Local Woman Featured in Area Paper

The Thorp Courier (Thorp, WI)
December 30, 2009
Transcribed by Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Edith Ness, a resident of Stanley, was recently featured in an issue of The Leader Telegram article entitled “Age Won’t Stop Stanley Woman from Working.”  The article was written and photo taken by Liz Hochstetler. The article ran as follows:
 
Edith Ness smiles brightly as she slowly makes her way around the administration office at Stanley Correctional Institution.
 
She has important tasks to complete, from sorting mail for the prison’s 14 departments to compiling employee orientation packets and alphabetizing 389 timesheets for bi-weekly payroll.
 
“I do whatever the warden’s secretary needs to be done,” she said.
 
At age 85, Ness could have chosen to retire two decades ago, but instead she insists on working.
 
“I’m low-income, so I need the money, and because it gets me out with people, it’s fun,” she said of her job.
 
Ness is in a paid training program with Senior Citizens Employment and Training of Eau Claire. The organization places senior citizens over age 55 in assignments at non-profit and government agencies and pays its employees through a Department of Labor grant.
 
“They do a tremendous job,” Ness said. “They know about the jobs and where they are, and they know about your needs.”
 
Ness, of Stanley, was one of three in the state honored as an Outstanding Older Worker of the Year by Wisconsin’s Older Worker Network.  She is older than each of her fellow honorees by at least 16 years.
 
She received the award for all the hard work she puts in at the prison.
 
“Her work ethic puts the rest of us to shame,” her supervisor Julie Miller told the Older Worker Network.  “Even when it’s bitterly cold, Edith puts on her snowmobile suit and comes to work. We finally told her when the schools are closed for bad weather, she has to stay home.”
 
Though Ness could have left the workforce any time within the last 20 years, a work ethic honed when she was in her twenties has kept her going.
 
“I think it’s good for everyone to know how to do something, young and old, because we don’t know where this country is going,” she said.
 
Ness learned to about civic duties in the 1940’s when the country was at war.
 
“In World War II, I went to Washington D.C. because they were so desperate for help,” she said.
 
Answering to a call from the government, she left her home in Stanley and headed to Washington D. C. to work for the Navy.  
 
The office job wasn’t always glamorous.  One day she was whacked in the face with a newspaper by a man who had mental issues.  He broke a bone in her nose.  But there were good times, too.
 
“It was a tremendous experience to go to Washington D. C. and see all the sights around it,” she said.
 
Ness visited George Washington’s former home, Chesapeake Bay, all the local monuments and took a boat down the Potomac River.
 
After her stint in Washington, Ness was not ready to come home right away.
 
“All my sisters got married and started big families, but I had to go my own way,” she told the Older Worker Network.
 
Ness never got married or had children. She chose a different adventure, working for large firms in Denver and Los Angeles and then at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Blue Moon Cheese in Thorp before returning to Stanley in 1974.
 
“Then I started working with the school and that was tremendous,” she said.  “We set up the elementary school library.”
 
Ness worked as a library aide until 1985 and later returned to the school to work with the agriculture department.
 
In 2004, she was assigned to work 20 hours a week at the prison as an assistant to the warden’s secretary.  As a Stanley native, Ness was a little concerned about working in the prison system.
 
“For years everyone in Stanley, they had this mentality, ‘Oh, prison.’  They wouldn’t work here, so I was worried,” she said.  But Ness’ fears were quickly forgotten.
 
“They have been so kind to me.  It’s just been wonderful,” she said.
 
In her five years at the Stanley Correctional Institution, Ness has learned a lot about how the prison operates.
 
“I really didn’t know anything about prisons when I came here, and I didn’t realize how much help inmates get,” Ness said.
 
Inmates are given an education and have graduations when they complete their schooling, she said.
 
“They can really make their lives over, here,” she said.
 
Through her years on the job, Ness’ work ethic has only grown.  In March, she tripped in the office and broke an arm and a leg, and she couldn’t work for several months.
 
But again, she refused to retire to the relief of her co-workers.
 
“When Edith got injured, it made people realize how much work she did,” Miller said.  “She was out for months, and we really missed her.”
 
Despite her efforts, Ness said she was surprised that she won an award.
 
“It was so kind of everyone at the prison, and everyone at the office came to my dinner reception,” she said.
 
Ness’ determination continues. She said she has no plans to retire any time soon.