Our Woman in Washington

Left: ACTION director Helen Kelly and Sister Mary agree that federally funded programs for the elderly are necessary since private community organizations are frequently limited financially or lack organizational ex-pertise. Right: In between visits to RSVP centers, Sister Mary checks new developments in other programs for the elderly.

 

Published in Salt, Spring 1979
by Rita Mary Benz, BVM

Iranians were demonstrating in Lafayette Park right outside her office window. The night before, fire had destroyed a frame house across the street from her apartment and at 2 a.m. it seemed we would have to evacuate. Our Metro stalled for 20 minutes beneath the Potomac en route from Arlington to Washington, D.C.

It all happened on my first day of trailing Mary Cramer [BVM] for a SALT story. But if I was impressed, Mary wasn’t. It was all in tune with her work at the Washington headquarters of ACTION, an umbrella organization for five federally funded programs, among them RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program).

A Program Specialist for RSVP, Mary moves about the country monitoring local programs and assisting staff members and volunteers meeting the needs of their communities. Since her arrival in Washington, she has visited Older American Volunteer programs in Colorado, California, Virginia, Nebraska, Missouri, and also in New England.

Today, while waiting for delayed federal travel funds for field work (to some 689 sites in 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and D.C.), Mary and her co-workers at 806 Connecticut Avenue NW brainstorm on ways to improve programs and try to catch up on the paper work inevitable in federal projects. Though the mounds of paper stacked on desks, floors and file cabinets bespeak bureaucracy, the staff witnesses to the real job—ACTION for older Americans.

“RSVP enables citizens 60 and over (there is no upper age limit) to share their time and expertise with those in their communities who need help,” Mary explains. “It’s an exciting concept in which the senior citizen is a giver, not a receiver. It enables older Americans to keep in the mainstream of life.”

“These people have the wisdom of living,” she points out. “they have so much to offer and they have the time to reach out to others. They serve without compensation but most of them feel that they are getting more than they are giving.”

Mary has lots of “for instances” to prove her point.

• One 75-year old carpenter told her that he’s learned much more about his craft since he began teaching shop to nine and ten year olds in a school for exceptional children.
• An elderly woman who first described herself as “just a housewife” now lists her occupation as “nutritionist” for older shut-ins.
• In living History classes for grade and high school students across the country, senior volunteers bring the past to children as they tell their own stories of the depression, World War I, and a world without supermarkets, scotch tape, stereo decks, TV, radio, jets and power steering.

ACTION has been working for and with such seniors since 1971 and Mary has been on the cutting edge since the government said “GO!” For her it all began in Dubuque in 1969. The year before she had resigned after 13 years as Dean of Women at Mundelein College, Chicago, and had moved to the University of San Francisco on a sabbatical to retool for a second career. She found the career quite suddenly when she and Sr. Catherine McHugh were asked to administer, staff and co-direct the first BVM Personnel Office.

Personnel was the BVM version of a job placement service and a direct response to the ’68 Senate’s approval of TOPA (Totally Open Personnel Application) which revolutionized the BVM system from assignments by Provincial Superiors to open application. By June of 1972 when her term as Personnel Director was up, Mary had begun looking around for a third career.

Before she found what she wanted, Project Concern for the Elderly in Dubuque found her. Under the Older American Act of 1965, Loras College in Dubuque was sponsoring a Title III program for the elderly. The first program director needed help in setting up a placement service for older persons seeking part-time employment and asked Mary’s assistance. The local Iowa State Employment Service offered space and phones. By the end of the summer, Mary had recruited and trained senior volunteers to run the special job placement service. She developed a training manual for them and searched out likely employers.

In the fall of that year, she began working two mornings a week with the new director as the program moved from the auspices of Loras and became independently incorporated.

By now Mary recognized the potential of senior citizens and determined to work for and with them in the most effective ways she could find. She began contacting job resources including Iowa’s former Senator Jack Miller, who was on the U.S. Senate Committee for the Aging; Neil Hartigan, then Lieutenant Governor of Illinois; and Chicago’s Mayor’s Office on Aging.

Then she discovered ACTION and the embryonic RSVP program which had just received federal funds to set up local projects for senior volunteers. Through the Iowa Commission on Aging, she earned a slot among the first 21 state ACTION trainees and began her initial in-service sessions.

As an RSVP Resource Specialist for Eastern Iowa, her job was to “sell” the program to local communities, help them write grant applications and provide the technical assistance they needed. The job was part-time and to supplement her salary, she also became Assistant Director of Dubuque’s Project Concern for the Elderly.

