ELLEN CLIMACO
GRACEFUL, GRATEFUL AT 90
On the dance floor, she gracefully twirls around, jumps, bends, dips like a sprightly teenager. But a teenager, Ellen Climaco is not. She’s all of 90 years old! Did she always dance like this?
Elena “Ellen” Dosdos Climaco has always loved to dance. As a teenager in post-war Cebu, she loved to dance the boogie, rhumba, chacha… dances that really require movement unlike waltz and slow drag. But one grows up, becomes a professional, gets married—and dancing somehow becomes a thing of the past.
In the case of Ellen, she had taken up pharmacy, passed the board, but never practiced her profession. She said she had always liked to be nicely dressed, and so she decided to take up dressmaking to make dresses for herself. But when friends saw her clothes, they wanted to have her make dresses for them. So, she decided to open a dress shop. But dressmaking can be very demanding… or rather, customers can be very demanding. Ellen would sometimes spend late hours in the shop, which made her husband, Julio Climaco, complain about her not being able to socialize anymore. So eventually, she closed shop.
With nothing to do, the active Ellen got bored. She then started making curtains for her home. When Sonny Osmeña learned that she was making curtains, he went to her with a bundle of materials from Divisoria to make into curtains. And so Curtains Unlimited was born in 1972, which was, for about 45 years, located along Ramos St., Cebu City. Just this year, the store transferred to Mahogany Place, and running the shop is Ellen’s son, Dan. Ellen “retired” when she turned 85.
In all those years Ellen ran her shop, she raised 10 children—May Ann, Jojo, Nicnic, Junet, Gerry, Christopher, Allan (who died at age 44 due to an aneurysm), Dan, Dominique and Benedict— and still had time for various advocacies like joining the charismatic movement and her devotion to the Divine Mercy. She even became politically active after the Edsa Revolution. To stay fit, she would walk and pray the rosary while doing so. To take care of her health, she eats mostly vegetables and fruits, especially “utan bisaya” and “kamunggay.” And, she always takes an afternoon nap.
It was only 20 years ago when dancing came back to her life after her husband died. Her brother-in-law, Boy Climaco, encouraged her to take up ballroom dancing so she would “not be bored or sad.” Slowly, she got back into the swing of dancing which, she says, has changed from the kind of dancing she was used to as a teenager. It has now become more like a dance sport.
A few months back, she experienced back pains and thought that would be the end of her dancing. But the doctor actually advised her to go on dancing as therapy. At first, it was somewhat painful and Ellen danced sort of gently. But eventually, the pain faded and she can now dance as fast and as well as she used to.
“It has become a habit. I am hooked,” Ellen said.
And so it was that when she turned 90 on Aug. 4, all her nine children and her friends came to be with her; to celebrate with her or to see her dance so graciously, so gracefully on the Casino Español de Cebu dance floor. Behind the graceful dancer is an amazing woman, Elena Dosdos Climaco, a woman of strength, of devotion to God, family and country.