Reflections from a new centenarian

Few people can say they’ve witnessed a full century of change. But on July 4, Highland Park’s Eliezer Krumbein joined that exclusive club.

Krumbein celebrated his 100th birthday with loved ones on the Fourth, while looking back on a life shaped by remarkable moments, enduring values and countless stories.

Krumbein was once a little boy riding a little tricycle around a little gated yard with his mother’s rubber plants in Brooklyn, New York. It was 1929 and he was 3. It’s his earliest memory. 

At that time, he recalled, his grandmother was 72 years old, wearing golf shorts, struggling to see and using a large megaphone that hung around her neck as a hearing aid. 

Luckily, Krumbein now lives in a time where cataract surgery and penicillin exist — something his grandmother didn’t have. He credits modern times as one of the reasons he’s made it to 100. 

He also said moderation, social activity and genetics have also gotten him to this point.

At one of his birthday parties this year, he was excited to look around the room and see that four of his friends turned 100 years old too. 

Back in the Day

Krumbein goes by Eli, pronounced like Ellie. He has lived in Highland Park since 1952 and comes from immigrant parents — his father from Poland and mother from Romania.

His wife, Elaine, was a psychotherapist who passed away in 2012. The two were married for 62 years, and together had three children, two of whom live in Highland Park, the other in Israel. Krumbein has 11 grandchildren.  

Krumbein has been a clinical psychologist since 1969 and still practices to this day. He holds advanced degrees from Northwestern University and undergraduate degrees from Harvard and University of Chicago. 

For six years in the 1960s, he was a member of the board of education for former Highland Park school district 108, which merged into North Shore District 112 in the 1990s. During his time on the School Board, Krumbein helped consolidate all the elementary districts in Highland Park, Highwood, and Bannockburn. 

Additionally, Krumbein was the director of religious education at North Shore Congregation Israel, a large synagogue of Glencoe. 

He also established a transportation master’s program at Northwestern, one of his proudest achievements as a teacher, he said. The dean of the school reportedly called it the strongest master’s program in the university. 

Krumbein was first drawn to psychology because of his parents. Although they weren’t psychologists themselves, he admired how relatives and friends would come over to his home for his parents’ advice. 

Krumbein found himself listening from behind the door, and he liked their style of listening and asking questions to get people to open up. That struck him as interesting, and he pursued psycology in college. 

Keeping On

Family and friends have been vital to his longevity, he said. 

His profession, and the challenges it presents, contribute too.

He talks with his patients about anxieties and fears, about making a marriage work and dissolving one, about moving onto another stage in life and more.

“I find it wonderful to hear the stories [of my clients], as well as trying to puzzle out any problems with them,” Krumbein said. “It gives me a sense of focus and structure in my life.” 

Krumbein has a lot of friends, some younger, others older, and he said he’s been “fortunate” to be able to keep renewing his friendship circle.

He is also grateful to his kids for “looking in on him” and helping him as the years go by. He finds family life vital. He grew up close to his siblings and parents who were “wonderful” to him, he said. 

Throughout his life, Krumbein has found that social engagement is a “terribly important thing.” He believes that without enough social contact, “we can’t make it in this world.” 

What has kept Krumbein engaged and active over the years has been being “creative and contributing,” he said. 

Words to Live By

After listening to people for years, Krumbein has learned that human nature is “highly variable.”

He’s noticed that, with the rise of social media and televsion, people have been more aware of the world of terror, crime and abuse than ever before, which has changed them. 

“I think people have become more and more hardened [over the years] to having terror, stress and anxiety in their life,” he said. “So their threshold for it has risen higher.” 

Maybe the problems have gotten worse, but at least there are now more treatments to help people, he said. 

A lesson that has stayed with Krumbein throughout his career is that he is not willing to propose anything to anyone that he is not willing to do himself, he said, as he finds authenticity “very important.” 

When asked about the meaning of life, Krumbein looks to the Dalai Lama. 

“I think the purpose of life is to do some good in the world,” he said. “We are here to make a better world than what we found when we first came here. I think that’s what we’re here for.” 

The secret to a fulfilling life is to help others through your profession, he said. He called America a “great big bubble” and a “terribly protected society,” which makes Americans sometimes not aware of challenges across the world. 

Because of that, Krumbein said the job is to “try to help [people] in some little ways in which we work.”

Krumbein said the greatest influence on his life are his wife and his parents. 

His wife, he recalled, was a wise person and a good partner, while his parents had “tremendously valuable” influence on him through their interests in charity, child rearing, education, and care for those in need.

Krumbein remembered being 5 years old going door to door with his mother saying “the United States has a charity” and selling stamps for a dime or a quarter to the government. 

When asked how he would like to be remembered, a “caring and loving” person come to his mind. 

And the “human spirit” gives him hope for the future.

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