The community of Ceres is mourning the loss of Mary Fenton, who retired nearly five years ago from her city employment that set a longevity record.

Fenton died last week.

Nobody has served as an employee of the city of Ceres longer than Mary Fenton. She finished her 52 years of employment with the city and entered retirement during coronavirus restrictions.

In August 2018 Fenton was honored with a 50th anniversary of employment party at the Community Center.

Interim Police Chief Trenton Johnson said Fenton worked under then Chief Pete Peterson when he was hired in 1998 and recalled her being “kind and even tempered.”

“She was always willing to help and even took time to help the rookie officers,” he said.

When she was 21 years old, Fenton was hired as a police clerk-dispatcher by then Police Chief Leroy Cunningham on August 1, 1968. It was her first – and only – full-time job. She read about the job in the Ceres Courier and applied, beating out about 30 other applicants to replace Mary Jo Chubbuck.

In the late 1960s, Fenton was the only police dispatcher for the department, which operated in a small cinder block building at the northwest corner of Third and North streets, now site of Ceres Fire Station #1. At the end of her work shift, she flipped a switch so that emergency calls could be answered by round the clock Sheriff’s Department dispatchers.

She remembers the time she dispatched Gene Fowler over to an apartment complex where a woman was in labor. Fowler arrived as the baby was crowning and Mary heard the desperate plea to get the ambulance “real fast because he was afraid he was going to have to deliver it.”

Chief Cunningham, she remembered, “wanted to handle everything himself.”

She also worked under City Clerk Leona Garrison and police chiefs Pete Peterson and Chief Art deWerk.

After spending 40 years in the Ceres Police Department, she worked in the city manager’s office and then City Attorney Mike Lyions and helped out the city clerk. She transferred to the city Finance Department where she serves as an administrative secretary under Finance Director Leticia Dias.

Fenton grew up in the Denair and Hughson area while graduating from Hughson High School in 1965. She moved to Ceres after she was married in December 1967. 

“While I may have worked in a different department and building, I did have occasion to interact with Mary,” said former Ceres City Councilwoman Linda Ryno. “I’m sure Mary had the ‘skinny’ on countless employees, but she never gossiped about what she knew. Her ethics were beyond reproach.”

Ryno said Fenton was ethical and a “truly a nice person.”