By Pauline Masson –
As she headed into retirement, Terry Ruyle, Tri-County Senior Center administrator said there was one job she did not want to leave undone. She wanted to pay tribute to five individuals who have helped operate the Tri-County Senior Center without pay for eighteen years.
“You couldn’t operate this center without the free labor provided by the volunteers,” Ms. Ruyle said.
Peggy Bolar, Pat Joyce, Diane Barnhorst, Julie Jones and Johnny Havinear have done their share of answering phones, wiping tables, recording lunch reservations, decorating for special events, serving food, and, yes, washing pots and pans. But that’s not what comes to mind when they recall the years they have spent volunteering four or five hours a day at the senior center.
There is nothing more invigorating than being surrounded by a room full of people who have lived long enough to slip past Sunday School manners and just live in the moment, according to Julie Jones, a retired auto worker who is at the Center, working the front desk Monday through Friday taking reservations and signing in diners to keep federal food program records up to date.
“I’m telling you they (senior center regulars) are marvelous,” Ms. Jones said, “Each face that pops up in front of you has a story to tell. You’ll never get bored.”
Ms Jones is a mother of six – who cooked every recipe and every dessert at home from scratch – inadvertently ignited a dessert competition where senior senior regulars cooked up huge batches of their favorite cake, cobbler, cookies and pie recipes to serve to senior center diners.
Ms. Jones recalls that she found herself at loose ends when her husband Richard died twenty years ago. She ran into the late Helen Preiss who was looking for individuals to work for no pay to operate a sernior center that was under construction.
“I can work,” Ms. jones said. She would spend eighteen years doing that.
Work is the opertive word here. Diane Barnhorst is also now 18 years into the task of piling groeries into freezers and walk-in coolers – peeling, paring and slicing veggies for daily meals – carving and serving up entries to a line of diners, then staying to wash up every tray, knife and fork, pot and pan and storing them in their assigned spot.
“It’s hard to get volunteers to work in the kitchen,” Ms. Barnhorst said.
But that wasn’t always the case.
More than $850,000 in funds was raised to construct the building, including $325,000 in state economic development grants and more than $500,000 in local funds, making it the only senior center in Franklin County that was completely paid for when it opened. It may still be the only one. To qualify for those grants, the late Mary Hoven, long time park board president and perennial volunteer, surveyed area senior citizens and persuaded scores of them to sign their names to a list of citizens pledging to volunteer to work in the daily meals program, the lynchpin of the new center.
“In the beginning we had a lot of kitchen volunteers,” Ms. Barnhorst said. “Over the years I’ve worked with two couples, husband and wife, who were here every day. But they have since retired.” Now the regular volunteers pitch in where they are needed.
Peggy Bolar, a utility volunteer who performs any task where hands are needed, also spends her share of days in the kitchen. Ms. Bolar, grandniece of the late George Reeder, the chief baker at the legendary Diamonds restaurant, is a dessert guru in her own right. She maintains a vast recipe library and can pull up a recipe on almost any dessert you can name and shares it with other cooks.
The face of the center has inarguably been Pat Joyce, an omnipresent worker who has acted as the de facto administrative assistant. She managed the building rental program, published the monthly menu, organized a resale shop that she named Maycee’s Departing Store and huge jewelry markets that she dubbed Gem Dandy jewelry at the center. All proceeds went to the center. She organized a weekly band performance and sing along – and typed and bound lyric books that were available for anyone who wanted to sing. She also served as the senior center representative on the center board of directors. She is a better than average painter. She wrote poems in her spare time. “If you like music, like most of us do; There’s jams in the evening, suited just for you; We have cards, art and dancing, and Bible study too; There is something here for al, and that all includes you.”
And she called bingo.
Every Wednesday and Friday the crowds double as bingo games rival the (now) free lunches that lure senior to the center.
Johnny Havinear, is a story unto himself, the four ladies echoed.
“He’s the center mascot,” Ms. Joyce said. “A real treasure,” Ms. Jones echoed.
Johnny, a self-appointed promoter of the senior center, abandoned as an infant and taken in by a saint of a couple, Martha and John Kohler, who taught him the most valuable lesson of his life. They taught him to work. As a toddler he was taught to fold his clothes, pick up his toys and store them. By the time he was ten he could wash his clothes in the family washer and dryer and could cook a meal on the kitchen stove or outside barbecue.
At the senior center he may spend hours snapping fresh green beans or coring strawberries. Daily diners stand at attention as he leads the Pledge of Allegiance and lunch prayer. Later he can be seen wiping tables and chairs, or sweeping up crumb.
He once told me that the happiest moments of his life were when he was working at the senior center.
“I know how to work, he said “My mom and dad taught me that if you want to be a good person you have to work. This is my work.”
He learned to use a computer and spent hours at the Scenic Regional Library where he hunted and pecked on a keyboard to author a book about the family that raised and – miracle of miracles – at age 50, he was reunited with the family that had abandoned him, without hint of regret.
“He’s a fixture at the senior center,” Ms Ruyle said.
Wary that current volunteers might be getting too much attention, Ms. Jones said tribute had to be paid to former volunteers who had given their time to the center and aged out or passed away.
“Barb Kisner was a chicken and dumplings wunderkind” Ms. Jones said. “She raised the chckens, processed them, cooked them and pulled the meat off the bone, and added the dumplings.”
“And Michelle Bastean was another wonder,” Ms. Jones added. “She provided the meals for the weekly jam sessions, not only donating the food but preparing the meals. When she fixed up a plate for the jam session they were very pretty.”
No mention of the Tri County Senior Center would be complete without acknowledging the late Helen Preiss, for whom the building is named. Ms. Preiss spent eight years, holding bake sales and quit raffles, and nagging, local pastors, business owners and city officials to help raise funds for a center where local senior citizens could eat healthy meals and avoid the loneliness often associated wih old age.
“Old people don’t need to give in to loneliness,” Ms. Jones said. “The senior center is halfway between the nursing home and the funeral parlor. This is your stop.”
State and local leaders posed with founder Helen Preiss for the Tri-County Senior Center grand opening on April 16, 2007. Pictured from left – State Senator John Griesheimer, District 109 Representative Kevin Threlkeld, Ms. Preiss, Pacific Mayor Herb Adams, and Franklin County Commissioner Ed Hillhouse.
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Nice article. You covered it all very well.