Six decades, more than 18,000 hours and 100 trips around the sun add up to a lifetime of service for dedicated volunteer and centenarian Elaine Kuper.
Kuper, who celebrated her 100th birthday in November, devoted 61 years to volunteering at Texas Children’s Hospital before retiring in 2015. She is the longest-serving volunteer at the largest children’s hospital in the US.
The Buffalo, New York native, who moved to Houston when she was 12, began volunteering at the hospital just over two weeks after it opened in February 1954. Her dedication even led her to take Spanish classes so she could better guide Spanish speakers and Latino families around the hospital.
“I just loved being with people,” Kuper told USA TODAY. “It’s the best. There’s no hospital like this.”
Wear many hats to serve others
Dressed in her red and white uniform, Kuper supported the hospital’s patients, families and staff through a variety of roles, such as serving at the snack bar when it was run by volunteers and women, fulfilling a 45-year stint with the hospital information desk, delivering mail and leading tours of the facility.
Kuper also served as a co-founder of Texas Children’s Women’s Auxiliary.
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“There were 10 of us who started volunteering first, and I lasted longer than anyone else, but I loved it so much,” said Kuper.
After her retirement in 2015, she still devoted her time to the Texas Children’s Volunteer Services Department when she could.
“Elaine was always someone who was just our living historian,” says Paige Schulz, Texas Children’s assistant vice president of patient support services. “She’s someone who was so lovely to greet volunteers and staff, and really made everyone’s day better.”
Giving a special touch to snack bar orders
Before Texas Children’s introduced McDonald’s, Kuper said her first volunteer assignment lasted 14 years, serving sandwiches and drinks at the snack bar.
Kuper became known for greeting doctors, not by name, but by their sandwich orders, which she remembers to this day.
“I had three favorite doctors who came every day I was there; we would call them Mr. Tuna, Mr. Grilled Cheese, and Mr. Roast Beef,” Kuper said, adding that Mr. Roast Beef preferred mustard and pickles on his sandwich.
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A unique friendship with a unique patient
David Vetter, who was known as the “bubble boy,” was born without an immune system in September 1971 at Texas Children’s. Vetter had a rare genetic condition called severe combined immunodeficiency, and he lived his entire life cooped up in a plastic bubble environment to protect him.
“I had tours walk by and wave at him and say hello,” said Kuper, who noted that Vetter’s bubble — which only allowed doctors to touch him with arm-length gloves — got bigger as he got older.
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“I was with him from the day he was born to the day he died when he was 12 years old,” Kuper said.
Kuper’s daughter, Laurie Bricker, told USA TODAY that her mother was the only member of the hospital’s relief organization invited to Vetter’s private funeral in 1984.
“His family would often invite me to lunch, which was very sweet, but I think the most notable thing was the day he died,” Kuper said.
“(David’s mom) came to the information desk and said, ‘I first held him in my arms when I was 12; I didn’t know his hair was so soft,” she recalls.
Honoring a dedicated lifelong volunteer
Kuper’s lifelong commitment to volunteering has not gone unnoticed. Texas Children’s nominated the mother-of-two for the Mayor’s Award — which she won — for her services to the hospital. The hospital’s volunteer service suite is also named in Kuper’s honor.
“In 2000, 15 years before she retired, she also received recognition as a lifetime member of our institution and modeled her legendary status,” said Schulz.
Texas Children’s president and CEO Mark Wallace presented Kuper with a kind letter and flowers for her 100th birthday, Bricker said.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all you’ve done to make us a better hospital,” Wallace wrote.
Kuper says she would be “lost” without the opportunity to help others. “I’ve always loved volunteering wherever I could,” she said.
