buy yellow margarine – in sticks! That’s history,” she said. With pageant titles, a successful modeling
career, and a stint as an unoffi cial lobbyist, her proudest accomplishments are, naturally, her two red-headed daughters, three grand- children, and four great grandchildren.
34 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
“Kids today amaze me. They know
everything about everything,” she laughs. “But I think they know too much, and they are not being children. I see babies in stroll- ers with cell phones!” As a child, Berry’s traveling salesman father had them summer in the north and
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