Jean Small is small. Exercise and good genes have kept her figure trim. Osteoporosis has bowed her back making her a bit shorter than she was in years past.

Yet despite her petite stature, Mrs. Small is a powerhouse, keeping herself busy and giving to the community in big ways.

She gets a lot accomplished because she rarely sits still. During meetings, while watching television or when chatting with friends, her fingers work madly, knitting colorful strands of yarn into infant baby hats for Sinai Hospital—30 to 40 of them each month.

“No matter what I’m doing, I’m knitting,” she said. “The babies get a hat as soon as they come into this world. Then they get a new hat before they go home from the hospital.”  Mrs. Small estimates that she has knitted more than a thousand hats for Sinai.

She walks three miles every day. During pleasant weather, she takes loops around the patio of Weinberg Place (Concord) where she lives. Two times around takes five minutes. If it gets dark before she’s done, she finishes up in the halls, where she exercises when the weather won’t let her outdoors. She takes water breaks when necessary.

“I’m never too tired to walk,” she said.

This rigorous schedule contradicts her age. On December 17, Jean Small will turn 95 years old. In close to a century, she has become an integral part of the Baltimore community, volunteering time and talents—never slowing down.

Her day begins long before the sun rises. She starts out reading each section of the newspaper. Then she distributes bits and pieces of it to her neighbors. Monday through Friday at 7:00 a.m., she reports to the lowest floor of her building to work with the Meals on Wheels program she’s been volunteering with for decades—too long to actually remember. She no longer makes deliveries, but she is the only daily volunteer in the kitchen.

When the meals have been packaged and the kitchen cleaned up, Mrs. Small heads back upstairs for a bite to eat. She enjoys playing bridge or Rummikub, a tile game. She takes in entertainment offered at Weinberg Place. She chats with her neighbors and visits with friends. She gets in her daily exercise. And she knits.

Pat Harper, Meals on Wheels site manager at Weinberg Place, has been working with Mrs. Small for three years.

“I think she is a ball of fire—a ball of energy—to do what she does,” Ms. Harper said.

“When you get to be this age, it’s no good,” Mrs. Small said. But her enthusiasm for her daily routine and countless hours of volunteer work belie that sentiment.

Outliving her husband and son, Mrs. Small has maintained a life busier than most folks one-quarter her age. Even at two score and 15 years, she shows no sign of slowing down. Most of her work stems from community involvement—from 45 years of service at Sinai Hospital to 75 years with True Sisters.

“If I knew I could do any good for people, that’s what I’m here for,” she said. “At the end of the day, I want to know that I’ve done something good.”

Mrs. Small’s roots in community service began when she was a child, working with her father’s furniture business on Gay Street. True Sisters would make baskets for High Holy Days and Passover; her father would loan the trucks to deliver them.

“I never took a date on a Saturday night,” she said. Instead she worked at the store. She was also a model and performed in local variety shows, singing and dancing.

She met her husband, Irving Smulwitz while in the ninth grade. She took him to a New Years dance, but they didn’t hit it off. Later, when they met after high school, all other suitors paled in comparison.

“He was the one I said, ‘Okay, I’ll marry you,’” she said. She became Jean Smulwitz. The couple had two children, a son, Marvin and daughter, Leatrice.

During World War II, Mrs. Small remained busy—donating blood, wrapping bandages and spotting airplanes. Every Friday night, she’d take GIs to Shabbat.

“I had to keep my eye on them of course, when they disappeared,” she said with a wink.

When her son graduated from medical school, the family decided to change its name.

“By court order, we lost our wits and just became Small,” she said. “Can you imagine?  A doctor called small-wits?”

Mrs. Small also showed a knack for festive decorations and was in high demand for table centerpieces that suited various events. At Baltimore Hebrew and Sinai Hospital, she decorated Sukkahs with dozens of bunches of grapes and fresh apples. 

“She had hands of gold,” her daughter, Leatrice Gaines said.

Those hands lovingly knitted thousands and thousands of baby hats, said Deanna Gaister, coordinator of volunteer services at Sinai Hospital. Last year, Mrs. Small was honored for 23,898 hours of volunteer service with the hospital. This year, she will likely exceed 25,000 hours.

“It’s one of those things that keeps her going,” Ms. Gaister said. “She feels she is appreciated. Her dedication to Sinai Hospital is quite legendary. Everyone here knows Jean.”

Mrs. Small once ran the flower shop at Sinai, selling plants for $1.49 and up.

“I brought in thousands of dollars from these little plants,” she said. And still people stop her, telling her about a much-loved sprout from her store.

Her extensive work with Meals on Wheels has brought a certain institutional knowledge to the program at Weinberg Place. She knows the volunteers and can map out a delivery route easily and quickly.

“She’s always got the answers for me,” Harper said.

Although her birthday is still two months away, Mrs. Small has already celebrated. Because her daughter lives in Boca Raton Florida for most of the year, Leatrice held a surprise party at the beginning of October, with all of her cousins, during monumental rains. But Mrs. Small couldn’t be fooled.

“It wasn’t much of a surprise,” she said.

Mrs. Small doesn’t make much of the gifts she has shared with the community. She simply wants to stay busy and give back.

“I’ve done it all my life,” she said simply and matter-of-factly.

And it doesn’t seem as if she’s slowing down any time soon.

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