'Ice Cream Lady' Spiering honored for sharing warmth with Southwestern Veterans Center

Her name is Wanda Spiering, but the residents of the Southwestern Veterans Center for the last decade have known her as the “Ice Cream Lady.”

That's why the Lower Burrell woman's plaque recognizing her as the Pittsburgh facility's 2014 Volunteer of the Year came attached to a giant silver ice cream bowl.

“A lot of the fellows say I should get a job at Dairy Queen,” Spiering said.

Every week Spiering, 95, is on hand for the ice cream social offered to the more than 200 veterans residing at the assisted-living and skilled nursing center.

“If there's one thing that goes off like clockwork, it's the ice cream social,” said Barry Lowen, the center's business manager who presented Spiering with the award on Wednesday.

“I'm so happy to see them all,” Spiering said of the veterans.

She began volunteering after the 2001 death of her second husband, James Spiering, who was treated at the facility.

She married the Navy veteran in 1948, four years after the death of her first husband, Walter Conwell, who died in France while serving in the Army during World War II.

Two of her sons also served in the Navy: Denny, her only child with Conwell, and Alex, the youngest of her three children with Spiering. Her other children are Veronica Dulnikowski and James Spiering.

Dulnikowski said her mother's commitment to the U.S. military goes back to jobs at General Electric and Pittsburgh Plate Glass in the 1940s, assembling items used in the war.

Spiering also has been a member of the American Legion Post 868 in Lower Burrell for more than 50 years. She's logged more than 1,000 volunteer hours at the Southwestern Veterans Center.

John Ayers, the center's volunteer resource director, said Spiering was chosen as the volunteer of the year after he learned she still drives herself on the 40-mile round trip to the center every week.

At Wednesday's award ceremony, state Trooper Robin Mungo joked that she had planned to offer Spiering a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for past traffic violations. But Mungo found no dings on the woman's record even though Spiering began driving in 1938, the year she graduated from New Kensington High School.

“In the 20 years I've been a state trooper, that's the first clean driving record I've seen,” she said.

Mungo offered Spiering a proclamation and a state police sweatshirt instead.

“I see a lot of bad,” Mungo said. “But to see something like this, it puts a smile on my face.”

Also offering proclamations were Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald; state Rep. Edward Gainey, D-Pittsburgh; and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“A special thanks to you, the volunteers, who take care of our veterans,” said retired Brig. Gen. Jerry G. Beck Jr., the deputy adjutant general for the state's Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. “Your time is precious. I can't pay that back to you.”

Lowen noted the center's volunteers gave more than 16,000 hours of free service over the past year.

Spiering also has volunteered at her church, St. Margaret Mary in Lower Burrell, since its inception. She has served in the Ladies Guild, taught religious classes and prepared lunches for school children and funerals.

For 20 years she operated the snow cone machine at the annual church bazaar — perhaps that, and her long ago job working at Medices Ice Cream Store in Lower Burrell, were training for the “Ice Cream Lady.”

“I don't even eat ice cream,” she said.

Liz Hayes is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 724-226-4680 or lhayes@tribweb.com.