Lynda Steinhauser started her permanent Christmas vacation
Thursday.
Thursday was her last official day of work after 32 years as
executive director at the Greater Bradford Area Senior Activity
Center. Her years of service were honored with an audience of more
than 100 seniors during the senior center’s annual Christmas
dinner. The day comes after Steinhauser marked her 65th
birthday.
“I can’t get it through my thick head that I don’t have to get
up and come to work,” Steinhauser told the audience. “I miss you
terribly. I will treasure these memories and hold them in my heart,
like I hold you in my heart. This is a life-changing event for me,
but I’m going to make it because of you.”
Steinhauser recounted starting at the senior center, which was a
store front on West Washington Street.
“I quit my job at Zippo and told a guy there I was going to work
for the Office of Human Services. He said ‘you’ll be back,'”
Steinhauser said. “I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into.
The first thing they had me do was to lead them in the Pledge of
Allegiance. I was scared to death. But they get into your heart and
stay there.”
Steinhauser said one of her most memorable accomplishments was
having the senior center move into its current location at 60
Campus Drive after being at the location of the Friendship Table
for many years. The senior center was looking for a grant to make
the old building handicap accessible, but two weeks before the
grant money was due, those in charge decided to get a new building
of their own.
“I can still see us coming up the road” wheeling everything in,
Steinhauser recalled. “I can still see the bulldozers parked out
front.”
She also recalled a major flood that ruined everything in the
building, but the senior center kept going with the help of the
Emanuel Lutheran Church.
“No two days were the same,” Steinhauser said. “There was always
a crisis or challenge, but we’d get through it. A lot of days, I
can’t wait to get here to see what happens.
“I’ve gone through three generations of older people. I’ve had
fathers and their sons, mothers and their daughters. And now
there’s a new generation of older adults who are totally different
than the other ones. We laughed a lot. We cried a lot. We shared a
lot. They are all part of my family. I’m the luckiest girl in the
world when you come to think about it because I have the biggest
family in the world.”
Carol Steck, who is Steinhauser’s aunt through marriage and has
known Steinhauser for 33 years, has taken over as the new executive
director.
“(Steck) had lots of training and is confident because she
settled in,” Steinhauser said. “She has lots of love and patience.
That’s why I don’t feel so bad about leaving because I know she’ll
do a good job.”
“I’ve been here three years in May,” Steck said. “I came in as a
secretary/book keeper. Then, Lynda went on partial retirement, and
I covered for her the days she wasn’t here. So then, she fully
retired, and I took over. It’s a hard act to follow. She’s a great
person to work with. (She had an) easy going, very understanding
way with everyone she met.”
Clair Butler, president of the board, gave Steinhauser a plaque,
acknowledging that at the time of her retirement, the senior center
had 65 members per day compared to the eight members per day in
1974 when she started.
“There was more (information to go on the plaque) but there
wasn’t enough room on the plaque,” Butler said.
“The people here all have a story of their own,” Steinhauser
said. “There’s a story about each one of them.”
Some of those people leaving the Christmas party were hugging
Steinhauser and were near tears, but others were celebrating her
retirement with a bit of fun.
“There’s one thing you didn’t do. You never got me a man,”
Sophie Poleto shouted. “Maybe I’ll do better with Carol. Lynda was
good. If you had any problems, she would take care of it.”
Merle Clark, a past president of the senior center, said
whenever anyone was sick, Steinhauser knew what to do.
“She was on top of everything that happened in here,” Clark
said. “She had all the knowledge. I worked with her for eight to 10
years. We worked together when we had the flood three or four years
ago. She’s the backbone of the senior center. She started here and
was still here the same when she left. She loved everyone, and
everyone loved her.”
“I was going through depression because my mother and sister
died very close to one another,” Evelyn Carlson said. “And coming
in here was therapy for me. Lynda helped me through it.”
“If you went to her with a problem and she didn’t know the
answer, she would find it for you,” Beverly McCool said.
