P-TA Honors Two for Contribution to Youth
Honorary State Life Memberships were awarded to two Omahans Monday when the Omaha Council of Parents and Teachers held its annual meeting at Lewis and Clark Junior High.
The honorary memberships were presented to Mrs. Ignac Grossman, 1702 Sahler, and Keith Sinclair, 3925 N. 42nd. Presenting the awards was Mrs. George W. Abbott, 8796 Evans, state life membership chairman of the council.
The council awards two such memberships yearly to persons who have contributed outstanding service to children and youth. The memberships serve to recognize their service, but the money paid for such memberships is placed in a special fund to provide tuition in the form of scholarships for future teachers.
"An honorary state life membership is the highest honor that can be bestowed by our organization," said Mrs. Abbott, who has served on P-TA units at West Maple, Boyd and Morton Junior High schools. She has been active in P-TA since 1951.
Mrs. Grossman began her work in P-TA as a room mother at Saratoga Elementary School many years ago. She continued to serve on the juvenile protection committee at Horace Mann Junior High for three years.
Mrs. Grossman is a native of Poland. When she was young, she and her entire family of nine were imprisoned in concentration camps when the Nazis ravaged Poland. The family was separated and some members were shipped to many different camps where they were forced to serve as subjects for the Nazi "scientisits" who experimented on human beings.
They were also forced into hard labor and when the war ended the family was in one of the extermination camps– but only three of the original nine remained.
STATE LIFE PRESENTATION . . . Mrs. Abbott (standing) hands awards to Mrs. Grossman, Sinclair.
She married and had the family's only child, Alex, in a displaced persons camp.
Hope alone sustained them until they arrived in the United States in 1949.
Here they built a new life. Although they had been treated for malnutrition, their health was poor. They took what work was available (Mr. Grossman is a mechanic) and began their education by learning English in classes at Tech High.
Student at O.U.
"In five years," remembers Mrs. Grossman, "our dreams came true. We became citizens of the United States."
Mrs. Grossman began her work in juvenile protection when her son began grade school. He is now a sophomore at the University of Omaha, majoring in industrial technology, with particular emphasis on electronics.
Sinclair, safety supervisor for the Omaha Transist Compnay, drives the bus for two weeks every summer for the Pre-School Traffic Training Program.
He has done it every year for the past 15 years–during his own vacation time!
Here is what Mrs. Abbott had to say about him during the presentation ceremony:
"If you can visualize a person giving vital safety instruction to some 60,000 pre-chool-ers, along with a lesson in good manners by greeeting each youngster as he boards and leaves the bus, you'll have a fair idea of the service performed by this gentleman to our children over the past 15 years."
Leonard Ritts, Omaha Council P-TA Safety Chairman, who has worked with Sinclair the past four years on the pre-school safety program, has said this of him: "He's an ideal man for this assignment. He's patient, friendly, always wears a smile, and above all, he imparts to the children invaluable advice on bus safety."
A native of southeastern Nebraska, he farmed with his father after graduating from high school, later worked for an oil company (with the same name) and during World War II worked for the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore and Omaha.
Sinclair joined OTC in 1946 as a streetcar motorman, later became a bus driver, and since 1953 has been safety supervisor and instructor for new drivers hired by the company.
He and his wife have two grown children and four grandchildren.
