Pines Village employee profile: Rita Duncan

Many Pines Village residents never see one of their community’s most important employees.

And for her part, when Rita Duncan sees residents, it’s often in a much different light from other staff members.

Rita works overnight, taking charge of a range of maintenance jobs and providing security for the Pines Village complex while residents sleep.  Because she is the first responder to problems or emergencies residents may face in the wee hours, she often encounters them without the make-up and clothing – even the wigs and dentures – they would normally wear during the day.

But even though she may not later recognize the residents she has helped with a concern, she feels a closeness to them that makes her ready to respond to any situation at a moment’s notice.

When the power goes out, it’s Rita who calls the electric company and then jumps into action getting backup power to those residents on oxygen.

If a resident falls or pulls an emergency cord for any reason, Rita is at his or her apartment within seconds.  She alerts medical responders and provides the support that’s needed in the meantime.

There is the occasional cooking fire in a resident apartment.  Several times Rita has extinguished the blazes before the fire department arrives.       

And there are the more routine tasks of door checks, laundry delivery, trash collection, bulb replacement and snow removal.

Her shifts can get long, so Rita checks the refrigerators and coolers several times a night – but not to snatch a midnight snack.  She is simply making sure the equipment has not broken down.  If it does – and it did on occasion before the 2009 renovations which included construction of a new kitchen – she must immediately get the food into a working unit.  Without a quick response, Pines Village would lose thousands of dollars’ worth of meat, produce and dairy items.

It’s a satisfying and rewarding job, Rita says. It can be intense, for example when multiple emergency calls come in at once.  And that happens, she says with a knowing but confident smile.

Her confidence comes from trust in Pines Village’s core philosophy and the quality of its staff. 

“They work as one great family,” Rita says. “Residents know they can count on us at any time.”   And Pines Village holds deep respect and appreciation for Rita’s dedication.

Recently, Pines Village nominated Rita for the Excellence in Care Award that is given annually by the Indiana Association of Homes & Services for the Aging.    This award recognizes an outstanding employee who demonstrates a caring commitment to preserving the dignity, well being and independence of their residents and whose skills have led to the improvement of the quality of life for all who live or work at Pines Village.

In her life beyond Pines Village, Rita juggles as wide a range of activities as on the job.

As a historical genealogical researcher for Native American tribes of the Great Lakes region, she helps clients locate ancestors and studies the movements of native peoples.  She has given talks on Native American culture for over three decades.  Rita is three-quarters Native American herself, with family lines in both the Lenape and Odawa Ottawa peoples. She also has a French-Canadian grandmother and a German grandfather, her personal history reflecting the intersections of Europeans and Native Americans she explores in her research.                                                                                                                 

Rita plays the mountain dulcimer with her family of musicians, practices karate and has been a wood carver for almost half a century.  “I still have all my fingers,” she declares proudly.

The life-long Northwest Indiana resident married her high school sweetheart Ronald.  They live on and work a small farm with help from their six children and 12 grandkids.

Living on the farm, it turns out, keeps Rita in good practice for dealing with the variety of responsibilities she handles at Pines Village.

“Being a farmer’s wife, you learn to do a lot of things,” she says. “You have to decide what has to be done and you have to respond quickly.”

And she’s good at that.  Just ask any Pines Village resident who has relied on her help in the middle of the night.

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We Celebrate Life is a collection of portraits, in words and photographs, of just some of the wonderful, extraordinary people who live, work and serve Pines Village Retirement Communities. View more >