Woman, 90, cited for 50 years of hospital volunteerism

Merrilee England, a San Anselmo resident for 61 years, will receive a Silver Award for working 16,898 volunteer hours at Marin General Hospital.

The prize will be presented at the 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 13 meeting of the San Anselmo Town Council.

The 90-year-old’s volunteerism covered a period of more than 50 years.

The Quality of Life Commission recently voted, unanimously, to give her its award, which is aimed at “unsung heroes.” It will be presented in absentia, because England moved in mid-April to a retirement village near her daughter in Tucson.

“I’m going to miss working at the hospital, which was my big deal,” she said, “and I’m positively going to miss living in San Anselmo.”

At Marin General, England had started out pushing a gift cart “filled with candy, magazines, lingerie and sundries” to patients’ rooms — with proceeds, of course, going to the facility.

Later, she spent many hours in the hospital’s thrift shop, which closed when the rent skyrocketed.

“We had to watch for people taking things out of the shop,” she recalled. “We could tell that some women who were carrying really big bags were ‘casing the place.’ We’d report it but not try to stop them because you couldn’t know what to expect.”

Then, finally, as a uniformed Pink Lady, she staffed the hospital gift shop.

“I just loved it,” said England, who was married 55 years to her husband, Robert, who died in 2000. “I loved talking to people of all ages, and to all the nurses.”

In Tucson, she plans “to continue reading a lot — a lot of different things by different authors, but especially mysteries by people like James Patterson.”

England will become the 32nd Silver Award winner.

Previous recipients were Jack Weinstein, Dorothy Walters, Joy Snyder, Joey Epstein, Shirley Paradiso, Bonnie Carson, Ted Freeman, Sue McDowell, Phyllis Ostrander, Carla Overberger, Judy Coy, Kathy Thornton, Dick Stutsman, Nancy Vernon, Barbara Dwyer, Peter Penhallow, the husband-and-wife team of Teri and Alex Rockas, Eli Welber and Steve Lee, Grace Komo, Ben Burtt, Royce Truex and Jo Gross, Michael Schwab, Deborah Cichocki, Kay Peacock, Frank Ortiz, Tom Boss, the husband-wife team of Patricia and Chuck Swensen, Bill Abright, Cynnie Barrows, Marilyn Girodo, Sophia Spencer hand Dollie Frauens.

The broad-based Silver Awards and the environmentally oriented Green Awards are presented in alternate months.

Nominations for either can be hand-delivered or mailed to: Quality of Life Commission, c/o Town of San Anselmo, 525 San Anselmo Ave., or e-mailed to voodee@sbcglobal.net or townnclerk@ci.san-anselmo.ca.us.