April 13, 2003

Families Devote Day to Helping Others
Senior visits among volunteer activities

Catherine Cunniff worked as a Navy secretary before World War II in Oklahoma City, where she was smitten with the young aviators in their sharp uniforms.

Mildred Cochran, a young girl from Cork, Ireland, survived the London Blitz hiding under her bed as the bombs fell.

When Jessie Schwartz's younger brother, Bill, was lost over Europe, his death devastated her father, who had longed for a son after raising two daughters.

The stories, captured from memories more than a half-century ago, filled the dining room yesterday morning at St. Paul's Villa in Hillcrest.

Senior residents gathered there to share snippets of their lives with young families as part of "Family Volunteer Day," a countywide event coordinated by the group Volunteer San Diego.

About 1,200 people participated in the volunteer day, white- washing graffiti in Sherman Heights, packaging food at the San Diego Food Bank, pulling weeds at Mariners Point in Mission Bay, painting the Boys & Girls Club in Vista, planting flowers at Dos Picos Park in Ramona, and other activities.

At St. Paul's Villa on Fourth Avenue, a half-dozen young families sat at tables with about 25 seniors, chatting about the past.

Children crafted picture frames from Popsicle sticks, felt stars and glitter, to be filled later with Polaroid snapshots of them and their new older friends. Their parents conducted the interviews, writing down the answers in paper journals.

The seniors, most of them women, spoke about life before television, computers and jetliners, when the Great Depression and World War II shaped their youth.

Clara Toronto spoke about her schoolgirl obsession in 1927 with Charles Lindbergh, vicious winters during the Depression in New Jersey and the thick cream that topped the bottles of milk delivered to her family's doorstep.

Helene Jeffares spoke about the novelty of sliced bread, the absence of butter and the currency of food stamps during World War II.

Cunniff, not yet 20 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, hated living in Oklahoma but loved the pilots.

"It was so romantic," she said. "It must have been the uniforms."

Cunniff's husband, James, whom she met after the war, had landed in Normandy on D-Day and fought his way through France. Cunniff, 81, now a widow, moved to San Diego to be near her daughters and grandchildren -- 28 in all.

Maria Munoz, who visited St. Paul's with her husband, Gustavo, and their children, Michael, 7, and Devin, 6, said she volunteers because she wants to expand her children's view of the world.

"I want the kids to know what it's like to make a difference," Munoz said. "It's not just about your little world."

In the corner of the dining room yesterday, Suzette Hughes, 38, sat quietly at a sewing machine, stitching together a tapestry for the St. Paul's seniors.

Hughes, a sailor aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier Stennis, returned Friday from a monthlong deployment. She said she heard about Family Volunteer Day while surfing the Internet aboard the ship last week.

Hughes said she has volunteered for years, at a local women's shelter, at the city's rescue mission and with other charities. She was looking for something new.

"When I saw this one, this is what caught my heart," she said.

Bruce Lieberman; bruce.lieberman@uniontrib.com