Loves to dance, willing to help: Joe Greenberg

Someone to be Thankful for in Geneva is the assignment, and "Joe Greenberg" is the name I'm given. I call Jean Gaines, director of the Chamber of Commerce, for guidance: Who is this guy?

"He's a Geneva institution!" she crows. " ... He's my hero!"

Learning that Greenberg has worked for nearly 50 years for The Little Traveler, a gift shop and tea room in Geneva, I call Little Traveler owner Mike Simon to find out more.

"What a great idea," Simon says. "He's probably the youngest person I know in spirit ... he's everybody's best friend. He has an incredible ability to really, honestly care about everybody he meets."

Greenberg shrugs off the compliments.

The 88-year-old is a fixture at the Little Traveler, where he does the marketing and helps manage Simon's other properties. He goes dancing at Villa Verone in Geneva with his longtime girlfriend. He serves on the cooperative advertising committee for the Geneva Chamber of Commerce.

"Anything that needs to be done, that I can do," he does, Greenberg says.

And for 50 years, until the final show of its kind in 2012, he danced in the biennial "Follies" fundraiser for the Elgin Junior Service Board.

That came about by two accidents, Greenberg says. The first was when he was a young man in the Navy, stationed on the East Coast. He met an older woman at a club, who offered to teach him to dance. He was doubtful. But after two weeks, he was hooked.

"That's (dancing) what changed my life," he says.

When a neighbor asked him to perform in the "Follies," he was game. The only one he didn't dance in was the year he had six broken ribs.

"It was a labor of love," he says. He told the organizers "You have to quit thanking me."

When he started dating again after a divorce, "likes to dance" was one of his criteria for potential partners.

He has played the grandfather in State Street Dance Studio's productions of "The Nutcracker." And he was in the first "Dancing With the Geneva Stars" contest that raised money for the Geneva Cultural Arts Commission. (And he doesn't even live in Geneva; Greenberg lives in St. Charles.)

Greenberg credits his mother for inspiring him. A Russian immigrant who settled in Elgin, she helped found Congregation Kneseth Israel.

"She used to be in to everything. It was neat to have a mother like that."

Watching her work, he learned "women can do anything a man can do, and sometimes better," he says. Working well with women was important for the many years he ran the Merra-Lee Shop and other Fashion Walk entities for the Simon family.

Which brings me back to Gaines' story: She recalls the day she pulled in to a parking spot at the post office on Third Street and got out, forgetting to put the car in park. It started to roll back into the street. Greenberg, working in one of the Fashion Walk stores across the street, sprinted out and hopped into the car, preventing a calamity. But he knocked his noggin. An employee said she had just the thing to stop the bleeding. Next thing he knows, he's holding a sanitary napkin to his head.

"If you have dignity, you can't do that kind of thing," Greenberg recalls, laughing.

And that explains why you will find him as a tie-dye-clad Santa Claus, greeting people up and down South Third. Or as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Or as a leprechaun, handing out golden candy coins, on St. Patrick's Day.

"I just hang out with people," he says.

About this series

"Someone to be Thankful for" is a holiday series of stories focusing on the unsung heroes in our Fox Valley communities. If you know someone who deserves to be profiled, email sklovstad@dailyherald.com.