Linda devoted many years of her life to making real her
children’s idea of creating
a unifying holiday
for all people each January 1. Born in New England,
daughter of an
inventor and an
poet, and raised in the military family during WW2, Linda developed
a keen early
interest in politics and human rights. Completing high school with honors
in Las Vegas at 15, (the
same year she won the city’s highest beauty award) she
worked as a
secretary, migrating to Washington,
DC at age 19, where she became
California congressman Sam Yorty’s DC legislative
aide. At 21, she became Clerk of
the House Indian
Affairs Subcommittee. Grover also worked for the National
Committee for an Effective
Congress and as a caseworker for the International Rescue
Committee following
the Hungarian revolution.
Married to
featured Broadway singer-actor Stanley Grover, and a mother of three,
Linda successfully
fought New York’s
City Hall to save, integrate and renovate the
20-family Central
Park West apartment building where the Grovers lived. Her first
book, The House Keepers, (Harper & Row) a
humorous account of her seven year
struggle, was
serialized in the New York Post, featured in the NY Times. Grover is
also co-author (with
Emily Cho) of the #4 New York Times bestseller, Looking Terrific,
(Putnams and Ballantine)
on women’s evolving image; August Celebration, a widely
distributed book
on blue green algae as a nutrient for humanity (500,000 copies sold)
and Tree Island (link),
an award-winning (Eco-Romance by Romantic Times) novel about
the annual
Globalfamily reunion she envisions. As a
television scriptwriter and later
head writer for
The Doctors, NBC, Search for Tomorrow, CBS, and General Hospital,
ABC, Grover was an
early pioneer for more truth and less violence on daytime TV.
In 1998, 500 days
before the 2000’s at Oregon’s Institute of Technology, Linda
Grover hosted 50
millennium groups from around the world, all seeking to make the
turn of the
millennium into a turning point for humanity. She worked with activist Bob
Silverstein who signed
up 100 countries and a thousand organizations to One Day in
Peace January 1, 2000. These
organizations perhaps awakened consciousness that
we had a lot on
the line that day, (dangers of computer failure, terrorism, Koolaid
parties, prophesy,
drunken riots) in spite of which it became a spectacularly peaceful
time). The US Congress
adopted a Wellstone/Kucinich/Conyers initiative in 2000,
making the peace
and sharing holiday an annual event. And shortly after 9/11, the
United Nations General
Assembly called for its observance. Presidents Clinton and
Bush have praised
her project, along with twenty-eight other sitting heads of state,
and ambassadors representing
2/3 of the world’s population. However, President
Bush declined to
take action. For her work with schoolchildren to promote what is
now called GLOBAL FAMILY
Day, Grover was named DC Mother of the Year in 2002
by American
Mothers, Inc., the official Mothers Day organization, and honored by
Senator Harry Reid,
Senator Landrieu, Congressman Conyers, and others at
ceremonies in the
Capitol.
In September 2006,
the US Senate unanimously passed a new Reid/Inouye resolution
calling on all
Americans to observe Globalfamily Day, and the House of Representa-
tives, led by
Globalfamily Day co-founder John Conyers (link), adopted a similar resolution
urgently
requesting that the president and other notables assume leadership of this
new tool for
peace... “It’s becoming very clear,” said Linda, “that governments can
no longer make
peace unless the people also actively make peace. Unless we begin
to build the kind
of shared traditions that will bond us as one human family, we can’t
hope for a world
of greater peace and sharing. Breaking bread together, worldwide,
on the first day
of every year, can help to start that process. Globalfamily Day is about
permanently
reducing hate and hunger, both locally and globally, through unified
action by families
and individuals everywhere. All are urged to share food, offer
pledges, ring
bells, beat drums and reach out to one another during the 48 hours it
will be January 1 anywhere
on earth.
In 2006, Linda
Grover was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive stage 4 uterine cancer.
Under
treatment, she continued to work tirelessly to see her children’s dream become
reality worldwide. Recently 22 senior members of the House of Representatives sent
a letter to
President Obama, seeking his leadership. No response has yet been
received. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (link) and Senator Dan Inouye (link) recently
introduced
S. Res. 357, a resolution calling on all Americans to unite on that day and
reach out to the rest of the
world in friendship. A companion House Res. will be
introduced shortly and a spectacular
news conference will be held, finally getting good
news out to the world and
hopefully persuading President Obama to take the lead.
“That’s all I’m going to need to die
happy,” says Grover, because it’s going to improve
our global attitude and give us a
slightly better chance to overcome all these global
crises that are demanding global solutions.
Economy, Environment, Energy, Ethnic
Enmity, Education, Employment,
Epidemics – and those are just the ones that start with
the letter E.”
Linda Grover passed away on February 20, 2010.
