While most people are more than eager to retire as soon as they can, one Columbia attorney has been hard at work for the past 50 years and is only now set to enjoy retirement with his wife at the ripe age of 90.

Born Dec. 8, 1933, Ronald Stanley has been serving Columbia and others in and around Monroe County since 1986, having chosen this community to settle down in with his wife Frankie after jumping around quite a bit in his earlier years.

He grew up briefly in Jasper County before his family moved to Hammond while he was still in grade school.

Ronald graduated high school in 1952 and was inducted into the Army amid the Korean War in June 1953.

His military career lasted just two years, with the Korean War ending just after his service began.

He recalled being at Camp Crowder in Missouri before being transferred to Washington, though along the way his orders were changed and he was instead sent to Fort Ord in California.

Ronald spoke briefly about his training, saying his flat feet left him with a different regiment than what was typical.

“My first sergeant had just come off from the 16-week training program, and I was in eight,” Ronald said. “He said, ‘You think you’re getting away with something? What we usually do in 16 weeks, we’re gonna do that in eight. Put your helmet liner on and put your bag on your back. We’re running.’”

He went on to serve for a time as a company clerk and was stationed briefly at Camp Desert Rock outside Las Vegas before heading back to California leading up to his military retirement.

With a G-I loan, he attended school at what was then Eastern Illinois College, studying accounting.

Ronald ran into some trouble finding a job after graduating in 1960, though he was able to find work in crediting for Shell before he found a position that interested him more.

“I was there two years and received word that the IRS was now hiring, so Frankie and I went up and interviewed, and I left then Shell Oil Company and went to work with the IRS,” Ronald said.

Trained to be a field auditor, he also received training with a few other individuals to be an estate and gift tax auditor, a training specialty that he said only a handful of people received.

Working for the IRS, Ronald lived for a time in Danville before moving to Champaign and then Springfield.

An interest in law school had him requesting a transfer to East St. Louis, where he attended night school.

After graduating, he found work at Walker & Williams Law Practice – originally in East St. Louis though they are currently located in Belleville.

In 1984, he left this firm for a partnership, though this lasted only briefly as he soon found a home in Columbia and began practicing locally.

Ronald’s legal focus over the years, given his accounting education and experience with the IRS, has been in the realm of estate planning, real estate and trusts.

He had a number of anecdotes to share from his time spent as an attorney. His early career, like many other young attorneys, involved getting case assignments from the court, one of which was unfortunately timed poorly enough as to spoil his and Frankie’s plans to travel to Germany.

Income tax evasion cases were a major focus for him in his early career, with him and his partner proving very successful as they won all of the 55 cases they tried.

He further recalled doing a tremendous amount of work for a colleague on one case, with this colleague winning an outstanding work award and expressing his appreciation for Ronald’s efforts.

Another case he described seemed all but lost, though it was ultimately found that the IRS had made numerous mistakes. The judge wound up furious with both Ronald for winning and the IRS for the gratuitous mistakes.

Ronald’s legal practice officially closed just last week, and his former office location is now home to another attorney.

Looking back, Ronald offered a rather succinct summary of his career path.

“What you do is whatever job you can get,” Ronald said.

He did, however, express great pleasure regarding his work as an attorney.

“I enjoyed it,” Ronald said. “If I can help somebody out, I helped them out. You should give so much free bono work, and I always had plenty of that that I gave away.”

A strong partner throughout Ronald’s career has been Frankie, to the point of serving as her husband’s secretary for the past 20 years.

She was quite positive as she spoke alongside Ronald – though she was also happy to give him a bit of a ribbing.

“I had a friend, she worked for an attorney over in St. Louis, and she said, ‘Any secretary who works for an attorney needs an extra stone in their crown when they get to heaven. And Frankie, married to one and working for him, you need two,’” Frankie said.

Martha Shelton, the couple’s second-oldest daughter – they also have three sons and noted that three of their five children retired before their father – spoke with tremendous positivity about her father and his work.

“He loves what he’s done, and he knows it’s a service,” Shelton said. “I know he’s very on the low scale of what he charges people just because he wants to help people.”

She further described him as a “gentleman attorney,” and generally commended his honesty and place within the community.

As Ronald and Frankie are now set to enjoy retirement, they plan on doing a bit of traveling, taking a motorcycle trip with friends and family up to Wisconsin in the near future, with other plans to vacation in Colorado sometime down the line.