Mark Bennett: She's still working at 90 — 'I know I have a purpose'

July sunshine glowed in the restaurant’s southside windows. Outside, traffic motored past on Wabash Avenue.

It was 8:45 on a Thursday morning. Downtown Terre Haute was awakening slowly. It’s that way in summertime.

B.J. Hofmann moved briskly, though, through the Hilton Garden Inn’s Great American Grille restaurant. Sharply dressed in a black pantsuit, she shuttled between a dual role as hostess and waitress, greeting and serving a mix of the hotel’s breakfast diners — a young couple in workout clothes, two 30-something guys studying laptop screens, a mom and her elementary-school-age daughter and a foursome of Baby Boomer women.

Those customers’ smiles remind Hofmann why she continues working, at age 90.

“That’s what keeps me alive. I mean it,” she said, pausing briefly to talk while keeping an eye on the guests. “I know I have a purpose. I have a reason to get up.”

And she gets up early. Hofmann starts her day around 3:30 a.m. and drives from her Clay County home to her four-hour shifts at the restaurant four mornings a week. Her job in Terre Haute caps a varied work resumé that began 73 years ago.

One day after graduating from Brazil High School in 1951, Hofmann took her first job as a bookkeeper and secretary at Brazil Trust Company. She’s been a licensed agent in real estate and insurance, vice president and general manager of a 2,500-condominium complex in Florida, public relations rep with a New York firm, regional sales manager for national retail firms, school district secretary when her son was in school, and owner and co-owner with her former husband of private businesses, including her current steel carport business.

All of those jobs involved interacting with people, which mirrored her mother’s retail career. “She always felt like a woman, if they go that route, will always have a calling,” Hofmann said.

She grew up in tiny Manhattan, Ind., on U.S. 40 in Putnam County. Hofmann’s mother ran a dress shop in Brazil. Her father was a chemist at a cement company in Greencastle. On the corner in Manhattan, one set of her grandparents ran a bed-and-breakfast, while the other grandmother ran an adjacent restaurant. Those days marked her only previous experience in restaurant work. As a little girl, she performed a few tasks in her grandparents’ diners.

“So you could say, I grew up in the restaurants. I was probably spilling coffee all over them,” Hofmann said, chuckling.

Decades after her stint in her grandparents’ restaurants, another opportunity arose. Six years ago, a neighbor who worked in Terre Haute suggested Hofmann inquire about a job at the Hilton, the hotel that debuted in 2007 on the northeast corner of Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue, where the old Terre Haute House once stood. Hofmann checked out the place.

“When I walked into the hotel, I was impressed,” she recalled.

She’s worked there ever since, and by her choice hasn’t taken a vacation. “That’s because I love it,” Hofmann said of the Hilton and its team.

The feeling is mutual with coworkers and customers.

As the foursome of women at one table dispersed, one — Nellie Simbol — stopped to chat a bit more with Hofmann. “She’s always ‘B.J. on the spot,’ knows what everybody wants and has it all set up for us, every Thursday,” said Simbol, a Terre Haute attorney. “B.J.’s my idol. I want to be B.J.”

Erica Free, the hotel’s general manager, said the Hilton benefits from Hofmann’s choice to continue working into her 90s. “We’re the winners here,” Free said.

Hofmann represents an expanding demographic of the American labor force. Workers 75 and older are the fastest growing age group in the U.S. workforce, quadrupling since 1964. Today, 9% of Americans 75 and up are employed, compared to 4% in 1987, according to a Pew Research Center report in December. Older adults tend to be healthier and less likely to have disabilities, allowing them to extend their employment years. A separate 2018 Harvard Medical School study found that seniors older than 75 can glean health benefits and repel chronic diseases by continuing to work or remaining physically active, such as improved mental stimulation and problem solving.

“Mentally, it keeps me sharp,” Hofmann said of working.

That includes her ability to adapt to computer use while in her 80s and 90s. “The best way to keep [that skill] there is to do it on a daily basis,” Hofmann said.

Within Hofmann’s social peer circle, one of her friends also continues her job. “She and I, we can outwork any 20-year-old,” Hofmann said, grinning.

“I feel that anybody my age needs to keep going,” she added. “I’ve always been active. It’s always been a part of my life.”

Longevity runs in Hofmann’s family. Her parents “had very good genes,” she said. Her restauranteur paternal grandmother lived to be 100. “That was kind of my role model, my grandmother — spicy gal,” she said.

Likewise, Hofmann’s own style and work ethic impresses those around her.

“She always taught me, ‘If you really want to do it, you can do it,’” said Matt Shelby, the restaurant manager. “And, she is not one who dabbles in the excuse business.”

Indeed, Hofmann rarely misses work. “We have to make her stay home in bad weather,” Free said.

Hofmann is grateful that Free, Shelby and the Hilton staff look out for her well-being. “If I don’t show up within 20 minutes, they’re looking for me,” Hofmann said.

Once there, her years of experience in jobs and business become clear in her hostess/waitress role. “Matt says I can read a room,” Hofmann said. She’ll scan the array of patrons and often detects whether they’ve come from a funeral, graduation or wedding.

“It’s my kind of goal, with whatever they’re feeling, I can help them with it. What’s that song, ‘I’m glad when you’re glad, I’m sad when you’re sad,’” she said, paraphrasing a 1970s Barry Manilow hit. “That’s kind of what I do.”

Shelby has seen it happen over and over in six years of working alongside Hofmann. It’s influenced him, too.

“She teaches me every day,” he said. “She has patience with allowing me to pick her brain, with wisdom and no nonsense, but kind about it. She has taught me the value of life and the value of choices. She’s my better half. My nickname for her is my ‘Wonder Woman.’”

As Shelby finished speaking, Hofmann was already on her way back to duty. Two more customers had come in. She was needed.

Retiring isn’t on her mind.

She’ll continue working “as long as I can. I have no thoughts of ever quitting my job,” Hofmann said. “I was looking forward to becoming 90, and I’m looking forward to becoming 95, and I’m looking forward to becoming 100. I guess it’s a goal of mine to see how far I can make it. I love it here.”