Service is a way of life for Everett woman
Published 11:23 pm Wednesday, April 23, 2008
EVERETT — Susan Lloyd’s living room holds the mementos of 25 years of volunteering in Snohomish County.
Certificates fill cardboard boxes and line the walls, sharing space with her craft work, photos of her grandchildren and a record collection of Southern gospel quartets.
Lloyd’s most recent award is for the 10,000 hours she has given to the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. She works a full day once a week at the society’s thrift shop at Smokey Point, making sure military families have the clothing and housewares they need when they come to live in Snohomish County.
She also donates her crochet work, volunteers at the Everett Senior Center and is involved with Red Cross and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program. Her neighbors know her as someone they can depend on for help.
Lloyd, 86, is a retired nurse with a great love for others. One of nine children, she grew up on a farm in Alabama.
As a young teenager, she took a break from picking cotton to care for her ailing Cherokee Indian grandmother. While applying poultices of hog lard and soot to her grandma’s infected foot, she was inspired to become a nurse.
“I remember my grandmother’s smile and her appreciation,” Lloyd said.
She graduated from what is now the University of Alabama school of nursing and met her husband, an Everett native, at a dance during World War II. The Lloyds had one son and raised him in Everett, along with five foster children.
During her 43-year nursing career, Lloyd delivered nearly 100 babies. She worked at Everett General Hospital and was a staff nurse at Boeing and Scott Paper and an occupational health nurse at Western Gear.
Nursing set the stage for volunteering.
After her husband died, Lloyd volunteered in the Seniors Against Crime group with the Everett Police Department. That was just the start of her second career as a volunteer. She has no plans to stop.
“I feel good about volunteering, but I’m not in it for the praise,” Lloyd said. “If not to help others, what the hell are we here for?”
