SAN MATEO — When Kathy Smith and her colleagues are feeling sluggish at work, they can look to volunteer Dolores Duckworth, who was born during World War I, for a quick dose of perspective.
“It’s like, if she can come in here at 100 years old, we’d better step it up,” said Smith, operations support coordinator for Sutter Care at Home, a nonprofit that provides in-home health and hospice care. “She’s something else.”
Duckworth, who turns 101 on Friday, is a dedicated, even demanding, volunteer, Smith said. When she makes her twice-weekly visits to the office on Amphlett Boulevard, she’s not looking to pass the time. She’s there to get things done.
The centenarian helps Smith by organizing the records of hospice patients. She spends several hours at a time placing charts and doctors’ orders into alphabetically sorted files.
“God’s been very good to me, and it’s payback time,” Duckworth said of volunteering. “It’s better than being a couch potato.”
Though hard of hearing, Duckworth is mentally sharp. And she retains a devilish sense of humor.
Asked for the secret to her longevity, Duckworth said, “Only the good die young.” She turned to Smith and added, “You’ll have a long life.”
Duckworth was born in Watsonville and grew up in San Francisco. She had a successful career in business, retiring in 1980 as an assistant vice president at Wells Fargo.
Nowadays she lives at Sterling Court, a retirement community in San Mateo. She doesn’t have children, but she still has friends in San Francisco and along the Peninsula.
One of her fondest memories is walking across the Golden Gate Bridge on the second day it was open to pedestrians in 1937. Before the bridge was built, visiting the North Bay involved waiting in lines for automobile ferries.
“To get to Marin was really a chore,” she said.
A devoted Giants and 49ers fan, Duckworth shivered through games at Candlestick Park. These days she watches from the comfort of home. Like other Niners fans, her patience has been tested this season. She turns off the TV when the games get out of hand.
Duckworth has been volunteering for Sutter Care at Home for about a decade, and she plans to keep doing it as long as she can. Upon finishing a recent conversation with a reporter, Duckworth was eager to knock off the chitchat and dig back into her files.
“You mean now I can go back to work?” she said.
Contact Aaron Kinney at 650-348-4357. Follow him at Twitter.com/kinneytimes.