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Marian McQuade, Advocate For Elderly Care, Dies At 91

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 2, 2008

Marian McQuade, 91, an advocate of care for the elderly who founded National Grandparents Day after years of petitioning governors, members of Congress and presidents to support her cause, died Friday of heart failure at a nursing home in Hilltop, W.Va.

She began her campaign for a day honoring grandparents in the early 1970s, years after she first visited nursing homes and homebound elderly.

As a girl, she would go with her grandmother to take food and small gifts to senior neighbors. Many of them had no other friends nearby.

"It's not for grandparents like me to get presents," McQuade said about her idea for a National Grandparents Day, in a 2003 interview. "It's to alleviate some loneliness."

McQuade's home state of West Virginia was the first to embrace her idea, in 1973. By then, she had raised 15 children and was devoting most of her time to helping the elderly.

National Grandparents Day was approved by Congress in 1978 and signed into law by President Carter the next year. Los Angeles Times

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