Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Center Celebrates Red Rose Day For Foster Grandparents

The Nevada County Day Service Center celebrated Red Rose Day Friday, September 15. Red Rose Day is the annual national appreciation event for foster grandparent workers.

Staff at the center arranged a surprise luncheon, complete with certificates, balloons, red roses, a cake and Fannie Tatum's special homemade chicken pot pie.

The center has been fortunate to have the extra arms, extra legs and extra hearts of several resident grandparents for several years. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the foster grandparent program nationally and the 20th anniversary of foster grandparents in Arkansas.

Shirley McMillan, director of the foster grandparent program at OBU, locates, places, trains and oversees 70 retired workers in six counties in southwest Arkansas. According to McMillan, prospective foster grandparents must be at least 60 years of age, be willing to serve 20 hours a week working with individual children and meet lower income eligibility to receive a small stipend. However, those qualifying for placement as foster grandparents who do not meet income eligibility may volunteer and forego the stipend. Mileage is reimbursed.

There is no specific educational requirements, just time and the willingness to help others.

McMillan said that the typical foster grandparent is a very people-centered individual. "Serving as a foster grandparent makes a definite, positive difference in the health of the volunteer," she said.

Once a month or so, the foster grandparents meet in the Arkadelphia area for training, having a meal together and fellowship. The training includes a three-day stint at OBU each summer, during which time the grandparents are housed in dormitories and feast at the OBU cafeteria. They have also taken several short trips together.

Dorothy Andrews was the first foster grandparent at Nevada County Day Service Center, in the late eighties. Some years ago she moved to Texarkana to be closer to her family.

The center's foster grandparent with the most tenure' is Helen Beavert, who started 11 years ago when Andrews, one of her neighbors, started talking about her work as a foster grandparent and made it sound so good that Beavert soon found herself volunteering.

Beavert hails from the small community of Sayre, close to Reader. The family moved to Prescott, where her dad worked for what used to be the Ozan Lumber Company (now Potlatch). She remembers he delivered wood he had cut at the mill for almost nothing. Her mother was a homemaker.

Mrs. Beavert went to school in Prescott and as time went by she married Romie Beavert, also an employee of Ozan, who eventually worked his way up to saw filer. The couple had a daughter, June, and a son, Danny Joe. She has five grandchildren.

She amassed considerable work experience in several dry goods stores in the area, include Sterling, Allen G. Rapan's Dry Good Store, Joe Boswell's, Ledbetter's Department Store and for a time she ran a store in her own home out near the mill, carrying basic groceries and dry goods and had a good little business right at home when the kids were young.

Mrs. Beavert is a member of Central Baptist. She is a game show enthusiast. She collects recipes and tries each one that is given to her. Her specialty is homemade biscuits. The clients at Nevada County Recycling and Work Center have been the lucky recipients of her cooking talent.

Mrs. Beavert has a disposition that can't be beat, a smile for everyone, and she is a very beloved member of the work center staff. Elaine Williams, supervisor at the work center, said, "What adds to the success of her life, one day at a time, is being good to everyone she meets. She often says, You've got to treat people right and you'll feel good and live a long time.' She's a woman of great knowledge and much wisdom."

Beavert is the only foster grandparent who works with adults with disabilities. The other three spending their time in the preschool program at the center.

The five adult clients Mrs. Beavert assists with simple writing and counting exercises consider themselves fortunate to have their own grandmother in residence.' Her patience working one on one with these clients helps them to grasp skills at their own pace as well as enlarge their sense of belonging in the community. She said that some use her as a sounding board for whatever's on their minds.

Being a foster grandparent "helps me get out of the house," she said. She has no problem getting her housework and laundry done and working four hours a day. "The kids are good kids." she smiled, adding that the supplemental income helps too. "When I don't come, I miss being here," she shared.It seems that one day at the Beauty Shop, Mrs. Beavert saw Mary Kisselburg playing with a small child as she waited her turn for a hairdo. Noting her love for children, Beavert suggested she might like to do foster grandparenting at the Day Service Center. This unplanned encounter was all the encouragement Kisselburg needed to apply.

Mrs. Kisselburg born in Dallas, Texas, one of five children. Her birth certificate notes that her father was an "ice cream maker." This young entrepreneur apparently swept her mother off her feet, because she decided to marry him rather than teach school. Her father loved to travel and when he traveled the whole family went with him. He bought and opened a number of restaurants, working as a chef with Mary and her mother working as waitresses, then selling them to move to the next location. Most of Mrs. Kisselburg's education was gained around Gonzales, Texas.

She married builder-contractor Virgle H. Kisselburg and worked in San Francisco at Nabisco and a dry cleaners while he was in the service. On a vacation in 1966 to see the trees in Arkansas, the Kisselburgs decided to settle near the Little Missouri River. Mrs. Kisselburg still live in the home that her husband built for the family.

Their sons are Virgle Henry Jr. and Wayne. She has five grandchildren and four great-great grandchildren. Mr. Kisselburg passed away seven years ago. "He and I really had a wonderful life Mrs. Kisselburg reminisced.

She is active at Shady Grove Baptist Church, participating in walkathons and several missionary trips to Old Mexico. She also works in the church nursery. For fun she does things with her family and fishes with her two brothers. "And I come here to play with the babies," she added.

