By: JOSEPH KELLARD
"She's incredible because of her age and her disability, and she is here five days a week," said Pat Quinn, UCPN community outreach manager. "She's never late and she's never sick. Everyone loves her because she's just an inspiration."
Many of Wolpert's coworkers, volunteers, UCPN customers and her family from Maryland filled a large party room in the Roosevelt-based facility last Friday to celebrate this inspiring woman and her half-century of dedicated work. UCPN Executive Director Bob McGuire noted Wolpert's "dedication, integrity and loyalty," and compared her to the post office, because neither rain, sleet nor snow stop her from coming in each day to do quality work. Her tasks include directing calls to staff, greeting visitors and directing them through the facility, and making announcements over the P.A. system with, as one coworker joked, "her no-nonsense, authoritative voice."
And these tasks are a challenge each day. UCPN, whose mission is to assist people with cerebral palsy, has about 500 employees who service some 1,800 children and adults with this and other diseases. Some 250 kids attend its Children's Learning Center, and severely disabled people go to the Work Center and Adult Treatment Programs to train for jobs and volunteer work at businesses and other facilities throughout Long Island. Another of UCPN's many programs is college classes taught by SUNY-Old Westbury instructors.
Wolpert is the first voice and face that many UCPN employees and customers encounter at the facility each day. "Muriel has always been totally reliable, totally responsible, and totally devoted," said Edith Kushner, whose son, Larry, unable to talk or walk, attained a college degree after 20 years of study at UCPN.
Sal Gullo, a past UCPN executive director who joined the staff in 1956, recalled how Wolpert worked then in a cubby far from her present station in the main lobby, pulling out and plugging in the many telephone cords on the now obsolete board. He joked about how, when 5 p.m. struck and her work day was done, Wolpert would pull the cord on him even if he were in the middle of a conversation. Gullo retold how he once read a newspaper article written about her. "It mentioned that she was a role model for the disabled," he said. "And I thought, that's so, so wrong. She's a model for us? She's a shining example for all of us."
A group of wheelchair-bound regular attendees of UCPN were inspired to write a song about Wolpert, entitled "A Friend," and sang it accompanied by karaoke tracks. And a family played a videotape of her elder sister from Baltimore, Roxanne Leaderman, whom Wolpert visits on her vacations and during the holidays. "Come see me soon," Leaderman said in the brief clip, as Wolpert wiped away some tears.
Her admirers gave her several cards and gifts, including a plaque with an autographed photo of someone she greatly admirers, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, which read, "Dear Muriel, All the Best." She also received a watch with the inscription, "Thank you for 50 years of devotion, your UCPN family."
Wolpert praised her two families, the one in Baltimore and the other at UCPN, during her brief speech to the crowd, with state Senator Dean Skelos, Town of Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray and other dignitaries in attendance. After walking to the front of the party room with the help of a cane, her legs weakened by age and C.P., Wolpert called UCPN "really my life," and said with a grin, "I hope that I can continue working here, well, for a few more years." In addition to a gift of 50 roses, Wolpert's UCPN family sent her home that day in a limousine.
Before the party, Wolpert's family - from her nephew to her great granddaughter - surprised her as she finished up the day at her work station. "I can't believe everyone made it here," she said. "I'm happy, I'll tell you."
Early in her life, some people thought Wolpert had no shot at making it in "the real world." She was born with C.P. and was unable to walk as a youth, and doctors told her mother to put her daughter away in a home, "that I would be of no use to her," Wolpert recalled. Her mother never listened to them, and had her daughter taking her first steps at age 5.
"She fought and fought to do what she wanted to do," said Wolpert's granddaughter, Nancy Leaderman. "She had the same fighting spirit as her mother."
In 1951, Wolpert attended UCPN's workshop program, and a few years later was asked to train on the switchboard, a challenge she cautiously accepted. On Jan. 15, 1954, the same year she moved to Oceanside, Wolpert nervously took to the board, but it soon became her niche. A year later she started her paid position as the company's head operator.
In part, she believes, the seeds of her outstanding work ethic were planted in her childhood. And while Wolpert's family always believed in her and encouraged her to pursue her goals, she attributes most of her success to her own will.
"My family helped me," Wolpert said, "but I in turn was determined. If I didn't push myself, I would have never made it."
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