There's Something About Mary
By Amy Schwartz Kimlat
In 1974, 18-year-old Mary Rowland walked into a trailer set up at 851 North Maitland Avenue. The teenage West Virginia native had spotted a job listing in the newspaper for a secretarial position at what was then known as the Jewish Community Council.
Her interviewer, Edith Schulman, auditioned Mary for the job with a mimeograph machine (the photocopier of the day). Mary aligned the green stencil onto the machine, muscled the crank, spread the ink, and then fed the paper through to generate sample copies.
But it was days before Mary would hear from Edith after her on-the-job test. That’s because Edith originally offered the job to someone else. But that someone else never showed.
When Mary was eventually offered the job to administratively support the fledgling JCC, she did show. She showed, and she showed, and she continues to show as she is celebrating her 50th year as an employee of The Roth Family JCC.
Mary’s five decades of unsung efforts toward supporting the JCC were recognized at the annual J Ball celebration on May 17 at the Orlando Science Center. She received the Harriet Weiss JCC Legacy Award, which is named for the award’s first recipient and Mary’s longtime colleague.
Language Barrier
Mary began her tenure at the JCC a few months after the then20-something program director, Marvin Friedman, arrived from Brooklyn.
“We couldn’t understand each other,” Mary recalls of their early days working together. “I had kind of like a West Virginia accent, and he had that New York accent. I would say, ‘What’d you say?’ And he said, ‘What’d you say?’”
At the time, Mary explains the JCC campus consisted of a trailer, which held administrative offices, and an old house.
“Marvin was on one side of the old house, I was on the other, and the preschool was in the middle,” Mary says. “There was one class.”
For her first decade at the JCC, Mary worked in administrative support performing various secretarial duties and helping with reception. Then, in 1984, she was brought into the accounting department. At first, she handled accounts payable but quickly switched to accounts receivable. Remarkably, Mary still manages accounts receivable nearly four decades later.
In this 1998 JCC staff photo, Mary is literally in the middle of it all (middle row, center, pink shirt).
“Now, I can hit a button and send out invoices by email,” says Mary. “But I remember the day when we first started. We had these ledger sheets, and the first time we ever sent out invoices to people to bill for their membership, we copied them and then sent them out in the mail.”
At the JCC, Mary had a front-row seat to the march of technology through the decades. When accounting became computerized, Mary took classes not only to become proficient in accounting technology but to assist with the entire JCC’s IT operation. She took a course and learned how to set up a computer network and add users to it. She became the go-to tech person for decades holding down the fort technologically before IT professionals were ever hired or contracted.
“Mary became invaluable to the J in a very short period of time – she could run or fix any of the machines in the workroom,” recalls Marvin, who worked with Mary for 35 years before his 2009 retirement as JCC executive director. “There was nothing that she wouldn’t take on or learn. In short, she was both a winner and a keeper at a very young age. Everybody loved Mary. She’s been an integral part of what has made the J special.”
The Feeling Is Mutual
But the JCC has been just as special to Mary as Mary has been to the JCC.
“I feel like I grew up here,” Mary says. “And I’ve enjoyed having my kids here.”
Mary’s children, Stacey and Donald, attended the JCC summer camp for years, and Donald attended the early-childhood program. They both worked at the JCC in various jobs from summer camp counselors to basketball scorekeepers to after-school caregivers. And their children, Mary’s four grandchildren, have attended the JCC summer camp, as well.
“My son and my daughter both still keep up with people that they’ve met coming through here,” Mary says.
When her son Donald was a toddler he was “a wild child when I brought him,” Mary jokes. “Then he became a loving child and a good child. This place brings out the good. And that’s why I think I stay – because I see such good come out of it.”
Story was originally published in print in Summer 2023.