The woman who stayed through it all

Every institution has that one person who has worked there forever. For Mercer University, that person started her career the same year Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Easter Glover has worked for Mercer since 1963 and doesn’t plan on retiring. She has worked in the cafeteria, in the residence halls and now, in the laundry room.

“They told me I could work here as long as I want to, so as long as I'm doing pretty good, I'm going to try to work,” Glover said.

Glover rides the bus every day to work, and one of the other employees usually picks her up at the bus stop at the corner of Adam Street and Coleman Avenue to take her to the University Center where the laundry room is for National Management Resources (Nationals), the university’s cleaning service.

“Ms. Easter catch the bus, and Ms. Easter is here doing her work and doing it cheerfully, not grumbling and complaining,” said Leila Lucas, a Nationals worker who has known Glover for around 10 years. “Even during the summer time, she's on the bus coming to work.”

Glover began working in the cafeteria when Rufus Carrollton Harris was president of the university.

Glover said times were a little different when she first started working in the cafeteria. She said that she, along with all the other black workers, had to pull chairs to the back of the kitchen to eat after all of the students were finished. She simply said, “I reckon they didn't know no better.”

When the new supervisor arrived, he said that it didn’t make any sense for them to eat in the back.

“You ain’t got no business sitting back here eating. Everybody get in that dining hall to eat,” Glover said, impersonating the supervisor.

Glover continued to work for Mercer throughout Raleigh Kirby Godsey’s reign as president and now under President William D. Underwood.

Glover’s supervisor, Crystal Little, said that Glover knows a lot of people that work at the university and talks about them on a regular basis.

“They'll come in and she'll know them by name, and I don't even know them,” Little said

Glover has a twin sister who also used to work at Mercer before her health became a problem, Lucas said. Now, the two sisters live together in west Macon.

Lucas said she always wanted to meet the twins when she first started working at Mercer because she had heard all about them working together for so long.

“They live together, and they will always be together,” Lucas said.

Lucas said Glover is a very private lady that doesn’t like to share about her personal life much. However, Lucas said she is a joy to work with and Little agreed.

“She gives you wisdom when you don't want it,” Little said. “She's a real joy even with her age, and she's real nice to be around just to listen to an older person.”

Lucas said Glover is like a battery that just keeps going all the time and that she is inspired by Glover’s perseverance.

“She says to me that I'm going to work as long as I can, and that's what she's doing — working, working, working, and the more I think about my friend, I would like to do the same,” Lucas said.

Lucas said Glover is lovable and friendly in her own way, and she is glad to know her. Glover said that if there is anything she would want people to know about her, it’s that she is a Christian and a child of God.

“The only thing I know is that I'm still working because I need to work to support myself. I would hate to go looking for something. I'm just staying while I'm here,” Glover said.