December 1, 2007
They're older, but still fighting for a cause
Boston Globe
By Irene Sege
CANTON - Debora Sherman, 78-year-old mother of two and grandmother of two, was making guacamole the other day when an item on the radio stopped her short. A young Iraqi was complaining that Americans no longer care about the war in his homeland, complaining that stories of car bomb after car bomb were numbing them.
He might as well have been talking directly to Sherman. What with her husband's heart attack and their subsequent trip to Paris, she had almost forgotten the war. She had to act.
A few phone calls later, Sherman, whose Toyota bears a bumper sticker that says "Well-behaved women seldom make history," had arranged a talk about torture and rendition and what can be done to fight them. With that, Grandparents for a Just Society, the group Sherman founded last year in the Orchard Cove retirement community where she lives, took on another cause. Tuesday, Sheila Decter of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action comes to the Orchard Cove ballroom.
The current misbehavior started when Sherman read about a group of grandmothers who strode into the Times Square military recruitment center and insisted that they be enlisted instead of their grandchildren. Sherman dusted off activist instincts honed in the civil-rights movement and anti-Vietnam protests, and a girlhood in Manhattan spent accompanying her left-wing, mink-coated grandmother to picket lines. She called like-minded neighbors, stuffed notices into 227 mailboxes, and launched the group. The average age of residents of this Hebrew Senior Life complex is 83.
"I suddenly felt ashamed of myself," Sherman says. "We sat around and [complained] to each other. 'Isn't this terrible?' But we didn't do anything. And I had always been so active. I suddenly thought, 'I don't care how old I am. This is what I'm supposed to be doing.' So did other people. They just kind of waited for somebody to say it."
Grandparents' members stood - or leaned on walkers or, in at least one instance, sat in a wheelchair - at Cobbs Corner every Saturday morning holding campaign signs for Westwood seafood importer Phil Dunkelbarger, the antiwar candidate who challenged Representative Stephen Lynch in last year's Ninth District Democratic primary. Members too frail to hold signs made phone calls. "They were very effective," Dunkelbarger recalls.
Grandparents' members take turns attending meetings of the 9th District-Out of Iraq Coalition. They drew 100 people to a program on impeachment, and afterward wrote and called congressional leaders urging them to censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney. They've petitioned Lynch to end the war and raised money for the liberal National Committee for an Effective Congress. They've brought in speakers about aversive therapy, which the nearby Judge Rotenberg Educational Center uses on autistic and emotionally disturbed children, and supported state Senator Brian Joyce's efforts against it.
In 2004, in a precursor of things to come, Sherman corralled Orchard Cove residents to make 1,275 telephone calls in one weekend for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The group expects to mobilize again for the 2008 presidential campaign.
"Historically, at our age, we'd be dead," says Aileen Cabitt, an 83-year-old retired real estate broker. "Who is there we can model ourselves after? We're pioneers."
The Grandparents bring impressive credentials to their task. Sherman, professor emerita at Lesley College, still advises doctoral students. Lawrence Fuchs, 80-year-old Brandeis professor emeritus and Massachusetts chairman of George McGovern's 1972 campaign for president, once taught with Eleanor Roosevelt. Carolyn "Hooky" Darack, 88, headed the Massachusetts Health Council and sat on the state board of the League of Women Voters. Sylvia Namyet, 83, served on the Sharon School Committee.
"For people our age it's just unbelievable. We still have this great idealistic viewpoint of what this country stands for," says Namyet. "After World War II, there was such euphoria. We'll make a whole new world. We'll have grandchildren who will live in this land of hope and promise. What happened to that?"
"I haven't lost any of my idealism," says Fuchs. "You get periods that are really bad. That's the way life is, isn't it? Nothing's perfect, and it's not perfect uninterruptedly. We have to pick ourselves up."
Several members of Grandparents for a Just Society crowd into an office before Thanksgiving to prepare a flier and organize publicity for Tuesday's event. Gertrude Tesler, 91, a retired National Bureau of Standards administrator, has left her walker outside the door and rests her cane beside her chair. Norma Frankel, 78, a retired teacher and guardian of good grammar, developed uterine cancer shortly after she and her husband moved here from Sharon 2 1/2 years ago.
"I'm feeling better, and I'm giving back," Frankel says. "This gives me something else to think about. Takes my mind off me and makes me feel like I'm doing something which is very important."
The group creates a flier that has "Rendition" and "Torture" at the top, underlined and in boldface, and at the bottom the question "WHAT CAN WE DO?????" because Grandparents for a Just Society is about action as well as words. They put the speaker's bio on the back, but opt against including a picture of the white-haired grandmother. "She's moving here next week," laughs 81-year-old retired businesswoman Sonia Zeidel. The fliers will be put in mailboxes and reminders slipped later under doors. "Some people can't bend," Zeidel quips.
Fuchs couldn't make the meeting. It conflicted with an occupational therapy appointment. But he'll introduce Tuesday's program.
"I care very much about the civic culture," Fuchs says. "We do what we can do. That's what any citizen should do. Whether we're old or young."