Photo by Lauren Allen.
After 25 years and 8,400 hours of volunteer service at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, 93-year-old Jacob Locke found himself receiving a standing ovation at the 2023 D Magazine Excellence in Healthcare Awards where he was named Dallas’ Outstanding Volunteer.
The audience’s thunderous applause left him “quite overwhelmed.”
“When they called my name, I’m thinking all the way up to the podium, ‘What do I say? What do I say?” says Jacob. “I didn’t see myself as being all that great.”
At 93-years-old, Jacob is the oldest and longest-serving volunteer at Methodist Dallas. He spends his Tuesdays and Thursdays at Generations, the hospital’s senior service program office, where he started working several years after it opened in 1991.
He’s a people person and has made “so many friends” in the last quarter-century spent at the hospital. And, his efforts are a continuation of his late wife’s legacy.
Joyce and Jacob Locke were married for 70 years, and volunteered together at Methodist Dallas for 20 years before Joyce’s death in 2019.
“Never were two people so in love,” Jacob says.
Before joining the Generations office, he spent time volunteering in the surgical waiting room (Joyce’s favorite place to work), the hospital gift shop, the volunteer office, the staff store and the emergency room. He’s even been put to work as a handyman, tasked with fixing odds and ends like a stamp machine that “came over on the Mayflower.”
“I’ve known so many people and I still see people today that I haven’t seen in a long time, and we recognize each other and it all comes back,” Jacob says. “It’s just an amazing thing. It’s just a happy place to be.”
Locke’s relationship with Methodist Dallas goes “back a ways,” even before his time as a volunteer.
All four of his children were born at the hospital in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, and his daughter, Jerri Locke, now serves as the Director of Healthy Aging. His granddaughter, Grace, works in the Medicare savings office.
The Locke family legacy at Methodist Dallas is the “pinnacle of success,” says Jerri, who grew up two miles from the hospital, revering it as a neighborhood landmark.
Working in the same department that Jacob volunteers in, Jerri says it isn’t uncommon to see someone visit the Generations office just to say hello to her father. It “makes (her) feel good” to witness his impact that has not dimmed, despite his age.
She says his award was “the ultimate” recognition of his years spent serving the Methodist Dallas community.
“As hard as he has worked on doing this, and that he continues to do so … Because a lot of people give up, you know, they find an excuse,” Jerri says. “Volunteering has made a huge difference in his life … It’s just been so good mentally and physically for him.”
Sandra González, the hospital’s director of guest services and volunteers, works closely with “Mr. Jacob.” Seven years after starting with the hospital, she still finds herself surprised when he begins telling a story about a part of the hospital’s history she “hasn’t even heard of.”
González was the one who nominated Jacob for the Outstanding Volunteer award, citing his reliability, hard work and people-oriented attitude.
“He just has so much experience and such a servant heart, I just can’t stress that enough. Every time we see him he has a smile on,” González says. “The amount of different roles he has played in our hospital and then the number of years, I don’t know that anyone really comes close to him.”
For Jacob, time spent at the hospital doesn’t feel like work. Memories like setting up Christmas parties and passing out breakfast to seniors on Dallas Zoo trips, or riding a balloon advertising Medicare over the Texas State Fair stand out as some of his most exciting moments in life.
“(I’ve learned) that most people are good-hearted, and it makes me feel good. I love my association with them, and I think they feel the same way,” Jacob says.
As he accepted his engraved, glass award, he was emotional. The day of the Excellence in Healthcare Awards ceremony happened to fall on Jacob’s eldest daughter’s birthday.
It was the 70th anniversary of his first time stepping foot in the Methodist Dallas Medical Center.
