Wheaton resident honored for 50 years of service at DuPage Convalescent Center

WHEATON – After 50 years of volunteering at the DuPage Convalescent Center, there aren't many familiar faces remaining from the beginning of Wheaton resident Winnie Blewitt's career.

She has outlasted entire administrations, scores of volunteers and staff, and sadly, hundreds of the organization’s elderly residents.

“At my age, everything I’m in, ... it’s amazing how many people I’ve known real well over the years have died,” she said. “It is hard. You get to know people here just like you do every place else and they become your friends.”

But through it all, the 95-year-old continues to be a constant presence at the center, pacing the room where she still teaches a weekly ceramics class after five decades in a way that belies her age.

County officials estimate Blewitt has donated more than 6,300 hours of volunteer work to the center – an amount worth more than $140,000.

She stands, not only as the center’s longest-serving volunteer, but also the longest tenured worker of any type.

Though she started as a weekly visitor after a friend recruited her help a few years after Blewitt moved to the area, she has made her mark with the ceramics class.

While she said she can’t do as much as she used to, she and other volunteers help residents create molds and paint them. Participants can sell their work at fundraisers for a portion of the proceeds, though many opt to keep them or give them as gifts.

That kind activity, as well as volunteers like Blewitt, make the Convalescent Center a positive place to be, said Volunteer Supervisor Barbara Kolton.

“The volunteers and the program help the residents do what they love to do for as long as they can,” she said. “That’s key, because when residents come here, they’ve given up so much already. A lot of them don’t have family in the area or friends, so our volunteers play a very key role in filling that void and they do become like family to the residents.”

Blewitt said her active lifestyle has been essential to her longevity. She still plays tennis every week, drives herself, takes part in a church group, visits her home in Costa Rica at least once a year and does her own housework.

“Except, once a month, I give myself the treat of the cleaning girls who come in,” she said.

Kolton said it is an honor to work with Blewitt. Last month, the DuPage County Board commended her work with a resolution, calling her a "valued friend, confidant and mentor" to those at the Convalescent Center.

For her part, Blewitt said she plans to keep moving forward and is thankful for all she has been able to do in her years.

“I think when you’re busy and you do things you like to do, you don’t think about age,” she said. “You just go along with it and the years come and go.”

Note to readers: This story was changed after publication to reflect the correct month in which Blewitt was honored by the DuPage County Board. She was honored in April.