Sept. 11, 2024

When Jo Ann Kutilek graduated from high school, her parents gave her a suitcase and wristwatch as graduation gifts.

She put them both to good use, leaving the town of Tabor and heading 90 minutes east and north to Sioux Falls in search of a job.

“My dad told me I wasn’t married and it didn’t look like I was going to get married right away, so he said, ‘We took care of you, you’re on your own now,’” Kutilek recalls.

And she did. “Taking care of you” meant finding a place to live and a place to work. Both proved to be relatively easy. For a few years, she hopped from place to place, some good, some so-so, until finding an apartment that suited her and nesting in.

Finding a job was even easier. A wholesale liquor company near the local meatpacking plant hired her for office work, taking the orders that salesmen called in and answering the phone. Her social life flourished, too, when Kutilek joined a softball team and made friends.

Her next job came even easier. Kutilek frequently stopped by the electric construction and appliance and lighting company where good friend and fellow softball player Blanche Even worked. Kutilek had quit her previous job in May 1967 because she knew their softball team would be going to a national tournament that summer and her employer wouldn’t give her the time off.

Even’s boss came up to her one day after Kutilek, by then known to everyone who knew her as “Kootch,” had left.

“He (Marlo Mahlstedt) told Blanche, ‘That little friend of yours, you think she like to help us out?’ Blanche said, ‘I don’t know, I can ask her,’” Kutilek said.

Even asked, Kutilek agreed, and on Sept. 11, 1967, Kutilek walked in the doors of what today is known as Mahlander’s Appliance and Lighting. Fifty-seven years later, she hasn’t walked out — permanently — yet.

Kutilek, who celebrated her 85th birthday Aug. 29, has cut back on her hours — some. She now works 35 hours a week over five days rather than the 45 hours she once worked.

When, and if, she decides to retire, Kutilek doesn’t know if she’ll do it abruptly or by tapering her hours gradually. Whatever she decides is fine with Mahlander’s general manager Jason Miersma, although he predicts Kutilek would reduce hours before taking a full retirement.

He is coming up on 21 years at Mahlander’s, but those two decades pale in comparison to Kutilek’s almost six decades. He enjoys their time together, describing Kutilek as “loyal, hardworking, punctual, a joy to be around. There’s a lot of words.”

Her work ethic is outstanding, he said, perhaps because of growing up on a farm near Utica before moving to Tabor for her sophomore year in high school.

“She knows what it means to be a consistent worker and a faithful worker and just doing what she has to do,” Miersma said. “I keep saying to people, I wish I had more people like her — dedicated, she just comes and does her job. She doesn’t complain about things not worth complaining about. We’ll make a space for her and keep her around as long as she wants to be.”

Rosie Kindt’s time with Kutilek tops Miersma’s experience by more than a decade. She joined Mahlander’s, which she describes as a “small but large business,” in 1991 and is the sales manager and buyer.

“She is just a wonderful, sweet little lady,” Kindt said. “She answers our phones and schedules service appointments and does some data entry for us. She has a really, really tough job scheduling service calls. We sell major appliances like refrigerators. When someone’s refrigerator is not working, they are extremely angry. Our sweet little Jo Ann just handles it professionally and politely, and she cares.”

Kutilek takes it all in stride. Upset customers aren’t angry at her, she said. They are frustrated that a machine they trusted let them down.

“First, they rattle off to you, and you got to listen to them, then I say, well, it’s out of my control. You’ll have to talk to the manager,” she said, shrugging off any harsh comments she has heard.

When Kutilek joined the firm founded in 1906 as Electric Construction Co., it was already 60 years old. That means she has been there for almost half of its existence. It originally started as a contractor that supplied electricity to large area projects.

According to the firm’s history, Marlo Mahlstedt bought an electric refrigerator shortly after World War II ended to see if Sioux Falls was ready for such a product. It was, and Electric Construction added appliances to its original store on Phillips Avenue.

In the early 1970s, the owners decided to turn Electric Construction into solely a contracting business. Steve Mahlstedt had joined the family business, and his name and partner Ted Anderson combined to create the portmanteau Mahlander’s, which would focus on retail appliances and lighting.

Mahlander’s moved to its current location at Eighth Street and Minnesota Avenue in the early 1970s. Kutilek, who has never owned a car, would take buses to get to work. When she moved to an apartment building near Summit Avenue and 11th Street in about 1987, she walked to work.

Her concession to age — and friends’ concerns — is to limit her walking. For years, she walked the seven blocks to the Cathedral of St. Joseph, and it took her 12 minutes to reach Mahlander’s.

“I walked to Mahlander’s through rain or sleet or snow. I still walk; once in a blue moon, I walk home,” Kutilek said.

Usually, though, co-workers offer her a ride when her workday ends. In the morning, she relies on good friends Kevin and Karen O’Connor. She and Karen O’Connor met in 1985 when Karen took a job at Mahlander’s. When the O’Connors married in 1989, Karen dubbed both Kutilek and Even her “honorary other mothers.”

Kutilek spends weekends with the O’Connors, making herself useful with chores such as pulling weeds.

“She’s a clean freak,” O’Connor said, teasing her friend. “She has a schedule for everything. For her laundry, for everything. Years ago, she had a special day when she washed her shoelaces.”

“I don’t do that anymore,” Kutilek protested. “I don’t do that anymore. I was bored. I can’t just do that, just sit. Unless there’s something really good on TV, I think it’s a waste of time.”

Her softball days ended decades ago, but it played a large role in making her feel part of the larger Sioux Falls community. And she embraced it. Remember when she quit her job because she knew her team was destined to make it to the national tournament? Kutilek found herself playing centerfield in Stratford, Connecticut, in the summer of 1967, just as she predicted.

She has filled her time with many other activities. She is the third of four sisters, Marlene, LaVonne and Jeanene, who married and stayed closer to Tabor. Her nieces call her Aunt Kootch. For years, she enjoyed summer weekends at Lake Madison. She cheers on the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Cubs and follows the Little League World Series.

Kutilek still claims a height of 5-feet-4-inches, but in actuality, she needs to look up to see 5 feet. She started going gray early and fully embraced it many years ago, refusing to dye it any longer. With a Czech heritage, she likes polka and won’t say no to a beer.

And when surgery went wrong in 2011 and she temporarily lost her eyesight  she didn’t despair. Marlene, LaVonne and Jeanene took turns staying with her in Sioux Falls, and she relied on books on tape until her vision slowly, mostly, returned.

“She’s a firecracker,” O’Connor said of her friend. “Somebody said how young she looked or that she looked cute. I said she still likes to drink beer and dance the polka.”

Kutilek agreed with that statement, but she draws the line.

“People that know about me know about me,” she said. “Call me anytime you need a friend to go out and have a beer. But you better not say that. I was going to say, ‘if you want to get a dancing partner,” but I’ll get some yahoo.”