Traffic-Stopper for 4 Decades

Ricky Smith dashed across Gilbert Elementary School’s parking lot Thursday morning to give two homemade heart-shaped cookies to crossing guard Eleanor Parks.

“At Christmas you should see what she ends up with,” said Sheila Smith, the 7-year-old’s mother, who baked and decorated the Valentine’s Day sweets especially for the veteran crossing guard.

For more than four decades, Parks and her red stop sign have reported for duty daily to escort thousands of children safely across the street and onto campuses.

For her years of service, the diminutive 74-year-old was honored this week by the Garden Grove City Council and thanked personally by Councilman Mark Leyes--one of those she escorted to school three decades ago.

For the children, Parks is like a member of the family.

“Last week she gave me a dollar for ice cream,” Gregory Astuto, 10, said. “We can borrow for ice cream and pay it back later.”

Parks has been guiding children across streets since 1954, when her youngest child headed off to kindergarten.

There has never been a traffic accident during Parks’ 44 years of patrolling. She did trip and break an ankle five years ago, but she was back at her corner within a few days.

Parks said she has seen dramatic changes in children and their parents over the years.

The children of the 1950s were the most polite and obedient, she said, and their parents were strict and cautious. Youngsters of the ‘70s, whom she refers to as “flower children,” were wild, she said, because their parents let them do whatever they wanted.

In the ‘90s, she said, kids have shaped up because parents are raising them with discipline and concern.

“I like these young parents,” Parks said. “They care for their kids.”

Parks has done much more for the community than help children across the street. Twice she has called police to report residential burglaries, and she has given officers tips about other suspicious activities in the neighborhood.

Parks, now a great-grandmother, said she has no plans to retire, though Louis, her husband of 57 years, has suggested it.

“My husband thinks I’m crazy,” Parks said. “When I start school in September, he doesn’t talk to me for a week. He wants me to sit there next to him. But I tell him, ‘No--I don’t want to be a couch potato.’ ”