Goertzen looks back on 44+ years of loving kids

As the community of Hampton has rallied around a plan to establish the new daycare center for the village over the past year, one name that has been often mentioned was that of Sharon Goertzen. It was often noted that one of the reasons a daycare center was one of the three communities priorities that rose to the top of the list at a public meeting in the spring of last year, was because Goertzen was planning to retire after more than 40 years of taking care of dozens of children in both Aurora and Hampton. 
Goertzen says she hasn’t really thought about that chain of events since her retirement became official last May, but she said she is happy the need is being met, commenting “I know it’ll be successful.” 
Having grown up on a farm outside of Hampton and graduating from Hampton High School, Goertzen has strong ties to the community but she says she never set out to be a childcare provider. Right out of high school she went to work as a dental assistant in York for several years, but after she married her husband, Kirk, the couple moved to Aurora because he got a job transfer with York State Bank. Two and a half weeks after that move on Dec. 1, 1979 their first son, Adam was born leaving Goertzen with a choice – should she continue working in York and making the 45-mile round trip to York everyday or find another way to bring income for the family. 
“Someone in Aurora said, ‘Why don’t you start a daycare?’” Goertzen recalls, saying that was not anything she had ever thought about doing. However, she knew she had the skills to work with children. 
“I’m the youngest in my family so I didn’t have younger siblings, but I did have nephews and nieces who meant the world to me and I helped take care of them often,” she said. 
So she decided to give childcare a try and was in business by the very next month. 
“It just happened so fast because people put the word out and licensing wasn’t quite as hard back then,” she said. “It’s a lot more difficult now, but it wasn’t hard for me to get licensed.”
The Goertzen’s lived in Aurora for the next 11 years and added two more children to their own family during that time. 
“It was just the perfect job for me as a mom with three little ones,” Goertzen recalled. “I could take care of them and take care of other people’s kids at the same time.”

The move to Hampton
As their children entered their school years, Goertzen said she and Kirk began to discuss the possibility of moving back to Hampton. 
“It wasn’t something we’d planned,” she said. “We just decided we wanted to get the kids into the Hampton School District.”
Like the decision to start a home childcare business, Goertzen says the process of moving to Hampton also happened quickly. 
“We just started talking about selling our house and someone called and wanted to know if they could come take a look at it and they bought it right off the bat,” she said. “Once we moved here I was full immediately and I had to get completely re-licensed.”
Noting that state licensing for a daycare is issued for the facility not the provider, Goertzen said while the process of licensing was more complicated than it had been when she started it was still not that hard to do in 1991 when they made the move to a house on D Street in Hampton. 
Over the next three decades, Goertzen would take care of whole families of children, many of whom were children of staff members from the nearby Hampton School. While she said she has often been asked just how many children she has looked after in  more than 44 years of providing childcare, Goertzen said while she still has all the records she has never tallied up the total. However, she does know she has taken care of at least two families of children whose parents were also in her daycare. 
She also said throughout those years when she was licensed to take care of up to 10 children at a time, she was usually at capacity. Most were infants and preschoolers – which she said she enjoys most – but often she would look after school-aged children, especially during the summer months.

Life changes
It is also obvious from talking with Goertzen that she saw her work as much more than a job, since she has established long-term relationships with the children and their parents. She said after Kirk passed away after a battle with cancer in January of 2018, those relationships helped her keep going. 
“I wasn’t old enough to retire, and I knew I needed to keep working,” she said. “So this was really the perfect job, because I was just surrounded by the kids that I loved. And, you know, the families just have always meant so much to me, and I’ve had so much support because of that. So it was a really big change right in that time, but I didn’t take any time off. I just love the kids so much and their families. And since it was a family daycare, I always tried to make it so I was not there just for the child, but for the whole family, because that was important to me. And I think you can do that a little bit easier in a small town.”
Although she loved the children and what she was doing, Goertzen said part of the reason for her decision to retire this year was her need for surgeries to replace both her painfully worn out knees. 
“It is a lot of work with daycare, lifting and on the floor, so I just knew this last year, it had to be my last because the doctor said the only thing that’s gonna get me back is two total knee replacements, and that’s why I retired,” she said. “I couldn’t keep daycare open and just take a little bit of time off, because it’s like a whole year recovery thing. So it’s been a hard year because I didn’t want to really say goodbye to those kids, but we’re a little town, so I see them, they stop by and we go to church together.”

44.5 years of relationships
She says a retirement party thrown for her at the end of May by the parents of some of her last daycare children was further evidence of the relationships she has built over the years. 
“They wanted me to start looking for old photos, which I found so many,” she said, noting that she marveled at how quickly the time had flown. “That was like a lifetime ago. I mean, how does time go so fast? And each one of those children just still means so much to me, and I get invited to their weddings and graduations, which I’m very thankful for.”
Goertzen’s contributions to the families of Hampton are also heralded by those who depended on her to look after their children in years past. 
“Sharon’s child care was truly a blessing during those challenging early years of balancing motherhood and my career,” said Hampton School Supt. Holly Herzberg. “She created a warm, nurturing environment where I knew my boys were surrounded with educational activities, healthy meals and genuine affection. Knowing they were in Sharon’s care gave me the peace of mind to focus on my work, and I’ll always be grateful for how she helped make it possible for me to be both a mom and educator. Without Sharon’s child care for my boys, I don’t think I would have ever considered pursuing the superintendency at Hampton. Her impact on the community of Hampton is immeasurable!”
Another more recent recipient of Goertzen’s loving childcare service is Hampton School Counselor Katelyn Goertzen. 
“Sharon has been an absolute blessing to our family,” Goertzen said. “For ten years, she was like another grandma to our girls! We always looked forward to the quick update or picture from her about what they were doing that day. While she did everything exceptionally well, what we appreciated the most was that she spent every day they were together sharing God’s love with them.”
Goertzen had her first knee operation in July and is currently recovering from her second surgery in October. She said before the first one she took some time to get her home into non-daycare condition for the first time since moving into it. 
“I hadn’t had a house that wasn’t full of everything for ever,” she said. “I just needed to know what that looked like. So it’s all back in one bedroom. I got rid of my play pens and high chairs and stuff... Some toys I gave away, but most of the things I kept because I have grandkids who come and visit.”

Life after daycare
Asked how well she has adjusted to her new situation, Goertzen replied, “I haven’t comprehended that one yet. Like I said, everything was so busy up until retirement, and then I did so many things before the first surgery, just to clean out the house and stuff like that. And knee replacements are hard... So since then, I guess my focus has to be on getting me well, and then, I don’t know, I always say, ‘God will lead you, trust in His timing,’ and he’ll lead me to whatever he wants me to do after that. But I You do sometimes you just have to pause and take care of yourself, so that’s what I’m doing right now.” 
Goertzen said, in addition to the hard work of recovering from knee surgery, she has stepped up her volunteering since her retirement. She takes care of communications for Zion Lutheran Church outside of Hampton where she is a long-time member and is also active with the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League. 
Goertzen said she is also blessed to have all three of her children and her eight grandchildren living close by. Her oldest son David lives just a block away in Hampton as does her second son, Scott. Goertzen’s daughter Michelle Meyer lives in Seward.