A loving ‘fixture’ in Lynbrook

After spending 48 years working as a crossing guard at the intersection of Niemann Avenue and Merrick Road in Lynbrook, Mari Hansen, 93, retired last week.

“I know every rock on that corner,” she said with a laugh.

A lone fire hydrant is the only thing Hansen recalls being there for as long as she has, which she said she would occasionally lean on if she got tired. Between knowing precisely what time a resident would routinely be running to catch the train, to seeing children she supervised eventually become parents themselves, Hansen became a fixture of the community.

“Very often people drove by me and they couldn’t believe I was still there,” she said, adding that a non-believer once stopped to verify her identity to settle a bet with a family member. “I didn’t know what she was talking about … her mother said, ‘No school crossing guard stays there for all those years.’”

Hansen said that she got comfortable with the structure of her workday, and it allowed her to be home to greet her children from school. “It does something to you that you set the clock in the morning — it’s a good feeling that you get up and get dressed and you have to do it no matter what,” she said. “I wouldn’t be this age if I had been sitting home.”

As far as extreme weather conditions, Hansen was never all that bothered by her outdoors office. “You get used to it; that’s the way it is,” she said. “I came from Norway, I was used to the cold … you learn how to bundle up.”

When she started working at the Our Lady of Peace School in 1968, the crossing guard uniforms were very strict. She wore white gloves, a blazer, and a skirt every day — regardless of the forecast. On colder days, she could wear a heavier jacket, she said, but never slacks.

She met her late husband, Arthur, a Norwegian who joined the United States Army during World War II, in Oslow, Norway. In 1948 she came to the U.S. by boat, married him, and the two moved to Flatbush. After their first child was born, the couple decided to move to Lynbrook, at which point Hansen started getting cabin fever.

“It was boring,” she said of being a stay-at-home parent. Her husband was captain of an oil barge for ExxonMobil, a job that required frequent travel. After their youngest child started school, Hansen decided to look for work.