86-year-old woman has volunteered at Valley Hospital for 20 years

Marietta Parvey, 86, begins every day by walking nearly 2 miles.

Always a morning person, she delights in getting up and greeting the day.

“And I’m hungry,” Parvey said. “I have to get out of bed and make breakfast.”

She grew up in Colton, Washington, and moved to Spokane to attend beauty school in 1947.

She stuck around, married and had children.

She tried retiring in June 1995, after working as a hairdresser for 47 years, but that only lasted until September that same year.

That’s when she signed up as a volunteer at Valley Hospital.

She’s volunteered there ever since.

“One of my customers volunteered here and it sounded like fun,” Parvey said, sitting in the lobby of the hospital that she knows as well as her own home. Doctors, nurses and other volunteers wave as they walk by.

She smiles and waves right back.

Parvey has filled almost every volunteer position at the hospital: She’s worked the information desk, delivered coffee and snacks to families visiting patients, handed out staff checks and delivered drugs to the many different units and floors.

A short stint in the medical records department wasn’t a good match.

“Paperwork is just not me,” she said, laughing.

Her favorite position is at the information desk; she likes greeting people and helping them find their way around.

She’s a small, energetic woman who looks you straight in the eye.

“I don’t know how I got to be this age; I just keep going,” Parvey said.

It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that a woman this upbeat, personable and caring never experienced any hardship.

But Parvey has, and the ruby ring on her right hand is a daily reminder of one terribly difficult time.

The ring was a graduation gift to her daughter, Sheila Clark, who was killed in 2013 by the man she was divorcing.

“She went to see him and he blew up the mobile home,” Parvey said. “It was a domestic violence situation.”

Parvey followed her daughter to the burn unit at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, where Sheila held on to life for a few more days.

“She never woke up. Her children were so upset,” Parvey said. “I was the only one who didn’t cry.”

And she spoke at her daughter’s funeral – also without crying.

“It’s some kind of inner strength that comes out while you are going through it,” Parvey said.

There have been plenty of tears since.

Six months after Sheila’s death, Parvey’s husband lost a daughter. Then his best friend died. And then Parvey’s sister passed away.

“It was a lot,” Parvey said, “but what can you do? You get up and you do what you have to do.”

On her morning walks she prays and she says good morning to her late daughter.

“That helps. It’s like I can talk to her,” Parvey said.

In May, Sheila was buried next to her first husband, David Clark, at the Washington State Veterans Cemetery in Medical Lake.

“She was such a sweetheart, I really miss her,” Parvey said. “It hurts. You never get over it.”

Parvey was planning on taking the summer off from volunteering, but returned for one week to work with one of her favorite staff members, Patricia Stanciu, who’s retiring.

Parvey’s staff badge is decorated with pins she has earned during her volunteer years.

There was a time when nearly 200 people volunteered at the hospital, she said.

“Now there are about 30, I think,” Parvey said. “We always need more people.”

When there were more volunteers, they used to meet every other week and they would travel to meetings and conferences together.

Parvey misses the days when there were more volunteers and the camaraderie they had.

Yet she still loves volunteering, and she plans to come back after some time off this summer.

Doesn’t she feel like she deserves a break?

“Some days I do, but what can I tell you?” Parvey said. “It’s better to just get up and do what you have to do.”