They’re over 90, still helping passengers traverse SFO
Marge Stone was 54 when she saw a Chronicle listing to volunteer for the United Way, helping confused travelers navigate San Francisco International Airport. She thought she might like that, and it turned out she did. That was 40 years ago.
Stone is still pulling a Tuesday afternoon shift in the International Terminal, putting on a cheery uniform to stand at an information station with a big question mark over it. People come to her in various states of panic and Stone’s soothing demeanor helps point them in the right direction.
“They want to know where the bathroom is,” she said, on a recent weekday that marked her 40th anniversary as an SFO navigator. “Some don’t speak English and they have to signal.”
Stone is the senior volunteer among the 135 people who work a minimum of one shift per week at the airport under a program called SFO Travelers Information, which is no longer affiliated with the United Way.
The volunteers rotate among seven desks on the departure level of all four terminals. Some high schoolers volunteer, but most are retired.
Stone is careful to point out that at age 94, she is not the senior-most senior. That distinction belongs to Ann Will, 98, who also works the Tuesday shift, as she has for 16 years. Will’s 98th birthday fell on the first Tuesday in October, and she celebrated by coming into work.
There was a noontime celebration with cupcakes — but no candles. “They’d have to buy too many of them,” Will said.
“Ann makes me feel young,” said Stone, who came in early for the celebration.
Between the two of them, Stone and Will have enough stories to make someone with a predilection for history miss their flight. Both are native San Franciscans, and their recollections of the airport go back to when the airport was known as Mills Field, prior to its renaming in the 1930s.
On this day, a man came by after a canceled flight and asked if Will spoke Spanish. “No,” she said, “but go ahead.” She was able to fake it enough to go onto the computer and gather the information to send him on its way.
In the International Terminal, people come by the desk trying to communicate in all languages except for one she is fluent in — Finnish. She spoke it growing up and it was of great use until Finnair pulled out of SFO during the pandemic.
Stone had the same frustration. She grew up in a Russianspeaking household and the weekly flight from Moscow on Aeroflot came in on Tuesdays, giving her plenty of practice. But Aeroflot no longer comes to SFO, which limits the usefulness of her language skills.
The volunteers keep a log of the number of passengers assisted at each desk. On a busy day, the seven desks might serve as many of 2,000 travelers, which is not as many as before cell phones, an era that Stone misses. She likes action, so this is her favorite time of year.
“On holidays, they are lined up,” she said, eagerly. “I like it when it is busy,” she said. “The time goes faster and there are more people asking questions.”
SFO Director Ivar C. Satero credits the Travel Aid Volunteers for “making SFO a welcoming place for passengers,” and noted that the tradition goes back to 1955.
“In the decades that followed, air travel has evolved countless times, but one constant has been our dedicated team of volunteers,” he said.
Stone works to alleviate some of the aggravations of modern air travel, but she cannot quite relate to them: She has not taken a commercial flight since the advent of airport security checks.
“I don’t know what changed,” she said, “but it was about 50 years ago.”
Her father, Willem Dehe, was first cello with the San Francisco Symphony, and she grew up in Jordan Park attending Madison Elementary, Roosevelt Junior High and Lowell High School, graduating with the class of 1946.
At every step since fourth grade, she was with best friend Anita Honnert. They started as volunteers together and worked together for nearly four decades, helping each other learn the workings of the desk iPad and the computerized arrival and departures monitor.
Then Honnert died, after 36 years on the same shift as Stone. The COVID-19 pandemic closed the program for a year and a half. The volunteers missed each other enough to meet over Zoom, just to stay connected.
“I missed it,” Stone said. “We are like a family. It has always been that way.”
Stone has been married to Leonard Stone for 74 years and they live in Redwood City. Neither one drives on the freeway, so her four adult children alternate in carpooling her, dropping her off at 11:30 a.m. and returning when she finishes her shift at 4 p.m.
Will, who grew up in the Mission District and attended Mission High, class of ’41, now lives in Millbrae and still drives to the airport.
“I like dealing with the public,” she said, “and the volunteers are a wonderful group of people. It’s a pleasure to come to work.”
There is no mandatory retirement age for the volunteers. The record is 101, and Will, for one, is gunning for it.
“I want to do this as long as I can, which is not very long,” she said on her 98th birthday.