Hidden Lake Resident Wins Volunteer of the Year

What an honor! With 350 facilities being represented, Hidden Lake resident Evelyn Spradling should be proud. She won the 2002 Missouri health Care Association District I Adult Volunteer of the Year award.

Each year the Missouri Health Care Association (MHCA) recognizes an adult volunteer of the year. MHCA is a trade association for nursing and residential care facilities that provide all levels of care to residents. Volunteers make up an important link to the success of many of these facilities.

“I like people,” said Evelyn. “Staying active and involved keeps you young and fun to be around. You need to stay connected to keep a positive outlook on life.”

One of the first residents at Hidden Lake Care Center when it opened in 1992, Evelyn volunteers her time to help staff at events and makes sure residents feel at home. That’s just part of her week. On Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays she’s staying fit at Fit For Life Fitness and Therapy Center in their PACE program.

A retired second-grade teacher at Northwood Elementary School in the days of Superintendent Joe Herndon of the Raytown school district, Evelyn has a rich life upon which to reflect. Winning awards is just the icing on a delicious cake of memories that have made up her 85 years.

“One of my most crowning achievements was marrying my husband, Clell,” said Evelyn. “We met in college in 1938 at SMSU in Springfield. We both were athletic, so I guess we kind of met in the gym. He was the star football player and I was a star basketball player. We were married for more than 50 years.”

And what a couple they were! It’s a bet that together they turned heads, if not for looks then for who they knew in football circles.

“For years we had season tickets on Row 10 in Arrowhead Stadium,” said Evelyn. “Because Clell was a football coach, a lot of people knew him. When they had a chance Hank Stramm or Bobby Bell would stop by to chat before the game. It was so much fun.”

Someone once said that memories are really all we have to take along the way. That and love. If such wisdom is true, then Evelyn is rich, though missing her man who died in 1995. There aren’t enough years for that kind of love, at least on this side of heaven.

Reminiscing through old yearbooks to get this story, it’s as if he’d never left, but was standing next to her laughing at such young pictures. A poignant walk through her past with him, to a present without him, it was like the Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy who steps from a black-and-white homestead into a technicolor garden. Love’s like that you know.

“ I have tried to imagine my world without you…
Soaring geese in formation, mountain peaks hidden in snow.
The splendor of fall along a country road.
The whir of a ring-necked pheasant at midday.
The bleating of a horned owl at midnight,
And know that none of it will be the same without you.”

Though an honor to be recognized as Missouri Health Care Association’s Adult Volunteer of the Year, it’s a hunch that her highest honor to come is when Clell and Evelyn meet again on God’s turf.

 

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