The Stein Farm invites you to
COME ENJOY GRANDPARENTS DAY!
One very
special guest at our event was Jackie Lancaster. She's the second
oldest daughter of the Founder's 15 children. She spoke about her
mom, and Grandparents Day and its history, and gave away free CDs of
the official Grandparents Day Song!
Their address is:
www.grandparents-day.com
Grandparents Day was started in 1973, and its originator was Marian
McQuade. She wanted children to learn from and appreciate their
grandparents' experiences. She also wanted to benefit the elderly who
were in nursing homes. It is celebrated on the first Sunday after
Labor Day (so the technical date will be September 9). The official
flower is the forget-me-not.
Although Grandparents Day did not exist when the Farm began, we at the
Stein Farm want to honor Charles Stein and his wife Bertha Pallas
Stein, as they were the original grandparents here! Be sure to admire
their wedding portraits in the parlor when you tour the house!
There will be a number of
demonstrators, including blacksmithing and a spinning wheel. You can
learn to quilt, learn how to make rag baskets, and fill out a
genealogy chart. There will be arts and crafts, seeds to plant to
take home, tours of the Farm House, and you can pump water from the
century old cistern, scrub clothes using a washboard, meet Petunia our
pig and Bertha the goose, and (maybe) even pat the rooster!
Location: STEIN FAMILY FARM
1808 F Avenue
National City, CA 91950
(cross street 18th, across
the street from John A. Otis School)
Farm Phone: (619) 477-4113
Docent: Susan Walter (619) 426-5109
Date: SEPTEMBER 8, 2007,
Saturday
Time: 10 to 4
Cost: Donation
NATIONAL CITY – Today is National
Grandparents Day, so give yours a hug. A big one.
They do more than ever. They're
helping with day care. They're raising grandchildren.
And even though their roles are
evolving, they still can be pretty cool about things like ice cream before
dinner.
Larry and Donna Kalakauskis have eight
grandchildren, and they pretty much fit the bill when it comes to modern
grandparenting.
They ferry their 4-year-old grandson
back and forth to day care every day. That's because the boy's mother, their
daughter, went back to school and is pressed for time.
Over the years, they've let their
children – with grandchildren in tow – move into their Paradise Hills home
when times got tough.
They also know how to have fun with
the grandkids, taking them on trips in their motor home.
“Our grandkids help keep us going,”
Donna Kalakauskis said yesterday while attending a National Grandparents Day
celebration at the historic Stein Family Farm in National City.
The day is getting kind of lost in the
shuffle. A lot of people think Hallmark created it. It didn't.
Jackie Lancaster, a Chula Vista
resident, call tell you who did. It happened to be her mother, Marian McQuade,
a housewife in West Virginia who grew distressed at the number of people in
nursing homes who never had visitors.
She started lobbying leaders in her
state to raise awareness about the elderly and shut-ins. Her efforts were
rewarded in 1978, when President Carter signed a proclamation declaring the
first Sunday after Labor Day to be National Grandparents Day.
The designation is needed more than
ever, Lancaster said.
Grandparents keep taking on bigger
roles, she said. Both parents often need to work to make ends meet these days,
so grandparents are important day-care providers. If spouses divorce, many
times it's grandparents who help with the children.
More than 4 million children are being
raised by their grandparents, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. That's a 30
percent increase from 1990.
Many grandparents help financially as
well. Studies show they're assisting more and more with grandchildren's
college costs, for instance.
“Grandparents are the anchors of their
families,” said Lancaster, who took part in yesterday's event and now
coordinates National Grandparents Day because her mother is 90.
The idea to throw a celebration at
Stein Farm came from Susan Walter, a longtime docent there.
The Stein farm dates back to 1900 and
belongs to National City, which turned the home into a museum.
The Steins had three grandchildren,
Walter said, so it is only fitting to hold such an event at the farm. She
hopes to make it an annual event.
Yesterday, people got a chance to tour
the site and take part in events, such as learning to quilt and scrubbing
clothes from a century-old cistern.
Grandparents had it tough back in the
old days, too. They couldn't plop their grandchildren in front of the TV.
There was no TV, no electricity, no running water, no gas-powered stove.
But some things never change.
Walter knows of one photograph showing
two of the Steins' grandchildren at the farm. Each was eating a big sugar
cookie.
Probably before dinner, too.
Michael Stetz:
(619) 293-1720;
michael.stetz@uniontrib.com
Union-tribune story
