HOBART – Alice Earnshaw has been volunteering at St. Mary Medical Center for 25 years, which doesn’t make her too unusual until you find out she didn’t start serving as a receptionist until she was 69.
Add it up and that makes her 94 years of age, with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face for every person who steps up to the reception desk at the west entrance of the hospital on a Tuesday afternoon.
“I belonged to a bunco club in my 60’s and a couple of the ladies volunteered at St. Margaret hospital in Hammond and they talked about it, and I thought ‘I could do that.’ Right afterward I saw a newspaper announcement about St. Mary’s needing volunteers, and I was so shocked to see it that I came to the orientation myself.
“Sister Mary Ellen was here, and I thought I’d be in the nursery with the babies, but they put you where they need you,” Earnshaw said with a smile. “I also thought you just came when you wanted to, but I found out you get assigned to a shift (like the employees). I used to volunteer two days a week, Tuesdays at the west entrance and Saturdays at the east entrance, but now I’m down to just Tuesday afternoons.”
“I live in Merrillville now, but I was born in Chicago and moved to South Holland in the south suburbs with my husband and family,” said Earnshaw, who raised five children as a homemaker and now boasts 11 living grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. “I had a really active social life before the COVID-19 pandemic. I went to Calumet City every afternoon to see my friends, play bunco and do other things. COVID put an end to all that in 2020.”
The pandemic changed protocols at the hospital as well as social relationships, noted Earnshaw.
“We couldn’t volunteer for a while at all, and I couldn’t get together with my friends. That social life ended, because some friends died during COVID and others moved away or just stopped going out,” Earnshaw explained.
“Once we could come back to volunteer, everyone had to wear masks, of course, the table was placed up front and people entering the building had to have their temperature taken,” she recalled. “Everything was different, and everyone had to be very careful. A lot of the volunteers didn’t come back.”
Earnshaw and her shift mates, Carol Szklarski and Haley Reynolds, who transports wheelchair patients, answer the phone, direct visitors to their destination, check room numbers on the computer and even offer personalized service. “Some people don’t like to ride in the elevator alone, so we will escort them,” she said. “Some people don’t talk, while some talk a lot. It’s fun, and I like it.”
Earnshaw said she spent the time at home during the quarantine indulging in her favorite pastime “since I was in first grade – reading. I like mysteries, stories with a surprise, but no fluff. Sometimes I figure out the end, but not always. I am an avid reader.”
While Earnshaw is also a faithful Chicago Cubs fan, her passion is reserved for the Chicago Bears. “Nobody calls me during a Bears game!” she noted. “I hope they get another winning team soon, because I’m running out of time.”
“My mom is very alert and with it, and she has been a good Catholic all of her life,” said son Jim Earnshaw. “She said once that among the best things she ever did was learn to drive (which she didn’t do until later in life) and volunteer at St. Mary’s.”
While Earnshaw still misses her longtime parish, Ss. Peter and Paul in Merrillville, which closed in 2022, she is beginning to feel at home at Holy Martyrs Parish in Merrillville, where she enjoys “our new young priest, Father Steven Caraher, as well as Father Ted Mauch, our pastor.
“I love the music at church, and (musical director) Melissa Reinhart is good at leading the music,” Earnshaw added. “I make sure my ride doesn’t leave Mass until the last verse of the closing hymn is finished.”
Earnshaw urges anyone looking for a worthwhile activity to join her as a volunteer, no matter what age. “If you are sitting at home, lonely and bored, come to the hospital,” she said. “You’ll meet the nicest people; all the volunteers are friends. You won’t regret it; I know I never have.”
Caption: Alice Earnshaw greets visitors to St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart each Tuesday as a volunteer at the West Entrance reception desk. At 94, she enjoys staying active and helping people. (Marlene A. Zloza photo)