Odette Evans doesn’t let her age get in the way of her passion for life. At 80 years young, she has more energy than many people several decades younger. She works as a Realtor, lifts weights, takes Zumba and aerobics classes, entertains friends and family with home-cooked meals and travels internationally. Oh, and she looks fabulous while doing all of this.
What’s her secret? Odette sums it up: “I have a passion for exercise, food and languages. I think the human element is very important around you. I believe that in a healthy body there is a healthy mind. And, if you have a healthy mind, you have a healthy body. It works both ways. It’s just your approach to life.”
Odette exercises daily, harking back to routines rooted in her childhood in Casablanca, Morocco. “Before we started school, we used to run three times [around] the courtyard of the school, and then go and start our first class. Physical education was very much a part of our curriculum.”
With her petite stature, Odette excelled at gymnastics. But, since her mother thought it was inappropriate for a nice Jewish girl to compete in such a sport, she never pursued it beyond the local level. Seventy years later, she still enjoys the physical benefits. “I’m very supple. I can touch the floor with my elbows,” she laughs.
Odette still follows the Mediterranean diet she grew up with in Morocco, preparing fresh food from scratch. She inherited her love for cooking and hospitality from her mother. “When my mother saw people at the door, she was making tea before they even entered.” Serving Moroccan or English tea still brings Odette great joy.
Although friends have suggested that she go into catering, Odette prefers to cook for small dinner parties or to help friends who need someone to cook for them, like after surgery.”The quality of food gets diminished when you have a big crowd,” she says.
Food and socializing go hand- in-hand for her. “Breaking bread is part of something that I don’t want to lose, because that is my culture. I love to cook for people. I think the human element is lost in this generation. They communicate through texting. I like to sit at the table and have a conversation with people. They are very important in my life. My friends are very energizing. It’s healing and it keeps you healthy.”
Odette was born in Casablanca, which she describes as “the little Paris of Morocco,” where she was the youngest of three children. She grew up during a time when Jewish life was thriving in Morocco, but saw a rise in anti-Semitism after the creation of the state of Israel. Her parents and two sisters made aliyah in the 1950s, and she has many nieces and nephews in Israel, whom she still goes to visit.
She speaks five languages – Arabic, French, English, Spanish and Hebrew – and had plans to be a translator for the United Nations. But after falling in love and marrying a U.S. Navy officer, she followed him to Green Bay, WI in 1958.
“I was going to make aliyah when my parents did, but I went to Tangier [in Northern Morocco] and met my husband. So, I took a different boat, a different direction,” she says.
They were married at the U.S. embassy in Morocco, and her husband returned to the U.S. while Odette waited three months for her visa. “It was during the McCarthy years. America was paranoid about Communism and espionage. People were following me all over, the FBI, the CIA, when I was in Morocco, trying to see if I was an unwanted alien,” Odette remembers.
When her visa was finally issued, Odette travelled to New York by boat in December 1958. One of the passengers on the boat was acting U.S. Secretary of Commerce Lewis L. Strauss, who was also Jewish, on his way back from a diplomatic mission to Israel. “He was nice to me because I was Jewish. I was seasick during the day time, and they would send me flowers. I was in second class, they were in first class, and they would invite me to go on the deck with them. It was an eight-day journey, but my mother didn’t want me to travel by plane.”
In Green Bay, she tutored French and Spanish as a volunteer at the YMCA. In 1972, she was one of the first three women to earn a real estate license in the city and grew her business to be one of the top sellers in the area, with $4.5 million in sales in 1979. Her clients included Procter & Gamble and the Green Bay Packers.
In 1987, Odette visited Phoenix and it reminded her of Morocco, so she stayed in the Valley.
Several years ago, Odette hosted a tea in her home for a visiting delegation from Scottsdale’s sister city of Marrakech. She befriended several of the delegates and was invited to a Muslim wedding in Morocco several years ago. She went with her daughter-in-law, who wanted to see Odette’s roots, and they were treated like queens. “It was a royal wedding, like ‘One Thousand and One Nights,’” she says. Odette found herself discussing Israel and the Six Day War with one of the guests, who happened to be the Moroccan minister of security. “If I was in Iran, I would have been hanged,” she says, pointing out by contrast the historic camaraderie between Morocco and the Jewish people.
Odette was married twice, has two sons and two granddaughters. Kurt, who is divorced, and his 11-year-old daughter, Emma, live in Scottsdale. Eric lives with his wife, Abby, and their 18-year-old daughter, Aria, in Ft. Collins, CO.
A self-described fashionista, Odette always makes sure that she’s properly dressed for any occasion, even a trip to the gym. “I was surprised, to be honest with you. When I came over [from Morocco] I had gloves and a hat and never wore a pair of jeans. My mother-in-law said, ‘Don’t you have a pair of jeans?’ We didn’t have slacks overseas. We used to wear dresses and ribbons. I got used to wearing jeans and so forth. But you won’t find me going to the store wirth rollers in my hair. When I go out I want to make sure that I am properly dressed. I think if you like people, you have to like yourself first. If you like yourself, you want to bring care to yourself. You want to feel good, look good and be good to people.”
