By Pam Walatka

Brilliant, charming and altruistic Barbara Emerich, a longtime advocate for children, recently was honored as Temple Beth Am’s Local Hero at the annual Community Heroes Awards luncheon sponsored by Peninsula Interfaith Action.

“I’ve been a child advocate for as long as I can remember,” said Emerich, 85. The Los Altan is one of the founders of Beth Am and has been an active member of the temple’s social action committee since it began in the 1960s.

A letter from the governor congratulating the honorees for “exemplary service” through Peninsula Interfaith Action was read at the luncheon.

Emerich, who also is active in the League of Women Voters, served more than 50 years on the boards of local, county and state PTAs, specializing in legislation. She has traveled often to Sacramento to argue for measures that would help local youths.

“The state tends to lock up kids, when what the kids need is education,” said Emerich in an interview with the Town Crier. “There is a need for parent education, and a need for young people to be educated before they become parents.”

She added, “Any help parents can get in dealing with the emotional growth of their kids would be helpful to the kids.”

One of Emerich’s PTA projects, in the early 1960s, was to get pathways built along San Antonio Road, which was then a two-lane street with no sidewalks or other safe walkways for children. After the PTA pressured the city and county government for seven years, “We finally managed to get places for kids to walk,” recalled Emerich. “We stuck with it.”

Part of her PTA work also involved doing a survey about what was being taught about venereal disease. The results were presented to then-Gov. Ronald Reagan and convinced him to order state workers to look into doing something about it.

Emerich graduated from Stanford at 20. She received a teaching credential and master’s degree in educational counseling from Stanford. Always concerned about children, Emerich was a high school teacher and counselor in Salinas. She spent a year in San Francisco as a juvenile probation officer.

“In the meantime, I met my guy,” Emerich said of Robert Emerich. She married the love of her life on April 8, 1947.

She said people are somewhat surprised when she tells them she stayed home to raise her children.

“I didn’t go to work after I’d had my kids because I had seen so much during the war of one-parent families and kids having problems,” she said. “But four kids kept me busy.”

Daughter Carol now teaches in Cupertino; Sally lives in Marin; Mel is a San Jose lawyer; and René, his wife and Emerich’s 13-year-old grandson live with her.

Emerich’s husband died Dec. 17, 2003, at 94. They had been married 56 years. “And I miss him like hell,” she said.

When asked her advice for readers who would like to do something for children, Emerich suggested contacting the Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC), which she helped found in 1972.

The council focuses on keeping kids out of trouble, and helping them if they do get into trouble.

“CHAC has saved our county an infinite amount of money by keeping a lot of kids out of lockup,” she said.

Another good place to volunteer, she said, is Santa Clara’s Bill Wilson Center, which helps runaways and foster children.

If there were only one thing she could advise parents today, Emerich would say:

“Be there to listen and talk openly. Give time to your kids.”

For information about CHAC, visit www.chacmv.org.

For the Bill Wilson Center, go to www.billwilsoncenter.org.

Peninsula Interfaith Action can be found at www.piapico.org.