Gretchen Wollerman was blessed with the gift of gab. Growing up in Western Springs, she was a natural leader in their newcomers club. She knew the people, the events and the local businesses.
Wollerman worked as a kindergarten teacher in the early 1980s, but when she was expecting her first child, she gave it up to stay at home with her daughter.
Around that same time, when the Western Springs Welcome Wagon hostess offered Wollerman her job, she gladly accepted. Welcome Wagon International started in 1928 in Memphis, Tennessee. Their hostesses visited the homes of new residents, greeting them with a friendly smile and a basketful of community news and local business information.
In the mid 1980s, Wollerman moved with her daughters and new husband to Naperville.
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“Naperville was a boom town then,” she said. “It was doubling and tripling in size.” She continued her work with the Welcome Wagon in Naperville, along with five other hostesses.
Working for Welcome Wagon was not a volunteer position as a lot of people assumed. Each hostess, later referred to as representative, found their own sponsors. A sponsor is a local business that provides the Welcome Wagon rep with coupons, fliers and giveaways to add to the welcome basket in exchange for an endorsement. “I usually worked with mom and pop organizations. They were the people who understood the value of word of mouth,” says Wollerman, who at one time had 50 or 60 sponsors.
Wollerman was very persistent in her pursuit of new residents and made up wards of 60 visits per month. “If I could get someone to answer the door, I usually got invited in,” says Wollerman, who found many of the new residents through Realtors and the city.
With two school-aged daughters, Wollerman found a way to work around her family’s schedule. She visited new residents two or three nights during the week and on weekends. Her daytime hours were spent on the phone and in front of potential sponsors. “It was a lot of work, but I love talking to people and making my calls,” says Wollerman.
In late 1998, Welcome Wagon International representatives were contacted by telephone. They were told that the owner, Cendant, would no longer need their services as hostesses. Instead, the former home visitors would be selling phone directories – a job that was nothing like the personal interaction they had with the community. Many reps like Wollerman decided they would continue their work on their own.
In 1999, Wollerman and four other women started Welcome Home Greeters, working closely with the Naperville Newcomers and Neighbors Club. Wollerman knew the value of a newcomers club and how it helped people get started socially. “Gretchen has always been so kind in promoting us,” says Sue Malone, an NNNC member and chairperson since 1997.
After 10 years in business, four of the Welcome Home Greeters wanted to retire, but Wollerman wasn’t ready. She kept her business going until last month, when the desire to move closer to her grandchildren forced Wollerman to give up the job she has done for 35 years.
“Now that I am retiring, it is my dream to find the right person to take over,” Wollerman says with a bittersweet smile. She feels the perfect candidate is a woman in her 40s or 50s who is looking for a change, who loves people, who loves to sell and above all, cares about Naperville.
If that person does not come forward, Malone said she feels that new Naperville residents will miss out on a little piece of Mayberry. “I am sorry to see the end of that era. Yes, times have changed, but you can never replace that face to face time that Gretchen provided,” says Malone.
Wollerman can be reached at [email protected].
Pam Molnar is a freelance reporter