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Peggy Mullins learned to be a hard worker growing up on a farm in Notting Hill in Ozark County. The 73-year-old is not only a good neighbor to those who live around her, but to many more in the community, especially those at the Southside Senior Center where she’s a tireless volunteer…
"My work here is not for my gain. I love working for other people, doing things for other people. I really do."
"Peggy has been a really good neighbor, not only to me, but to other people in the neighborhood and, quite frankly, to the whole world."
Lolita Albers nominated Mullins for KSMU’s Good Neighbor Series…
"She, like a good neighbor would be expected to do, would take care of our cat, our plants while we were away--this is something good neighbors frequently do. Another neighbor, though, was incapacitated with back and knee and shoulder problems--Peggy took breakfast, lunch and dinner to her for many, many months."
Albers lived near Mullins for five years—her parents were Mullins’ neighbors for many years before that. She’s amazed at her friend’s ability to give so generously.
"I like working here at the Southside Senior Center because this is a neighborly thing to do, too, I think."
Mullins serves meals to the disabled, works the front desk, helps with fundraisers, and she served several years on the board there…
"I count money a couple of days a week and just anything. I don't like being idle, so if I see something needs to be done, and I answer the phone, too, a lot, and I'll probably do that tomorrow for a lady that's gone."
Mullins and some other ladies at the Southside Senior Center also sing ten to 12 times each month for nursing home residents. She sings in two groups…the Little Bunch and the Brady Bunch. When Mullins isn’t at the Senior Center, visiting her husband or singing to other nursing home residents, she’s involved in her church and in the Red Hat Society. When she has time to reminisce—with isn’t often with her busy schedule—she reflects on a different time—one where neighbors know each other. She says it’s a shame it isn’t that way today…
"Used to we neighbored. But you don't--neighbors don't neighbor anymore, you know, they don't visit, they don't take care of each other like we used to then, and you used to visit, we don't visit. I really miss that. They're all friendly to speak to, but as far as knowing them, I don't know them at all."
But Mullins isn’t limiting her neighborliness to those who live around her. Lolita Albers says Mullins serves as a role model for all of us…
"If you want to live a good life and be a good neighbor, watch Peggy and do what she does."
One other person who benefits from Mullins kindness is her husband, songwriter Johnny Mullins…he’s in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s. She sings to him when she visits--she says she thinks it helps him to remember. Johnny Mullins wrote “Success” for Loretta Lynn, “Blue Kentucky Girl” for Emmylou Harris, which won her a Grammy and earned Mullins a Grammy nomination and “Company’s Comin’” for Porter Waggoner…
For KSMU News, I’m Michele Skalicky.
