GOULDSBORO – Edith Woodward, who has held her job for 47 years, says she has no plans to leave her position as head cook at the local grammar school.

“I’m 86 years old and I’ve never retired,” Woodward said recently.

Woodward, a resident of the Gouldsboro village of Corea who has worked at the Route 195 facility since it was built in 1956, said she has seen three generations of pupils graduate from the school.

“My own children went to school here when I first started cooking,” she said. Since then her grandchildren and, even more recently, her great-grandchildren have enrolled at the school.

A widow, Woodward said she likes her job and the environment she works in.

“It’s interesting and you get to meet new people and new children,” she said. “I try to feed them nutritious meals and to keep them as healthy as I can.”

Woodward said she was thinking about retiring when her husband died in 1980.

“We had just about reached retirement [age] when he died,” she said. “Our plans were all gone then, so I just kept working.”

On Friday, Woodward was serving lunch to the school’s 160 pupils with the help of four eighth-graders, each of whom stood taller than their supervisor. One of them, Robert Driscoll, pointed out that Woodward seems focused on serving the food while they are working.

“She doesn’t talk to us too much,” Driscoll said.

Woodward scraped tuna fish out of a large mixing bowl with a large metal spoon on Friday as the children filed through the service line for lunch. She wore a white uniform, a hairnet and a white apron as she spread the tuna fish onto rolls with the spoon.

“Have we got enough rolls?” she asked another woman as the woman walked by with a loaded tray. She was assured that there were enough.

Woodward said that although she doesn’t drive anymore, she usually arrives at work at 6 a.m.

“I’m here every day, and sometimes even on storm days,” she said.

In the morning, a neighbor who works at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor gives her a lift to work. She used to ride the bus home every afternoon, but now she catches a ride with a relative at around 2 p.m.

“Right now my health is good, but you never know at my age when things can go wrong,” she said.

Away from work, Woodward serves as master of the local Grange when her chapter is active in the warmer months. She is a member of the Corea Baptist Church and belongs to the Maine School Food Association and the National School Food Association.

“They usually have a convention in the summer and I usually go to those,” she said. “I like to travel in the summertime if I get the opportunity.”

She also occasionally takes bus tours – on the East Coast, to the Midwest or to Canada. Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Minneapolis are among the cities she has visited in her travels.

Woodward said she tries not to put in too many miles away from home between the end and beginning of each school year.

“I know my limits,” she said.

The Bangor Daily News is profiling people age 70 and older who choose to remain in the work force. We welcome suggestions for people to profile. Contact us at 990-8138 or e-mail bdnnews@bangordailynews.net.