This is Mrs. Mary's seventh year as a foster grandparent. The most rewarding part of the work, she says, is "seeing one of the little kids learn to walk....the love the kids give her, even after they've moved up to another class...the love of every person for the other in a work setting...."

The sentiments of the infant room staff, Sherri McClure and Laronda Roberts, are a tribute to their foster grandparent: "We would hat to know what a day without Ms. Mary would be like. She's very good with the babies, and they love her dearly. She's wonderful help, always willing to do anything we ask her to do."

This is Gloria Welch's fourth year as a foster grandparent. She retired from Potlatch in 1996, having spent about six months of peace and quiet retirement at home before deciding she had "sat around long enough." She heard about an opening for a foster grandparent through Merlene Holleman, one of the center's preschool staff. "It gives me a reason to get up and start the day with something to do," she said in a recent interview.

Welch works five half-days with several special-needs children in a classroom of typically-developing three- and four-year-olds. She reported that seeing special needs children learn to walk or use scissors makes her feel her volunteer time is time well spent. "Helping is a great opportunity," she added. "We can take the time many busy parents may not have to give special instructions." In conclusion, she smiled and said, "Foster grandparenting just keeps me going."

Lori Cummings, the technician in the class where Mrs. Welch works, wrote, "She makes our day go much smoother. Not only the help she gives the staff, but the much-deserved love and attention she gives our group of little ones. She is truly a blessing."

Mrs. Welch is no stranger to groups of people working together, nor to hard work. She was raised in a farm family with five brothers and two sisters in Rosston. They grew their own vegetables, raised their own cows for milk and butter, kept chickens for eggs and raised hogs and beef for their own table.

Her education began at the Nevada County Training School in Oak Grove, then she had a year at Ida Upchurch Training School before transferring to McRae High School in Prescott.

Mrs. Gloria began her work career with the home and young daughter of Dr. Jack Harrell. She eventually took a job as stick layer at Potlatch, where she worked 19= years.

She is the widow of John Charles Welch and the proud mother of seven grown children, Lois, Ray, Lydia, Doris, Kay, Lawanda and Stephanie. She also boasts more than a dozen grandchildren and eight great grandchildren plus one on the way.

Mrs. Welch is a member of Macedonia Baptist Church, where she serves as usher and on the program committee. In her spare time she enjoys going places with her family, helping others and growing flowers and vegetables at home. She also looks after two grown sisters who have developmental disabilities.Mrs. Welch lives out an active response to life and retirement, saying, "I don't think about the past. I think about now, what I can do and what I can do for others."

Holleman, a friend and co-worker, reports about Mrs. Welch, "...she loves her job and it shows, whether making sure the tables are set for meals, going on walks, helping to make those boo-boos feel better, whatever is needed to help the children have a good day, she is willing to do. Her smile brightens the center for the children as well as for her co-workers."

When Louise Crayne was no longer able to help in the toddler room at the center, a plea was sent out for a new foster grandparent. Mrs. Welch encouraged her friend and former classmate, Dorothy Black, to apply for the job.

Mrs. Black is one of six children born to pioneers of Arkansas. She was raised in a home out on Washington Road. Her dad did upkeep on the locomotive for the Bemis Mill. She remembers that back then Prescott was larger by twice than it is now. There were lots of businesses, grocery stores, two theaters, two dry cleaners and doctors.

Mrs. Black left Prescott after high school for a two-year Bible college in Terrell, Texas. She loved to travel, taking trips with the Southwest Christian College Chorus. She has been to all but a few of the continental United States.

She met her husband in 1957. They lived in Dallas and Houston over thirty years and had one son and six daughters, Pamela, Laquita, Ricardo, Sonya, Sharon, Onrita and Deborah. She has 14 grandchildren by blood and over 20 by marriage. She marvels at the distinct, delightful personalities that each one has, and she greatly treasurers her time with family.

Mrs. Black had a number of interesting jobs through the years, including from serving as silk finisher at a dry cleaning shop to a ward secretary at Parkland Hospital, and as secretarial help at the Nevada County Department of Human Services.

She has been back in Prescott only since December. She quickly got involved in the life of the community. She seems determined to get involved where there is needed, where she can make a difference, helping a neighbor at one of the housing projects or helping a sister with a kidney transplant and hoping to organize a women's Bible class at Scott St. Church of Christ.

"I love people and children and life," she said, "I'm grandmother to everyone in town who knows me and everyone does." She said she has to be kept busy or she's not happy.

"Busy" is a good word to describe the class of one- and two-year-olds where Mrs. Black works five half days a week, so she should be happy indeed. She brings a lot of spirit, energy and humor to the job. She laughed, "I'll tell you a secret. I come here for the lunch. Wasn't it good today?"

Her co-workers, Wanda Page and Angela Preston, voice their thanks: "She is a joy to have, and the children just adore her. She spends quality time with each one. She has lots of love to give and in return the children give her love. She cares for each child as if they were her own."

The foster grandparent program depends upon volunteers to give several hours of retirement a week, to invest in others with special needs.

For more information call the foster grandparent office at OBU, 870-245-5195 or the Nevada County Day Service Center at 887-6675.