‘I try to help people whenever I can:’ SPHS community living professional has no plans on retiring as her 90th birthday nears

Ethel Wagner of Carroll Township loves taking care of people.

From skydiving to parasailing in her 80s, Ethel Wagner of Carroll Township isn’t going to let her age stop her from what she loves to do.

Working for Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services for the last 32 years, Wagner currently works as a direct support professional from 2 to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at one of SPHS’s Community Living Arrangement homes in Monongahela. The fact she is turning 90 on Aug. 28 hasn’t slowed down her love for her work.

Born in Carroll Township in 1936, Wagner has worked many jobs over the years to provide for parents and her three sons. Tragedy struck their lives in 1990 when one of her sons died in an apartment fire in Charleroi.

Working in places like the National Tube Works in McKeesport, the Clevepak Box Factory in Donora and several other places to make ends meet, Wagner said she always knew she wanted to take care of people.

That’s why she spent a good portion of her life working in places such as the former Charleroi-Monessen Hospital. Since she started working for SPHS on Dec. 1, 1993, she has spent her time working in different community living arrangement homes.

“Every job I go to, I meet nice people, and I am not sorry I had any of them,” Wagner said. “I try to help people whenever I can. I am planning on working until one day before I’m 100. I have been saying that since I was a kid. The reason why I am doing that, I am going to the White House for my 100th birthday, but they don’t know it yet.”

SPHS provides community living arrangements, permanent supportive housing and transitional residential programs.

Across Washington, Greene, Westmoreland and Fayette counties through affiliates like SPHS Connect and Diversified Human Services, these programs help individuals with disabilities, mental health needs or housing crises live in less restrictive community settings.

With a $77 million annual budget, SPHS residential programs Executive Director Matthew Tutay said they have just under 800 employees, and they serve 40,000 individuals a year. Several of those individuals are cared for by Wagner.

“The goal that we have is for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to have the chance to be around other people, and experiences,” Tutay said. “There are a lot, about 22 individuals, who are in those community living arrangements. Some of them need around-the-clock care. Helping them bathe, taking them on vacations, things like that.”

Wagner takes care of two individuals in the home, keeps the house clean and does whatever a resident may need.

She said some of the people she works with, and the residents she has met over the years call her “mom.” She tries to get to know the residents’ families as well.

“I adopt everybody. They’re my family,” Wagner said. “You get attached to them like they’re your own. You can’t help it. You have to have a lot of compassion to be a good nurse, and I’m there for the individuals. I think I was born to help people because that is what I wanted to do my whole life.”

Wagner often grows close to the residents of the community homes. She said one of the residents would call her E.W. When that resident died, Wagner left her flowers signed by “E.W.”

When a resident passes away, Wagner also makes sure their grave sites at cemeteries in the Mon Valley are decorated for every holiday and birthday.

“I don’t cry any more because they’re safe, so there’s nothing to cry about,” she said. “So I go (to the cemeteries) because somebody’s got to care. Just because they’re gone, they’re not really gone. So, I do all their graves, and I’m not sorry. As long as I can do them, I’m going to do it.”

Cooking for the homeless at her church, the House of Faith in West Newton and crossword puzzles are some of Wagner’s favorite pastimes.

She said she won’t be skydiving this year for her birthday, but she’s going to spend it with her cousin visiting from Florida since she has had a couple of surgeries the past few years.

Wagner credits never smoking and drinking to her long and happy life.

Wagner added that she has enjoyed every bit of her job and looks forward to coming to work every day. She said she does not care about herself, but rather the other people she helps every day.

“People like Ethel are pretty rare,” Tutay said. “There isn’t a person like her. No matter what she’s going through personally, or what challenges she’s experiencing, having that much life experience, she’s coming to work, and it’s amazing she has for so many years. So it’s kind of remarkable to me.”