Willow Glen Resident

Cover Story

Photograph by Vicki Thompson

Willow Glen residents line Lincoln Avenue during the Founders Day parade on Sept. 29, held in conjunction with the 27th annual Italian Family Festa.

Gala in the Glen

Founders Day festivities are revived on Lincoln Avenue

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

The past came alive in Willow Glen with the reincarnation of a beloved event that has been a part of many residents' lives for the past 26 years.

Founders Day 2007 had the whole downtown buzzing with excitement. Parents, children, friends and neighbors lined the sidewalks on Lincoln Avenue. The event, back after a five-year hiatus, was the biggest yet, according to Willow Glen Business Association's executive director Norma Ruiz.

The three-day event kicked off Sept. 28 with the San Jose Preservation Action Council's gala at the Roberto-Sunol Adobe on Lincoln Avenue.

The main events on Sept. 28 and 29 included the re-enactment of the day Willow Glen became a city in 1927, as well as the parade.

Various car clubs drove the drag, from Ford Model A's to the muscle cars of the 1960s and '70s, and even a troupe of Italian Ferraris revved their engines to the pleased response of the crowd.

Booksin Elementary students and teachers in Dr. Seuss costumes held their school's banner and elicited smiles from the crowd, prepping for their 20th annual Walk-a-thon next month.

Willow Glen Elementary's Bob the Tiger led their group, as they belted their school's anthem.

Representatives from such local businesses as Barbarella's, with its roller-skating, multicolored cartoon-haired ladies, and Park Place's vintage float waved to residents who frequent their establishments.

Held simultaneously with the Italian American Heritage Foundation's 27th annual Italian Family Festa, this year's Founders Day events filled the streets.

The three-day festival celebrates the history of the quaint neighborhood--which was its own city in 1927 for the specific purpose of keeping the railroad off its streets, then was annexed by San Jose in 1936--its founders and its accomplishments since.

The festival included the Founders Day parade, food, arts and crafts and music. A live feed of the event was new this year and broadcast on the Willow Glen Business Association's website, www.downtownwillowglen.com.

Willow Glen resident Jean Dresden has attended every Founders Day for the last 26 years.

Dresden lives behind Lincoln Avenue on Blewett Avenue and is directly affected when there are events in the downtown.

"The largest ones were the first few," she says. "Then there were those years that there was hardly anything and anyone."

Dresden says this year's event was much busier with the addition of the Italian Festa.

"There was an enormously larger parade than we have ever had," she says. "There was a lot more variety. I'm happy for it."

Besides the food and entertainment, there are more profound benefits that come out of having events such as this, Dresden says.

"Many people are transplants from other cities, towns and states," she says. "When they join Willow Glen, they get this sense of belonging. Willow Glen gives them a sense of place and history, and through these kinds of functions they are able to acquire the knowledge of this place. Founders Day reinforces that connection to a sense of belonging. It celebrates an idea."

Resurrecting the festival became important to Founders Day newcomer Marty Gillum.

Gillum works for Prudential California Realty in Willow Glen and was interested in driving his 1931 Ford Model A Deluxe Roadster to the parade. He drove it seven years ago in the parade.

"I asked what I had to do and found out the person that I was asked to talk to was no longer the parade chairperson," he says. "Then I was asked if I was interested in taking her place."

Gillum agreed and took the reins as Founders Day parade chairman.

From the beginning, the main focus of his efforts was the parade.

"I talked to Chris Carris, who had been in the parade planning in the past, and he had some great ideas and guidelines to share with me," Gillum says.

Carris, who owned the former Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Co., which is now home to Monsieur Beans of Willow Glen, had been actively involved in the planning of the event in past years.

Willow Glen Business Association president Michael Mulcahy had set up a goal of 75 parade participants. Gillum says he came close, with 70 registered and 68 showing up for the event.

This year, the association was working with partners Italian American Heritage Foundation, so the parade had to be done and wrapped by 11 a.m., allowing the Italian Festa to begin at 11:30 a.m. The parade was over by 10:30 a.m.

"Events such as Founders Day are important because nowadays we're such a computer-centric society," Gillum says. "We talk to our monitors instead of each other. We lose that human touch. And this is amazing. Everyone is happy go from person to person connecting. I'm glad that I could be the one to bring it all to them, but I didn't do it alone."

With this year's success under his belt, Gillum says he's ready for next year.

"I have a template to go off on along with firsthand experience," he says. "I know I could make it better."

A rocky past

The planning and execution of the weekend's events have always been a challenging one, and some years it's been skipped altogether.

The festival has been plagued with financial difficulties, resulting in cancellation of the event in recent years.

Originally organized by the Willow Glen Business Association, the last Founders Day in 2002 was put together by the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association.

This year, the business association once again took the reins and, with the help of the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, the Italian American Heritage Foundation and the San Jose Preservation Action Council, got Founders Day off the ground.

"We learned the lessons from the past," Ruiz says. "We knew we had to develop community partners from the very beginning. We had a vision of what we were imagining this to be like, and the community made it loud and clear that the parade was what they wanted to see come back."

With this point of reference, the association's members decided to focus primarily on the parade and fill the need for the food, festivities and historical points by partnering with others.

"We recognized that we don't have to invent everything ourselves," Ruiz says. "We just had to look to existing organization and events and partner up."

The first, the neighborhood association, stepped up to be part of the historical aspect of Founders Day.

The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association's Touring Historic Willow Glen--10 Walking Tours, the third installment since the original book was published in 1992 and revised in 2000, was unveiled at the Founders Day Celebration. The association also held historic walking tours throughout the weekend.

As for the food and music, there was another group looking for a home.

The Italian American Heritage Foundation approached the business association because it had lost its site at Santana Row, where the Family Festa was held in 2006, Ruiz says.

"Talk about the historical aspect of it," she adds. "We brainstormed and talked about the Goosetown community known to the Italians of the area, and the connections that were becoming apparent started feeling really right."

The collaborations put the event on the drawing board, but it was the enthusiasm from the community that really made it happen, she says.

Local businesses including Fleurish, Taiwan and Prudential California Realty became sponsors.

"It's just been really overwhelming the support and enthusiasm we've received," Ruiz says. "It just feels different than last time. It felt like you were pulling teeth, and this time it's like, 'Whoa.' "