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Mary Lou Glenn spent the first 40-some years of her life in the same two towns.
“I grew up in Gilberts ... then I got married and went to Huntley and stayed there for 30 years,” she said.
“After my husband died, I thought, if I don’t do something big, it’s going to be a very dull story about Mary Lou.”
It would be hard to call Glenn, or her story, dull today.
In 1993, at age 46, she decided to drive to Alaska, and for the next seven years lived in and around Soldotna, working at a local hospital there.
At 53, when news of her first grandchildren brought Glenn back to McHenry County, the old two-town Mary Lou returned, having made up for lost time. During her time away, she went on mission trips to several locations, including Russia, India and Wales.
And since landing back in Illinois, the adventures haven’t stopped. Glenn, now in Woodstock, is a full-time volunteer, and while she soaks up the myriad experiences that her efforts bring to her, she also is inspiring others to live large and give back.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Glenn volunteers with Lisa McCord’s English as a second language class at McHenry County College.
Two Saturdays a month, Glenn is the receptionist at the McHenry County Family Health Partnership Clinic, checking in patients and helping distribute medications, among other duties.
And on Tuesdays in the summer and Fridays in the winter, Glenn also volunteers feeding and sheltering the area’s homeless.
“Mary Lou relates to those she meets and gives hope to them,” said Kathy Rauch, the volunteer coordinator at the Family Health Partnership Clinic. “She has an amazing spirit that she passes to others.”
Rauch wrote the comments in an email to the Northwest Herald nominating Glenn as an unsung hero in the community.
McHenry County College’s McCord has equally high praise.
“Mary Lou has been just a wonderful role model for my students, and they just love her,” she said.
McCord said that she appreciates Glenn’s earnest efforts to help with the teaching and also to get to know the students in each ESL course.
“She actually tries to learn a little bit of everybody’s language while she’s there,” McCord said. “She’ll try to learn how to say good morning and she’ll write it down on her hand so that she won’t forget.”
“She really does her best to help everyone there and to make them feel welcome and so at home, and that is important, because many of them don’t get to see their families for years, and she lets them know that she is right there with them and for them,” McCord said.
Glenn treats everyone like family, and that extends to the homeless people she serves.
Every Tuesday night for the past two summers, Glenn has fed between 17 and 20 people “out of her trunk,” as she puts it.
After volunteering with her church’s Public Action to Deliver Shelter emergency homeless shelter site on Fridays during the coldest months of the year, Glenn felt inspired to provide for her friends in need during the summer months, too.
“It always bothered me that in the summertime, the homeless are just given a wink and a nod and [told], ‘Well, we’ll see you when it is cold,’” she said. “I thought, well they are still hungry, so the site manager from my church and myself started feeding them a meal on Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. out of the trunk of my car.”
The effort started out as sandwiches, but since has grown to hot meals and involves several other volunteers.
In Alaska, Glenn’s faith brought her on mission trips serving others all around the world and led her to service to others.
Back in McHenry County, Glenn continues to model her life after the teachings of Jesus, she said, but her volunteer work also is an alternative to a stagnant life.
The Mary Lou Glenn lowdown
Married life: Mary Lou was married to Robert Glenn in August 1964 in Huntley. "We were together 33 years and I don't plan on being married again. I always say, I have had the best, why mess with the rest?" Glenn said.
Children: Three sons, Robert Jr. of Galena, Mo.; Patrick of Morton Grove; and KC of Huntley.
Grandchildren: Murphy Glenn, Lucy Glenn, River Glenn and Reyna Glenn.
Her job situation: Glenn has not been employed since 2009 and lives on her Social Security payments, she said. “I did not want to take a job away from a single mom when I could go on Social Security and let that job, whatever it might be, go to someone else who really needed it.”
Fun fact: Mary Lou Glenn has three tattoos. She got her first when she was 57 years old – a butterfly on her forearm. Today there is also a posy on her left calf and a heart with an arrow through it near her collarbone. It reads, “together forever” in honor of her late husband.