Senior’s spry hands used to serve others
When it comes to crocheting, Mary Janacek may have the fastest fingers in the west, or at least on the west side of El Cajon.
Over the past eight years, the 95-year-old retired kindergarten teacher has crocheted more than 600 baby blankets for wee ones at Foothills United Methodist Church in La Mesa. Despite her age, Janacek is the No. 1 producer of handmade blankets for the church’s Moses Basket Project and its baptismal program.
“Mary is like this little factory all by herself,” said Clarice Utt, whose Moses Project provides homemade bassinets to at-risk families. “None of the ladies who are doing this right now are near her age, and she makes such beautiful blankets. Plus, she’s always looking to do more.”
Janacek calls her crochet work “my therapy” because it keeps her fingers nimble so she can play her Weber baby grand piano. She also believes it contributes to her good health. Janacek lost a sister to complications of rheumatoid arthritis, so she believes that busy hands make for a happier life.
“I’m fit as a fiddle,” she said. “It’s an old fiddle now, believe me, but it’s still playing.”
Janacek keeps a large basket of yarn and crochet hooks underneath her kitchen table, where she works on blankets each day while she watches television. Her favorite time of year is baseball season, when she crochets while watching San Diego Padres games.
“I have to look up and down as I work, but I have a good set-up in the kitchen and my TV,” she said. “When it’s hot, I have an overhead fan, and when it’s cold, I have heat. It’s perfect.”
Janacek’s daughter, Kathy Deering of Carlsbad, said she’s often surprised by her mother’s energy level, but not her mom’s desire to give back.
“She has always done things to support others and there aren’t many idle moments in her life,” Deering said. “Even at 95, she’s usually spending her time helping someone else.”
Janacek arrived in San Diego in 1952 with her late husband, George, and the first two of their three children. The couple met in February 1946 — just after World War II, when he’d served in the Army Air Corps as a B-25 bombardier in the South Pacific — and married nine months later.
They both grew up in Milwaukee, Wis., where she trained as a schoolteacher and he was a school administrator. In the early 1950s, California had education jobs aplenty and year-round warm weather, so they headed west and never looked back.
“Can you imagine standing on a playground in a foot of snow?” she asked.
The couple settled in El Cajon, where George built the house where she still lives near Harry Griffen Regional Park. He served as principal at several schools, including Fuerte Elementary, and she taught kindergarten for more than 20 years at Chase Avenue Elementary and other grade schools. Just 5 feet tall, Janacek said she preferred teaching children who were shorter than her and her piano skills were handy in the classroom.
Deering said that when she and her siblings were young, her mother talked often about the importance of education. Her mom sold encyclopedias door to door to earn a free set for the family. But instead of talking to her kids about community service, Janacek just served as an example.
“It’s her nature. Instead of telling us it was important to help others, we just observed what she was doing over the years and it rubbed off,” Deering said.
Today, eldest daughter Barbie Owen lives in Oregon and her family does search and rescue work. Deering volunteers with New Village Arts theater in Carlsbad. And youngest sibling, Tom Janacek of Escondido, is an underwriter for Tender Loving Canines and other charities.
Mary Janacek said she started crocheting in the 1960s. After making blankets and scarves for everyone she knew, she found a new outlet for her craft.
For 20 years, she attended First United Methodist Church of San Diego in Mission Valley, where the pastor encouraged her and her fellow schoolteacher, Vivian Kuderna, to make lap robes and slipper socks for needy hospital patients and elderly shut-ins. They also made scarves for cancer patients.
In the late 1990s, Janacek began attending church at Foothills in La Mesa because it was closer to home, where she needed to be for her ailing husband, who passed away in 1998.
At Foothills, she discovered the Moses Basket Project. Founded a decade ago in Florida, the program provides a free portable bed to parents of newborns who can’t afford a crib or bassinet, Utt said.
A plastic laundry basket is outfitted with a hand-sewn padded liner, foam mattress pad, bedding and a baby blanket. It’s meant to provide a safe sleeping space for the baby in the first three months, a period when many infants are killed when their parents accidentally roll over on top of them in a shared bed.
Utt said Janacek not only provides hundreds of free blankets for the Moses project, she also makes pink and blue blankets for all of the babies baptized at the church each year.
While most of the blanket-makers are provided with yarn and fabric, Utt said Janacek insists on paying for her own materials as a gift to the church. Janacek has also recently begun offering her services as a pianist at the church, free of charge.
“I love Foothills. It’s a friendly wonderful church for all ages,” Janacek said. “And I love doing the blankets because I love little children. I always have.”
Deering said she hopes her mother’s efforts serve as an inspiration to others.
“I think her sense of purpose is so important,” Deering said. “She is a wonderful example of staying active, serving her community and being kind to others.”
pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
