Monday may be the most dreaded day of the week, but not for Dot Sutton.
She can’t wait to report for duty cleaning dental instruments.
Of course, it’s the only day she works. After her four-hour shift in the afternoon, she finds herself looking forward to the next Monday.
By my calculations, this is the 4,653rd Monday of Dot’s lifetime. She celebrated her 90th birthday last fall, so she’s officially a nonagenarian. She was born on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25, 1920.
Dot helps out at the Macon Volunteer Clinic, a primary medical care facility for Bibb County residents who are working but do not have medical insurance.
She has been there for two years and still drives her car to the office each week. On Mondays, she has her own reserved parking place near the front door on Rogers Avenue.
It’s probably a good thing so many folks are having their teeth cleaned. By the time they leave, Dot has put a smile on everybody’s faces, so there are plenty of pearly whites showing around the clinic.
“I don’t see this as a duty,” she said. “I just feel good when I’m able to help somebody.”
For the record, Dot still has all of her own teeth -- except for a few bridges and crowns. She brushes religiously with Colgate toothpaste and is a faithful flosser.
“That’s the first thing I look at -- a person’s mouth,” she said, laughing. “I look to see how their teeth come together, if they have a good bite.”
She grew up as Dorothy Marshall, and her family lived near Tattnall Square Park and the Mercer University campus.
She married the summer after she graduated from Miller High School for Girls in 1938. She found herself divorced after 19 years and began searching for a job to help support her two children.
She ended up working at a sandwich shop located at the Persons Building on Mulberry Street (now the American Federal Building). A fringe benefit was making contact with all the doctors and dentists who came to the restaurant for a chicken salad or a BLT. Among them was Dr. Paul Gates, a local dentist, who offered her a job at his office.
“I didn’t know anything about it, but I was a good learner,” she said. After a few years with Gates, she joined the dental office staff for Dr. James Cassidy Sr. It would be her livelihood for the next 26 years. She remarried in 1962, and after her second husband, Clyde Sutton, died in 2006, she began to consider ways to get involved through volunteer work.
Mary Cassidy Freeman, the daughter of the late James Cassidy Sr., suggested she offer her services at the Macon Volunteer Clinic.
The clinic, which opened in 2002, was founded by retired physician Chapin Henley, the father of University of Georgia golf standout Russell Henley.
The clinic’s executive director is Valerie Biskey, a retired Army colonel, Vietnam veteran and nurse. There are now more than 2,200 registered patients at the clinic, which saw a record 5,034 patient visits last year.
“I felt I needed to give something back, and this was a way I could help,” Dot said. “My brother drove me down here to fill out an application. I brought my walking cane, but I left it in the car. I didn’t want them to think I was too old. I wanted the job.”
Now she uses her walker to get up and down the hallways of the clinic.
“She has been a real inspiration to everybody here,” said Nic Manocheo, the clinic’s director of development.
The respect is mutual. And Dot said she’s going to keep working as long as her health will allow it.
“I enjoy coming here and look forward to it every week,” she said.
It’s Monday. Time to go to work, Miss Dot.
Reach Gris at 744-4275 or gris@macon.com.
