Client Spotlight: Sylvia Lamont

“I’m really just a farm girl at heart,” says SVMOW client Sylvia Lamont, who will mark her 95th birthday in October, explaining her still-healthy appetite and appreciation for the meals delivered to her each week. “They’re wonderful!” She especially enjoys the varied menu and the friendly volunteers who deliver them, accompanied by a warm greeting.

A native of Ontario, Canada, Sylvia grew up on a small island that bears her family’s name. Settled by her father, Pawel Bronas Mask, a Polish immigrant, Mask Island in Barry’s Bay is where some of her many nieces and nephews still reside to this day.

“I loved growing up there, and was never lonesome – I was the eighth of nine children!”

After studying nursing at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where she met her husband, Jim, the newlyweds relocated to California. Sylvia put her nursing and management skills to work opening the coronary care unit at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, CA, at a time in the 1960s when cardiology was just rising in prominence as a specialty. Jim accepted a job as an insurance underwriter at Lloyd’s of London in San Francisco. San Francisco back then was quite different from the “City by the Bay” we know today, but it was still an adventure for Jim and Sylvia.

They later moved down to Los Angeles, and over the next half-century, Sylvia would go on to open more coronary care and intensive care units, forgoing motherhood for her demanding nursing career. Her expertise had her working at USC and Cedars-Sinai for leading neurosurgeons.

“Get Sylvia!” she recalls her co-workers saying. “Nursing is a calling,” she explains. “You just accept it,” acknowledging the dedication and long hours that come with the territory.

Her advice to people starting out in the field? “You need experience, empathy, and the leadership qualities to command a team,” she asserts.

Good counsel for all of us, and for those of us serving our senior clients, who, like Sylvia, have given so much to society all of their lives.

Thank you, Sylvia!