Phyllis Chinlund

Phyllis Chinlund graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1961 and has continued educating herself ever since. After a year of studying abroad, she and her first husband settled in Palo Alto California, where she joined the Master of Arts program in Broadcasting and Film at Stanford University, obtaining her degree in 1965 with If You Want to Be a Camper, a documentary film about a summer camp for diabetic children. Moving to New York City, she worked for over 20 years, directing or editing numerous films with subjects ranging from children in hospitals to Pablo Picasso. Her work garnered many awards, notably a Guggenheim Fellowship for Good Girl, an autobiographical film about adolescence. Her second marriage to photographer/filmmaker Ray Witlin was a deep partnership of mutual collaboration and encouragement.

A career change was inspired by her work on the award-winning documentary Two Worlds to Remember, about the emotional adjustment to nursing home placement, as well as by the deaths in one year of her mother and both grandmothers. Phyllis obtained an MSW degree from Hunter College in 1989, specializing in geriatric mental health. For 10 years she served as a social work coordinator for the Geriatric Outreach Program at the Jewish Home and Hospital for Aged in Manhattan. Moving to Maine in 1998 when Ray developed Alzheimer's Disease, she continued clinical work with older adults in a variety of settings.

Now retired from agency work, she is following up on the publication of her book Looking Back from the Gate: A Story of Love, Art, and Dementia, by offering readings and discussion programs on how new developments in the treatment of dementia shed light on the trials and triumphs the book recounts.