Seventy-nine-year-old Edna Scates of Oakville has worked as a waitress at Bethesda Terrace for the past 19 years and has no intention of retiring.

In fact, she says she’d work more if she could.

Scates works three days a week, but said, “If my body would allow it, I would work every day.”

She’s always been a waitress.

Of working at Bethesda, Scates said, “It’s the same as working in a restaurant except we don’t get tips.”

During her tenure at Bethesda, she’s worked for 10 food-service directors, outlasting nine of them.

Asked about the favorite part of her job, Scates said, “The residents. I like to make them smile.

“If they are having a bad day, I like to tell them how handsome they look or how pretty their blouse is,” she continued. “But they cheer me up, too.”

She thoroughly enjoys her job because it keeps her healthy and well, and the residents keep her young.

Besides her job, her little dog Max keeps her going — and she has no intention of slowing down.