AARP Bulletin - May 2012

In the News ;

27 Percentage of people 65 and older in 2010 who were widowed.

Info-Packed
1940 Census
Goes Online

It’s a big deal when personal de- tails from a U.S. census are re-
leased, 72 years later, to the public.
But April’s release of the 1940 cen-
sus has aroused special interest.
; Besides information such as name, age, gen-
der and race, the 1940 census includes income
and level of education. And, for the first time,
logs handwritten by census workers have been
digitally scanned and are now on the National
Archives website. ; To search
for a specific record, it’s help-
ful to know a person’s address
to determine the appropriate
census enumeration district—
one of 147,000 geographic
areas. ; The Census Bureau
also provides other services.
For instance, if you don’t have
access to a birth certificate,
you can order a document from the bureau
that can help in obtaining a passport, settling
estates or for other purposes. Cost is $65 per
record. Go to census.gov/genealogy/www and
click on “Age Search Service.” —Judi Hasson

; Now Hear This People, Trends and Ideas

Free Reading

Todd Bol has ignited an Oprah-like revolution with Little Free Library, a project he launched two years ago to honor his late mom, a former teacher and book lover. He built a dollhousesize repository for books, planted it outside his home in Hudson, Wis., and stocked it. It operated around one concept: Take a book, return a book. When the model proved popular, Bol, 57, and friend Rick Brooks began to help others copy it. Now, their website counts about

; A Little Library in Minneapolis

700 mini-libraries in 45 states and 20 foreign countries, including Ghana, England and Germany. Literacy isn’t the only focus, Bol says. “When you meet someone at one of the Little Libraries, you talk about books, what your kids read, about schools. People of all ages are talking to each other.”

A Safe Haven

Abused older people have a new refuge. The Shalom Center for Elder Abuse Prevention at the Cedar Village Retirement

Community in suburban Cincinnati is the first facility of its kind in Ohio and one of just six in the nation. Victims age 65 and older, who will be integrated into the community’s long-term care population, will receive shelter, medical care and social services. The center doesn’t anticipate more than four abuse admissions a year, says Carol Silver Elliott, Cedar Village CEO and president, but “will serve as many as come our way.” —Mike Tucker