Decades of helping the community: San Mateo resident Pat Young celebrates career

And she isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Currently focused on documenting the history of the Funders, Young is channeling her passion for the arts and education in the visual displays she creates for the bookstore, also known as “Encore Books on the Square.”

“When I’m home now, all I’m thinking of is creating something. That’s why, this job, I just love it,” she said. “I’ve always been a busy person.”

Having taught at San Mateo schools for 34 years, Young kept busy even outside her teaching, playing as a concert cellist with the San Jose State Symphony and at dinner parties and weddings. During the school day, she spent her lunch hours teaching her sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students how to volunteer their time later in life.

Young said her father, Elmer Young, was a music teacher at Burlingame High School and her brother, Bud Young, was a renowned teacher of jazz at the College of San Mateo, so teaching came naturally for her after she received her teaching credential from San Jose State University and started as a teacher at the Lawrence Elementary School in San Mateo in 1942.

Having grown up in Burlingame, Young could remember when there were only 1,500 students in the city and enjoyed seeing the Peninsula grow in several dimensions, including its diversity. She said she enjoyed teaching students from a wide array of backgrounds at the Lawrence Elementary School and later at Borel Middle School, noting it wasn’t uncommon for the parents of students to leave her dishes like enchiladas in her car to take home at night.

She said she still receives an orchid every year around Christmas from a student she taught in the 1950s and is recognized by former students regularly while running errands. She said she enjoyed meeting all kinds of people in her more than 30 years as a teacher and enjoyed working with students just before they transitioned into high school.

“All these kids have a certain personality that they had in class that I can remember,” she said. “They weren’t just kids, they were people.”

When she retired as a teacher in 1977, Young soon found herself volunteering and a year later working for the American Red Cross, helping San Mateo County schools offer American Red Cross programs. When she retired for the second time from the American Red Cross in 1993, Young immersed herself in volunteer work at Mills Hospital in San Mateo for some 10 years.

Young can remember when the Funders first started organizing in support of the San Mateo County Historical Association. Based at the College of San Mateo, the organization coordinated an annual used book sale and coordinated a “Victorian Days” event before moving into the former courthouse where the San Mateo County History Museum currently stands at 2200 Broadway.

She took to traveling across the globe and eventually took student groups on tours through Europe, noting she enjoyed traveling and opted to live in France and Germany for yearlong intervals to better understand their education systems. Young has fond memories of meeting locals who would become lifelong friends through her travels.

“I’m awfully happy for traveling,” she said. “It wasn’t just for the scenery, it was meeting people.”

Young said she learned an incredible amount from challenges with spinal meningitis, a serious car accident and cancer over the years, and expressed gratitude for the wide array of experiences she’s had in her life. She said she was married for two years and got divorced once she realized marriage wasn’t for her, noting that staying in touch with her college roommate Vivian Felton, her cousins and her nephew keeps her very busy these days.

Young, who will turn 99 in March, can still remember her mother Genevieve M. Young telling her when she was a little girl to keep tabs on one of her friends because he always had a running nose. She said the instructions must have stuck with her since she’s always envisioned herself as a helper. And though she has seen the Peninsula change throughout the years, it’s the people she’s connected with that have made it truly her home.

“It really has been home to me,” she said. “I’ve made a career of working as a community person.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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