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First published in the May 20 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
For most people, retirement is a milestone. However, 91-year-old Stephanie Ryburn has celebrated three such milestones during her banking career, with the most recent one coming up, retiring from Citizens Business Bank in South Pasadena, where she is a service representative, after 23 years.
She turned 91 years old this past Dec. 17.
The first time she retired, she wasn’t yet 65, leaving Lloyds Bank in Pasadena. She “thought it was time,” she said.
However, she got bored and returned to banking at National Bank of California in Los Angeles. She retired from there when she reached 65 years old.
After her second retirement, she and her husband went to visit a mutual friend who worked at Citizens Business Bank, then Granite State Bank. At the time, Ryburn had been thinking about getting a part-time job. The friend said she had heard that Ryburn had retired. She confirmed she had.
Then, suddenly, her husband chimed in. “He said, ‘Give my old lady a job, would you, please?’” Ryburn said, with a chuckle.
The friend said she did have a job opening, a teller position.
Though she was a bank officer previously, “I said, ‘I’ll take a teller [position],’” Ryburn said, and then she became a service representative.
She said the banking environment has changed dramatically over the decades, with the biggest change being automation.
“Big Brother is taking over everything,” she said jokingly.
Now, almost everyone and most businesses use online banking. The only people who come into the bank now are usually mom-and-pop businesses seeking to withdraw cash to make change.
Also, many people today use a lot less cash, instead using credit and ATM cards.
Ryburn recalled the earlier days in banking at Lloyds Bank, when there were large offices and staffs and a lot of walk-in customers.
“I had five tellers, two note tellers, two platform secretaries, a new accounts person, a customer-service person and three officers on the platform,” she said.
The hours were from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays.
“On Fridays, every teller had a line across the lobby,” she said. “If we got out by 8 p.m., it was a good night.”
After retirement, Ryburn, an Alhambra resident, plans to move to Florida to live with her niece. She said she would still stay at Citizens Business Bank except that she doesn’t have any family members living nearby — most of them have moved to other states. One daughter lives in Missouri and another lives in in Louisiana.
“I would not leave here if I had family around me,” she said.
If something were to happen to her, Ryburn said she knew it would be difficult for family members to step in and help.
She said she will miss working at Citizens Business Bank. “We’re like family here,” she said.
Once in the Sunshine State, and after she gets all of her financial and other matters in order, Ryburn still plans to either work part-time or volunteer. Interestingly, it was in Florida where she began her banking career in 1952.
“My first job was a gofer — you know, go-fer-this, go-fer-that,” she said.
Looking back at her long career — and life — she said, “I’m 91 years old and I’m proud of it and I don’t just want to give up.”
