GUILDERLAND — “Somebody told me early in life if you surround yourself with positive people, you’ll always be happy” says Elaine Person.

She has spent a lifetime doing just that.

Person has an alter ego — Val N Tine. Val wears a suit of rainbow stripes with patch pockets in the shape of hearts. She has a permanent smile painted in red, curly pink hair, and a heart for a nose.

She is a clown — a clown with a serious mission: making others happy.

Person has been clowning for more than three decades and, more importantly, has managed organizations that allow others to clown.

She was honored in May by Clowns of America International with a lifetime achievement award at a convention in Niagara Falls.

Seventeen of her family members were there to cheer her on, including her 5-year-old granddaughter, Lindy, who is herself a clown named Squish.

“She’s very intelligent and loves being funny,” said Person of Lindy. “I was pulling chocolate coins out of her ears since she was 2.”

More recently, Lindy told her, “Grandma, I know how you do it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” asked Person.

“I wanted the chocolate,” responded Lindy.

Person laughs heartily as she tells the story.

Vita

Person grew up in Delmar, the middle child of five siblings. She describes her father, who sold insurance, as a workaholic.

Her mother was a Girl Scout leader and ran a bowling program. Person started volunteering as a bowling coach when she was 15.

At Ithaca College, where she studied drama, Person was on her school’s undefeated bowling team and she volunteered teaching developmentally disabled adults to bowl.

She left college after a year and a half and began a lifetime career with New York Telephone, which became AT&T.

Person met the man who would become her husband, Tom Person, one night at the Elbo Room in Albany. “We talked and talked, and I drove him home to the South End,” Person recalled. “I spent the next three weeks scouring bars in Albany, trying to find him.”

Meanwhile, Tom Person, who didn’t have a car, had a friend drive him out to Delmar, hoping to find Elaine.

They met again at Ralph's Tavern on Madison Avenue — and have been together ever since. They married on Valentine’s Day in 1976, which is why Person chose her clown name of Val N Tine.

“We have 20 kids — one biological child, Melinda, and the others foster or adopted kids,” said Person. “We’ve had another 50 kids come through our house over 46 years.”

She and her husband enjoyed telling people who asked that their kids all had different fathers.

Clowning

The clowning started because Person, working for AT&T, was involved in the Telephone Pioneers of America, a charitable not-for-profit organization founded in 1911 for pioneers in the telephone industry. Alexander Graham Bell was given the No. 1 membership card.

“Clowns are generous and giving. Pioneers are always helping other people,” Person said. “I found a home in both organizations.”

Person attended a meeting as the Pioneers were trying to reactivate their clown troupe.

“I was president of the PTA, president of Pioneers, and had a bunch of kids,” she recalled, so she had no time for clowning herself but several of her kids wanted to become clowns.

“One day, my husband walked into the living room with a clown Hallowween costume on and said, ‘Can I be a clown too?’”

He chose the name Mc N Tosh because, as a kid, he would load his pockets with apples and eat them while he played softball or baseball.

Tom Person, who is captain of Altamont’s fire police, is frequently seen at community events as Mac N Tosh, delighting children as he makes balloons into animals.

The Persons took clowning classes at Schenectady County Community College taught by Snappy the Clown.

“Snappy asked me to be on a new board for Clowns on Rounds,” said Person. The not-for-profit group has pretend clown doctors visit hospitals and nursing homes to entertain and bring cheer.

Person eventually became director of the board and is in charge of fundraising for the group. “If I charged them to do fundraising,” she said, “we wouldn’t have any money.”

Dr. Anita Hug visits pediatric patients at Albany Med. A new volunteer, who is 78 years old, a Vietnam veteran who has twice survived cancer, is learning to clown so he can visit the Veterans Affairs hospital. Dr. Nose A lot coordinates visits to nursing homes.

The clowns can entertain with a red-nose transplant or a funny-bone exam.

“They not only entertain. They listen,” said Person.

She told of a clown who visited a hospitalized girl whose mother had been killed in a car accident and whose father was in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

“She was all alone,” said Person of the injured girl. “The clown just listened to her for over an hour.”

These clowns, in real life, have worked in caring professions. One is a retired veterinarian. Dr. Nose A Lot, now 86, was a nurse practitioner. Dr. Anita Hug works at a nursing home.

“Just having a visit from somebody can make a difference,” said Person.

Caring

She knows this because she has had a string of surgeries herself.

“I have had four hip, four shoulder, and one knee replacement, survived cancer, and had an additional 13 surgeries since I was a kid,” Person told The New Calliope, a magazine for members of Clowns of America International, which featured her on the cover this year for her lifetime achievement award.

Person is currently walking with a crutch, recovering from her latest hip-replacement surgery.

So, while she is not performing herself right now, she finds joy in inspiring others.

She worries that clowning is a dying art. “There’s a shortage of young people doing it since there’s been such nasty stuff from movies,” said Person.

But she has seen firsthand the good it has done for her children and grandchildren as well as the people they’ve helped.

Lindy, who rehearses with the Electric City Clowns, does shows and sing-alongs at nursing homes. “She knows all the words to ‘You Are My Sunshine,’” said Person. “My grandsons did magic performances when they were 4 or 5.”

The Persons’ son Shawn was very shy as a boy. “We got him when he was 10,” Person recalled. Clowning brought him out of his shell.

“Shawn was Cueball. His pants had two billiard-ball pockets and his black nose had an 8 on it.”

As a clown, his reticence disappeared, like magic. “He would come home with a pocketful of girls’ phone numbers in his pocket,” Person said, noting he is now happily married.

The Persons’ son Jody clowned as Mr. All-Brite, wearing neon colors.

“He had never been to live theater. When we took him to see ‘Camelot,’ he fell in love,” Person recalled.

He went on to get an undergraduate degree in theater from Purchase College and a master’s degree in choreography from Rutgers and now heads the theater department at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey.

The Persons’ daughter Kelly clowned as Kurly and was recognized by WYNT as one of 13 Kids Who Care.

Melinda Person clowned as Chloe and served dinner at a homeless shelter, winning her recognition that took her to visit with Matilda Cuomo at the Governor’s Mansion.

“She’s now doing amazing work as the president of NYSUT,” said Person.

Elaine Person is proud that the caring she cultivated is being passed through generations of her family.

“My daughter is instilling the importance of community service to my grandchildren,” she said. “At Christmastime, they do 25 Days of Giving.”

This can range from giving socks to people at homeless shelters to making goods for the Clowns on Rounds to distribute to hospital patients and nursing home residents.

And what might these goodies include?

Person concludes with a laugh, “Reindeer poop, which is malted milk balls … and Grinch poop — green M&Ms.”