Everyday Heroes
By Arlene Jensen
Elwood and Roseann Knutson have been a team since high school.
Teenagers when they met, they married after college and together they have weathered teaching careers, 44 years of marriage and three children.
Now retired, the Knutsons volunteer together in the Friendly Visitor program, a part of Kenosha Area Family and Aging Services.
Their current assignment is to visit 91-year-old Mary, who appreciates their companionship and needs their help with some household tasks and shopping.
“Mary just loves to shop,” Roseann says, “so we take her to stores. We also take her to visit with friends. Sometimes we just go out to eat. She really likes that.”
“We block out an afternoon a week to help with whatever she needs done,” says Elwood, best known to friends and family as “Woody”.
The Knutsons got involved with the program eight years ago when they were asked to assist a blind woman who needed transportation and help with grocery shopping. They continued the friendship until the woman’s death.
Because many elderly people do not have family members near by, they lack the support system and companionship they once enjoyed. The mission of the Friendly Visitor program is to reduce the isolation.
Regular visits help combat loneliness and improve quality of life.
Besides friendly visiting, the program encourages and supports other needs. The volunteer may be called upon to read or write letters for some with vision difficulties, or simply call them regularly on the phone to offer reassurance or friendly conversation.
Friendly Visitors might assist with other activities, even crafts. They might help with light lawn care or home repairs or provide respite assistance for family caregivers.
For the Knutsons, their participation in the Friendly Visitor program is little different from what they had done informally for years. For 18 years, they offered similar assistance to an elderly neighbor, actually making it possible for her to remain living in her home.
But the Friendly Visitor program is not the only volunteering in the Knutson’s active schedule. During the colder months, they deliver Meals on Wheels for KAFASI, taking over a route from another couple of volunteers who go south for the winter.
Woody loves golfing, when the weather permits. When he’s out on the course, Roseann makes the rounds of shut-ins in their neighborhood, visiting them and checking to see if any could use a helping hand.
Elwood Knutson and Roseann Olson were high schoolers when they met in their hometown of Blair, a small community in Trempeleau County in western Wisconsin.
After high school, Roseann went to college in Eau Claire, and Elwood to LaCrosse. Each became a teacher. In 1961, they married and settled in Kenosha.
For eight years, Elwood taught physical education at Prairie Lane School in Pleasant Prairie. During the next quarter century, he was involved in coaching and teaching phy-ed at various elementary and junior high schools in the Kenosha Unified district.
Woody, an avid fan of the Milwaukee Brewers, as well as the Green Bay Packers and Wisconsin Badgers, has loved sports all his life. His boyhood dream was to play major league baseball, but a bout with polio in 1944 left him with a weak back.
Despite physical problems, he played baseball, basketball and football in high school, and was shortstop on his college baseball team. When the former Milwaukee Braves offered him a tryout, he jumped at the opportunity. Though he didn’t make it as a pro player, he calls the baseball camp tryout one of the highlights of his life.
“It was just a great experience,” he recalls, “I even got to meet Henry Aaron.”
Roseann, too, had a long teaching career, though it was interrupted by the needs of her young family, children Rhonda, Dean and Lori. When her youngest entered kindergarten, she returned to teaching, working mostly as a long-term substitute teacher.
Both Knutsons retired from full-time teaching in 1993, but continued to tutor students at Frank, Whittier and Grewenow elementary schools.
Besides their volunteer work for KAFASI, the Knutsons devote time to their church, Trinity Lutheran, where they have been members since 1961.
Roseann’s favorite spare time activity is reading and she “dabbles” in art and genealogy. She has researched both the Knutson and Olson family trees and several years ago wrote the families’ histories. She also serves as treasurer and head “cheerleader” for Elwood’s bowling team.
For both Knutsons, helping others is a way of life.
“It’s the way we were brought up,” says Elwood. “We have been blessed with good health and as long as we can help others, we will continue to do it.”
“Things are not what’s important,” Roseann adds. “people are! That I learned from my mother.”
Volunteers like the Knutsons are what’s important to KAFASI. Those who might like to help with the Friendly Visitor or one of the other KAFASI programs can call Dana Tehako-Esser, Volunteer Services Coordinator, at 262-658-3508 ext. 120 for more information. If you prefer, you can email her at volunteer@mcleodusa.net.
After filling out an enrollment form, and after a background check, the new volunteer will be interviewed by a program coordinator who will provide information about the various KAFASI programs needing volunteers. Before being assigned to one of the programs, the new volunteer receives necessary training.
Elderly people who could benefit from regular visits by one of the Friendly Visitor volunteers should call its program coordinator, Cathy Coleman, at 262-658-3508 ext. 101. Family members may also make the request, if the person in need agrees to the visits.
