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Last Sunday, the League of Women Voters held its 4th annual Women Making History celebration, honoring six women selected from dozens of nominations submitted by community members. One of the women honored is from Columbus - Alice Berry.
Alice Berry Initiative
For a woman who didn’t wait for opportunities to come to her but took the initiative to build her own path forward.
From her earliest days, Alice Berry has gone out and built her own path — and in doing so, changed the lives of countless others along the way.
Raised in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and graduating at age 16, Berry answered a want ad for a dental assistant in a practice exclusively treating elderly patients. This small act of initiative set the entire trajectory of her life in motion. She married, had two children, and worked with the elderly patients for several years before she and her family moved to California.
Continuing to work as a dental assistant she was certified as a hygienist. Recognizing her calling, Berry attended four different colleges finally getting her degree in Gerontology at UC-San Bernardino. She taught
Courtesy photo
for two years at Loma Linda University and divorced after her children were grown. Her first professional position was as an Activity Director in a 125--bed senior care center in southern California, the beginning of her 20-year career in the field. Along the way, she married her wonderful husband, John, and earned certifications in Alzheimer Care, Mandt Crisis Intervention, and as a Certified Brain Trauma Specialist—not because she had to, but because she wanted to give more.
In 2013, Berry and her husband John left their beloved avocado grove in California and moved to Columbus, Texas. The transition was hard. Friends were far away, and routine had been disrupted. But Berry did not wait for life to resume on its own. She enrolled in coursework, passed the state board exam, and became a certified ombudsman for the DHS Area Agency on Aging. As a volunteer, she visits her assigned care centers multiple times each month, checking for safety, and submitting required reports — but more importantly, she was present: holding a hand, having a conversation, offering the human warmth that so many residents go without.
When Berry joined the Columbus Christian Women’s Organization and met a woman decorating nursing home doors alone, she didn’t just offer to help. She envisioned something bigger. Why stop at decorations, she asked, when we could visit the residents themselves?
From that instant, Senior Smiles was born in 2019. Today, the program brings together about 16 women who travel monthly to all three local care centers, delivering music, art projects, drama skits, refreshments — and above all, genuine human connection. As her fellow members put it simply: “Alice is the glue that holds us together.”
What makes Berry’s story all the more remarkable is what she carries quietly. Diagnosed with MS in her twenties, she has navigated its long shadow for decades. A recent fracture kept her off her feet for over two months — a bump in the road.
Alice Berry is a truly remarkable woman — the kind of person who makes a room, a community better by being her genuine self.
Please join us in honoring Alice Berry for Initiative.
