| | Abstract: | Belle Weiner Likover grew up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. She graduated from The Ohio State University and in 1945 moved to Cleveland, where she later attended Case Western Reserve University and earned her graduate degree in social work. She was widowed when her first husband, Joseph Tracht, was killed in World War II. She then married Edward Likover in 1946. Belle Likover and her husband, Ed, were caught up in the paranoia of the McCarthy era, an experience that shaped her lifelong commitment to civil liberties. She spent twenty-two-years at the Jewish Community Center as a group worker and ultimately became Associate Executive Director of the agency. In retirement and up until her death, she was a tireless advocate on behalf of the elderly serving as chair for many senior advocacy organizations, including the Western Reserve Agency on Aging Board of Trustees, Council on Older Persons, Coalition to Monitor Medicare Managed Care, and the Ohio Advisory Council on Aging. She was a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging in 1995 and 2005. Belle Likover died on July 29, 2017. The Belle Likover Family Papers collection consists of awards, brochures, campaign signs, correspondence, diplomas, DVDs, flyers, invitations, ledgers, lists, newsletters, newspaper clippings, notes, passports, photographs, proclamations, programs, records, reports, scrapbooks, speech texts, tax records, testimonies, and VHS tapes. | |
