 Home | Recent News | Lawrence | Mary Lou Warner Keeps on Going 09 May 2007 Mary Lou Warner just keeps on going and goingAt 86, Mary Lou Warner has faced three bouts of cancer and the loss of her husband. But that hasn’t stopped her from carrying out a special volunteer role at the Presbyterian Manor of Lawrence.
She is one of the country’s thousands of volunteers who make April National Volunteer Month worth celebrating.
By using business and administrative skills developed throughout her work life, she and her co-chair Ann Bricker, 89, run the Rendezvous, a combination gift and coffee shop at Presbyterian Manor.
It’s a place where residents and visitors can gather for a cup of coffee, a “half and half” (half tea, half lemonade) created by some of the male volunteers, or other drinks from 2 to 4:30 p.m. throughout the week. The drinks are all complimentary.
If customers need a greeting card, stationary, laundry detergent or a range of sundries, like toothpaste or hairnets, those are available, too. The object of the pricing on those items is to keep things affordable for residents. “Our goal is to break even,” Warner explains. If residents bake, they sometimes share their bounty, also without charge, to those who frequent the shop.
Her hope had been that the Rendezvous, a small facility with a counter, space for merchandise, and three tables, would be a “comfortable” place where guests could be at ease with those they were visiting at the Manor, she explains.
Warner has a unique history and a special place in her heart for the Manor. She actually helped with the opening of the Lawrence community, starting as a secretary, serving as office manager, then in marketing and as assistant to the administrator. Prior to that, however, she had worked at the Presbyterian Manor of Kansas City for three years as a secretary. Then 10 years ago, she and her husband became residents at the Manor in Lawrence.
Warner’s main role at this point is to recruit volunteers for the shop as well as to handle the ordering for the cards and stationary. She has a team of 10 or so who come from the ranks of Manor residents, churches, as well as other community residents, but is in the midst of recruiting more volunteers.
Warner and her late husband, Paul E. Warner, had a strong connection to Lawrence. He was one of the first journalism graduates at the University of Kansas. A native of Chanute, he did public relations and then sales promotion for Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville, Okla. He then served as director of college relations for Kansas City (Kan.) Community College. Before the war, he had worked at Boeing, Wichita. He also served in the Navy
A native of Newton, Mary Ann had served as office manager and secretary to the director of the KU Memorial Association while he was a student. During the war, she worked at the Farm Credit Administration in Wichita She also worked at the First National Bank in Newton and served as secretary to the director of the Newton Chamber of Commerce. The couple had a son, Greg, who lives in Wichita where he works for Hawker-Beechcraft.
Warner maintains an active schedule. She serves on the Manor’s Archives Committee that keeps records of everybody who has lived at the Manor. She also belongs to a cancer support group that tries to keep up on the latest developments in research and treatment protocols, as well as to bring hope to each other. As a three-time cancer survivor, she stands out as a beacon of hope.
She also is a member of the Memoirs Committee, a group of residents who are writing about the residents who have lived at the Manor. “There are sisters who lived here together,” she says. “They came here because they were familiar with the Manor. Their parents had been residents. We have former teachers here and a former minister,” she says of the potential subject matter.
There’s a knitting group that takes some of her time, too. “We make lap robes for those in the Manor’s health center,” she says.
Warner is a chipper and physically active senior. No doubt about that. She certainly seems to have maintained her well-being -- and research indicates she’s probably enhanced those qualities and contributed to her own longevity because of the volunteer work she’s done over the years.
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