Jane Gridley

Mainstreaming Kathleen Jane Gridley

At the age of 28 I had my first child, a big, strong, beautiful boy, Johnny. The pregnancy had been normal, uneventful, and the birth, following an easy, quick labor, also uneventful. There was no reason to expect anything different with a second pregnancy. But it was different. Within 2 months I had a small hemorrhage. By the time the baby was born I had had 4 or 5 more. The baby, a girl, was born at 26 weeks, so small the doctor could hold her in his hands. At first I worked just to get her going day by day, a monumental task. Later it was to assure her of a place in regular public school classes and a life as normal as possible. But I also found myself fighting for a more normal life for other handicapped youngsters and later for all handicapped individuals. Handicap Advocacy became my life's work, albeit unpaid. I chaired a county task force on the Needs of the Handicapped; I was the chairperson for my county's Committee on Employment of the Disabled Persons and organized yearly one-day seminars for employers at the state university; I set up an all-day job fair which involved everybody in the county who had anything to do with disabled individuals, from the county executive to all the non-profit agencies working with those same persons. I begged and borrowed from everywhere and everybody who might help. It was a fantastic success. We had disabled persons who had PhD's and those who were seriously retarded and everything in between. In 1996 I received the Cory Moore Award for my efforts on behalf of disabled persons, and in 1999 I was named one of the Most Outstanding Senior Citizens in the state of Maryland. Best of all I have had a wonderful daughter, and a life full of challenging and rewarding work, and I have grown.