Bob CollinsSince 2001, Alice Jahnke has made 55 afghans, 831 caps and 405 bonnets for people who are undergoing radiation at Alomere Health in Alexandria, Minn., according to the Echo Press.
She’s a volunteer. Her job is to sit in the waiting room and be a friendly face for the patients, and maybe help take their mind off what’s pretty hard to take your mind off of.
Alice is 90.
“I started knitting in eighth grade,” Jahnke said, recalling when she would knit for the Red Cross during World War II.
“It was sad to see people going into service, not knowing whether they were coming back,” she said. Jahnke had a lot of cousins in the service, and they exchanged a lot of letters.
“Everybody was concerned about everybody else.”
She was a teacher for 31 years, mostly in Glencoe. She still misses the kids, she says.
She doesn’t remember how it was she started volunteering, and she doesn’t seem to see what the big deal is either.
“Not a darn thing, really. I sit here and visit with people,” she tells the paper.
