‘Miss Pat’ ends 53-year career at Memorial Elementary
Despite being in her 90s, Pat Wasemann didn’t want to retire.
But it got to the point where she just had to stop being a noon aide at Memorial Elementary School in the Bethel Park School District – a job she held for more than five decades.
“I guess the Lord told me enough is enough,” Wasemann said recently. “I get tired. I lost the strength in my legs. I can still walk, but I can’t stand very long. I didn’t want to (retire). I wish I was still there. My age kind of crept up on me.”
“Miss Pat,” as she was called, retired at the end of the 2022-23 school year after 53 years at Memorial, where she was beloved by staff and students alike.
Wasemann, who turned 92 on Nov. 15 and still drives, started the job after moving to Bethel Park from Wheeling, W.Va., in 1969. Her daughter Linda, now 63, was a fourth-grade student at the elementary school at the time and told her mother about the opening for a noon aide.
“She gave me a note and said would you like to make some pin money,” Wasemann recalled with a chuckle. “I’m not sure if it was even a dollar an hour at that time. I thought, ‘I can do that.’ I put my application in and of course I got hired. The rest is history.”
Her duties as a noon aide included tending to children in the cafeteria and making sure they were behaving.
“Most of the time we were there for about two hours,” Wasemann said.
For about 20 years, Wasemann also helped with cleaning the building in the summer.
In recent years, Wasemann greeted kindergarten students at the front door as they were dropped off by parents and buses.
She could be found sitting on a bench waiting for the students, a bench that has since been dedicated in her honor as “Miss Pat’s Bench.”
What kept her at the job for so many years?
“It was just getting out of the house, just seeing people, meeting people every day,” Wasemann said.
Among the many friends Wasemann she’s made over the years is Eric Hamilton, the school’s physical education teacher. The two still meet for lunch on occasion.
“His wife lets him go out to lunch once in a while,” she said with a laugh.” I used to see him every day. That’s one of the things that I miss, that I don’t get to see him every day.”
Hamilton has been with the district since 2010, starting as a traveling physical education teacher.
“One day I just sat down and started talking to her. From that point on whenever I was (at Memorial) we were hanging out,” he recalled. “She’s hilarious. She’s sharp as a tack. She’s a great friend. We have great conversations. I’m thankful to be friends with her for this many years.”
During the COVID 19 pandemic, the two would communicate via Zoom and they regularly email one another.
“I have two kids and she loves to hear about them,” Hamilton said. “She was everything to the school. For kindergartners in the afternoon, she was the first face they saw. She saw all the kids at lunch. They all knew Miss Pat. She loved them.”
Eric Chalus, Memorial Elementary School principal for 20 years, agreed that Wasemann meant a great deal to the school. He remembered Wasemann at times standing with her hands on her hips if there was some misbehavior.
“She was like an icon,” he said. “Without Miss Pat, it’s like we’re missing something. She’s been here for so long. She would tell me how to do things. Her sense of humor is unbelievable. The staff loves her to death and the kids love her. It’s not the same without her. I can’t say enough great stuff about her.”
In addition to Hamilton, there is plenty Wasemann misses about being at Memorial.
“(I miss) seeing the people, my aides and my friends,” she said.
Wasemann’s retirement does not mean she is sitting still. She still volunteers weekly with Meals and Wheels, something she has been doing for 51 years, and is still an active member of Faith Lutheran Church in Upper St. Clair.
It was a rewarding ride for Wasemann after 53 years at Memorial Elementary. Some of the parents and grandparents of current students remember Wasemann from their time as students there.
“My biggest reward is seeing them out at the store or somewhere and they remember me,” she said. “Most of the time they have something good to say about me.That’s one of my best rewards is that the students remember me and talk to me.”