Someone You Should Know: 100-Year-Old Volunteer
CHICAGO (CBS) -- She's been volunteering for more than 40 years, and she wasn't even that young when she started.
Etta Schiller just celebrated her 100th birthday and she's still going strong.
She's someone you should know, CBS 2's Harry Porterfield reports.
The welcome you get at the reception desk in the lobby of Weiss Memorial Hospital is lively and informative when Schiller is on duty.
She's a volunteer with 42 years of service to the hospital. Among the corps of senior volunteers, she holds the distinction of being the most senior. The Chicagoan was born Aug. 16, 1912.
"When they heard I'm 100 years old, they wondered if i rode around in a horse and buggy," Schiller jokes. "I said, 'No, just on the horse.'"
For her birthday, co-workers got together to honor her at a luncheon in the hospital. The sports fan got two tickets to a Bulls game and jerseys from the Cubs and Bears.
Terry Touhy, the hospital's director of volunteer services, says Schiller can teach us all something.
"I think she embodies the idea that to keep your health you need to keep busy. You need to be active, and she is one of my best spokespersons for the hospital," Touhy says.
Schiller is the mother of two daughters, the grandmother of six and great-grandmother of seven.
"She's everybody's role model. She's wonderful. She can be bossy, but we love her for it," daughter Nancy Winter says.
Her hours at the hospital are from 6:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. -- often beyond. That means she has to be an early riser.
Says Schiller: "When I'm not feeling well, I say to myself, 'Get up, girl, and go' -- and I go."
