The day having become a firm fixture in the family calendar

National Grandparents Day has been a national holiday in the United States for the last thirty years, and is as much a part of the national calendar as Mothers Day and Fathers Day. One important idea behind Grandparents Day was to raise awareness among children of the importance that a grandparent can have the benefit of their experience and the love that they have to give. Those nine years exemplify one thing above all others  the wonderful, hearty activism of an amazing woman, who showed what a senior citizen is capable of if they are allowed to speak rather than being patronized or ignored, an example to senior citizens everywhere of what can be done if you refuse to take no for an answer. Marian McQuade is the person credited with founding the day, which falls on the first Sunday after Labor Day every year.

The campaign of Marian McQuade for National Grandparents Day began in 1970, and took its course in a spirit of furious lobbying that characterized the founder herself.

As a member, chair and president of a great many other foundations and committees, Marian McQuade took community activism to a completely new level. This is an example to children of what a grandparent can be. The success of this day is measured in the respect and love that children show for their grandparents, and the increased awareness of Senior Citizens issues as a whole. Marian McQuade, who died in September 2008, said of the day that it furthered her goal of educating the young regarding the important contributions made to society by senior citizens, and those that they were willing to make if people just asked them. This is all the more important as we tend not to have long to share with our grandparents, with many people reaching adulthood without a single surviving grandparent.

This it has done in no small measure, with the day having become a firm fixture in the family calendar. Before 1978, there was no day in the calendar to celebrate the grandparents influence on a childs life. The day became a state holiday in her native West Virginia in 1973 and after nine years of work became a full national holiday thirty years ago. The reason for Marian McQuades success in this respect obviously has much to do with peoples love for their grandparents. However, it is also due in no small part to her own indomitability and work ethic which saw Richard Nixon (of all people) proclaiming a National Shut in Day in tribute to the elderly infirm who are unable to leave their homes.

Though McQuade is no longer with us in body, her message was heard by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, when he signed into law a bill proclaiming National Grandparents Machining Workholding Day as a national holiday.

It was Marian McQuade s aim that Grandparents Day should become a day for the family, with three generations gathering together to acknowledge the role that grandparents play within the family and the example that they set