A Dozen Reasons Why One Mom Volunteered

Betty Wilcox has been a busy woman most of her life.

So it’s easy to understand why she volunteered at the Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center after most of her children grew up and moved from home.

All 12 of them.

“I’ve always been on the go,” she said in an interview in the living room of the Fountain Valley three-bedroom, two-bath house her father and brother built in 1952. “At one point we had five girls sleeping in one room, but they managed. It was their dormitory.”

She has eight daughters and four sons, all of them married except the youngest, who is 28. And among them, they have 30 children with one more on the way. “Maybe two,” Wilcox beamed.

“I get called on frequently to baby-sit,” she said, noting that most of the children are nearby, all but one living in California. “I guess I could baby-sit every day.”

Wilcox regularly attends Mass at St. Columban Catholic Church in Garden Grove. “It’s a good way to start the morning,” she said. “My faith is one of the things that has kept me going. It’s the big thing.”

The always-on-the-go mother said she started volunteering at the hospital 15 years ago while also working part time in a doctor’s office as a certified medical assistant.

“I went to school for that and got A’s,” she said proudly. Most of her children have graduated or attended college.

When the children were growing up, she and husband Edward Wilcox, 71, a retired plasterer, had some tough financial times.

“I made the majority of clothes for the kids,” she said. “It was almost a necessity, but they always had nice clothes and prom dresses.” All her daughters participated and learned how to sew.

“I think it is more difficult to raise children today,” she said. “There is so much outside influence.”

But despite that, she said, “all my children turned into fine young men and women.”

She said her older children grew up in a more clear-cut society. “The moral standards were much higher, and it wasn’t a permissive society,” she said.

Wilcox feels that attitude is on its way back.

“I’m glad,” she said. “It was getting far out. Just look at young mothers today. They have to work and come home and take care of the children. It’s very difficult even though they have a lot of modern conveniences.”

Wilcox said she didn’t have a clothes dryer until her 25th anniversary.

“All the kids got together and bought me one,” she said. However, she still hangs the bedsheets in the back yard to dry. “They smell fresher when you get some sunshine on them.”

Because of her experience, she is not bashful about offering advice to her children.

“I like to wait for them to ask, but I’m not reluctant to give advice when I think they need it,” she said. “Communication is the important tool in understanding each other. And love.”

Although her children have left the nest, “the closets are still full with prom dresses and things they’ve collected,” she said, “and the garage still has car parts in it. I guess it’s more convenient to leave them at home and keep their own houses clean,” she said, smiling.

After the children left, she found volunteering a rewarding experience.

“Most people have to feel they are needed, and volunteering gives me that feeling,” she said.

Two months ago Chuck Malchow, 55, underwent a successful operation to remove cancer from his colon but decided his bowling days were over.

However, Bea Suzuki of Fountain Valley and Pat Wineland of Costa Mesa, his bowling mates in a mixed-trio league at Westbrook Bowl in Garden Grove, persuaded the Irvine man to continue.

So last week the 172-average bowler threw his first game since the operation.

Incredibly, it was a perfect 300.

“It was great,” said Malchow, who was awarded $100 by the bowling alley, “but at the end I could hardly stand up.”

Afterward, he said a lot of the bowlers asked for the name of his surgeon.

On Monday, Valerie Vegh of Midway City, who goes by the name Giggles the Clown, will be one of 20 clowns cavorting on the White House lawn at its annual Easter egg hunt.

Vegh, 46, mother of two grown sons, earns her living as a clown.

She gets a lot of encouragement and advice from her seven sisters, since five of them are clowns.

They include Virginia Murrell, known as Candy Cane, of Cypress; Veronica Stubben, or Posie, of Huntington Beach; Vivian Row, or Dancer, of Santa Ana; Vicki Murrell, or Tickles, of Westminster and Vanessa Aramanda, or Messy, of Sparks, Nev.

“We’re all very demonstrative,” Vegh said. “Mother (LaVerne Murrell of Westminster) gets overwhelmed by us when we get together.”