Most people do not stay in the same job for 32 years, but even car wrecks cannot stop 81-year-old Murlean Trammell from working in housekeeping at Harding. Trammell, who cleans in Stephens Hall and Kendall Hall, was involved in a car accident Thursday, Jan. 5, and returned to work the following Monday.
Having gotten off work that Thursday at about 2:30 p.m., Trammel said she was waiting at a light when a woman’s vehicle slammed into Trammell’s car twice, causing Trammell’s car first to hit a truck on the other side of her vehicle and then to hit a brick wall. Trammell was hospitalized at White County Medical Center and then released about 5 p.m. that same day. She had suffered bruising and a black eye, but an MRI and X-rays showed that she had no fractures or broken bones.
“I felt very fortunate, I guess you could say, that I came out in as good of shape as I am to be hit twice before I hit the brick wall,” Trammell said.
Trammell received Jan. 6 off from work to recover, and she said that while she is still sore, she is feeling better and her return to work went well.
Joy Slayton, who has served as the residence life coordinator of Stephens for about 14 years, said Trammell takes pride in her work and enjoys being here.
“I think it gives her a purpose; it gives her a reason to get up and go,” Slayton said. “I know her kids have told me that she’s happier when she’s able to get up and go to work every day.”
Slayton’s mother, Doris Dalton, former RLC for Stephens and longtime friend of Trammell, said Trammell is a dependable person. Dalton said she knew Trammell from attending at Downtown Church of Christ with her, and she helped Trammell get her cleaning position in Stephens 32 years ago.
“She did a really good job cleaning the dorm, and she tried to do everything that was asked of her to do,” Dalton said. “And she was always here. She was somebody that was getting to work — and getting to work on time — and doing everything that she can to help.”
Trammell said she spends most of her time working at Harding, and when she is home she catches up on housework and goes for walks. The middle of 10 children, Trammell grew up in Arkansas on a farm situated between Edgemont and Shirley, where she and her family would wake up at 3 a.m. to tend their cows, pigs and chickens. She married Kenneth Trammell in 1952, and she and her husband moved to Illinois for 15 years, where she worked as a homemaker to raise her son, Gerald, and two daughters, Glenda and Margie.
In 1967 the Trammell family moved back to Arkansas, this time to Searcy. Murlean’s husband passed away in 1971, but her three children still live in Searcy, and she has four grandchildren and five great grandchildren. One of her daughters, Margie Staggs, graduated from Harding and now teaches fourth grade at Southwest Middle School in town.
Dalton said Trammell is honest, cooperative and righteous, and Slayton said she is kind, gentle and modest.
“I wouldn’t have her any other way,” Dalton said.