As she learned and earned with her two jobs, Mary also aimed and trained for a more demanding role in ACTION. In 1974 she got it and moved to Des Moines into a state job of visiting and supervising 20 Older American Programs. When ACTION decentralized and created a new state office, Mary applied and became an Iowa Program Officer.

Convinced of the positive results of these programs, in 1977 she applied for and captured the federal job of Older American Volunteer Specialist , and moved to her present position in Washington. Voila—a third career!

Her early years as a history teacher at Immaculata, St. Joseph Academy (Des Moines), and Mundelein are much in evidence as Mary evaluates her past and looks to the future.

“When I left Mundelein after 13 years as Dean of Students and began y sabbatical at USF, it was a watershed in my life,” she recalls. “It was a personal challenge; a time to move on, to make some decisions. I’m glad it happened.”

Having moved from academia to administration, from the BVM circuit to civil service, Mary sometimes asks herself (and others ask, too): “What am I, a woman religious, doing in a ‘secular’ field?” And she answers: “I’m exercising my freedom in the best sense of the term—freedom to do those things that need to be done to improve the quality of life for senior citizens.”

Mary sees a significant role for women religious in federal programs. “These government programs attract us because they are people-oriented and there is the money and clout to make things happen,” she says. “Everyone at ACTION knows I’m a nun. I stand for certain values but the others do, too. We work in tandem. We each bring ourselves to the job with our experiences and background.

“My experience as a BVM, as a community woman, a teacher, an administrator, has been invaluable to me hers. And as a celibate woman, I have certain freedoms that enable me to be available in emergencies, to do things which need to be done, now.”

But back in 1977, Mary wasn’t quite so secure. “I couldn’t believe it,” she recalls. “I had been living with the BVMs who taught at Dowling High School in Des Moines and working with RSVP. Then I got this new job and suddenly here I was, driving to Washington to find my own apartment and begin a new job. I didn’t know where I would be living or exactly what I would be doing.

“I knew few people in D.C. and almost nothing about the city. But I’d made a decision and had to live with it. I hadn’t exactly burned my bridges but I had made a commitment and this was what it meant.”

Experience in the Des Moines apartment and prior to that at Clarke College had given her clues to apartment needs. “I knew I wanted something safe, convenient, furnished and not too expensive,” she recalls, “and it wasn’t just there waiting for me. I had to search but finally found what I wanted—a one bedroom apartment in Arlington.”

“It’s an enriching experience, living alone, and sometimes a lonely one,” she acknowledges. “My schedule is rugged and when I’m home, I welcome the peace and freedom to decide when, where and what I’ll do and eat, what I’ll watch on TV, when I’ll go to bed. However, I also have all the chores to do, too.”

Though life with ACTION is full and interesting, Mary also value her leisure hours when she can enjoy the cultural events the city offers, spend a few days with the BVMs in West Hempstead or get together for a long weekend with BVM Virginians. (Sr. Barbara Donovan [Arlington] serves as Management Consultant for the Girl Scouts.)

“I’m still very much a community person,” she reflects. “My mailbox is only three inches wide and is usually full of community reports and news. So I do feel in touch with BVMs. I plan my vacations with BVM friends, and have managed to get to the assembly each year. Washington is a popular place for BVMs so I have guests frequently.

“But even when I’m alone, I’m aware of the community. It is my frame of reference, my support.”

However, Mary is also attracted to special interest groups. She has joined the American Association of University Women and the Northern Virginia Chapter of Network, which lobbies for social justice. She is also a member of the Gray Panthers, an agency working for the old and young who suffer discrimination because of age.

Today is good for Mary Cramer—and tomorrow?

“I’m not sure,” she says, “I’ve learned a great deal about gerontology. I also like the role of consumer advocate. However, at this stage of my life a part-time job is beginning to look very attractive. I’m a little weary of working wo hard.

“It would be pure luxury to be a guide in an art museum,” she muses. “However, I am attracted to people programs. I’ll have to look around, see what the options are, and when the time comes, make a decision.”

“This is a do-it-yourself situation,” she emphasizes. “You pray, talk things over with family and friends, and check your abilities against job possibilities but no angel comes down with a life plan. You have to help make it happen.”

For almost 45 years as a BVM, Mary has been doing just that—making life happen for herself and others. Today “second careers” are important. Mary’s thinking about a fourth career. For her ACTION is not only a federal program. It’s a way of taking on life and doing something about it.