South Philly seniors make memory books, friendships

SALLY GUARIGLIA believes that eyes are portals to a person's true self, so when she first saw Savannah Harvey's sea-green peepers, she knew that the sophomore from Moore College of Art & Design was a kindred soul.

"Look at those eyes!" Guariglia, 75, exclaimed while she and Harvey worked on Guariglia's memory book of digital photographs at the South Philadelphia Older Adult Center, on East Passyunk Avenue near Dickinson Street.

Harvey is among Moore College art-education majors teaching digital photography to 16 senior citizens at the center and helping them handcraft memory books with their photos.

"The minute I saw her, I decided I wanted to know what was behind those eyes!" Guariglia said.

Harvey laughed and said: "I was used to working with kids, so when I first came here, I was super nervous about working with older adults. I'm a shy person."

Guariglia said: "I'm from South Philly so I'm definitely not shy. I got the big mouth."

Harvey said: "She just snatched me up. I love her. We have such a good friendship."

The fledgling memory-bookmakers are from South Philly and from three other Parks & Recreation Department older-adult centers in West Oak Lane, West Philadelphia and Juniata Park.

Most of Guariglia's photos are of her oil paintings which include a dog with a saintly halo gazing over the ocean toward the heavens at sunset.

"That's my dog Picasso, who died three years ago," said Guariglia, a career psychologist who took up painting after she retired. "He was a rescue mutt with a little touch of everything in him. We were together 15 years."

Nearby, Carolyn Ciavardone, 72, from South Philly was assembling photos of her paintings, including an athletic red cat chasing three mice while entangled in blue yarn.

Ciavardone, who took classes at Moore College in 1961, said she has been painting since art saved her academic career at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Andorra.

"My first year of French, we had it last period and our teacher liked to tell stories instead of teaching French," she said.

"Then I got Sister Theodore for second-year French and she was strict. I just wasn't grasping it. One day, she told me, 'If you draw a picture of St. Thomas for me, I will pass you.' I did and she did."

As the bookmakers worked, Amanda Newman-Godfrey, assistant professor of art education at Moore College, announced that the six-week course will come to an end at Tuesday's session.

"My heart is breaking," she said, because for the older-adult students and the young student-teachers alike, making memory books has been a work of the mind and of the hands, but most of all, a work of the heart.