Several winters ago, Lois Cornish says she met a real Grinch: a notoriously cantankerous veteran who lived at the Veterans Home of California-Chula Vista. In our ongoing “Volunteers Serving Veterans” series, CalVet highlights Cornish, who began volunteering at the Chula Vista Home when it opened in 2000. She soon started recruiting some of her American Legion Post friends to help decorate the Home for the holidays. “I get everybody involved,” said the 88-year-old widow of a career Navy man. But when she encountered this particular resident, he let her know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t ..read more

Whenever Dorothy Lipps volunteers to work in the tiny store inside the Veterans Home of California-Redding, she comes dressed for the part. “I’m very patriotic,” said Lipps, who began helping out at the Home seven years ago. “I always wear red, white, and blue. My two sisters and I always have done that, even when we were in high school.” They all married military men, and Dorothy herself planned to join the Air Force if she didn’t find a job within a month of her high school graduation. She did, and went on to work for PG&E for 43 years before retiring in 2007. She later volunteered at a ..read more

Shortly after the Veterans Home of California-Fresno opened in October 2013, Gladys Garza-Brown took her former husband, an ailing veteran, there to scout it out as a place where he might live. She also brought along her Border Collie, Chase. The moment they walked through the doors, staff immediately began recruiting her and Chase to volunteer at the Home. “The activities director asked if I’d bring Chase, who was a certified therapy dog,” Garza-Brown said. Garza-Brown has a big heart that includes a soft spot for veterans. Her dad served in the Army and her brothers in the Navy, and so, with ..read more

As the Korean War raged in 1951, Lois Sweeney decided to become one of “The few. The proud. The Marines.” She enlisted and soon found herself at Parris Island, South Carolina — one of the 138,000 recruits who trained there throughout the war. “I was in the swamp,” the 92-year-old resident of the Veterans Home of California-Redding said. “It was hot and humid. It was miserable. We heard a lot of bad language from the instructors. They weren’t too easy on us. But I got through boot camp.” All to prepare her for … three years of shuffling papers at a desk there and later at other Marine installat ..read more

Arlene Kepplin loved volunteering so much at the Veterans Home of California-Yountville that she did so for more than two decades. Her remarkable span began in 1998; she kept going strong until the pandemic in 2020 severely limited all volunteerism at Yountville—and at all other seven Veterans Homes. The majority of Kepplin’s volunteerism was at the Memorial Chapel, located on the Yountville campus: she played the piano during services and assisted the chaplain in organizing church services and events. Kepplin gave roughly 1,000 hours each year to the veteran community she loved so much. This ..read more

Long before Marcus Langley made his reputation as a concrete contractor in Sacramento, he made history as a member of the 14th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery unit fighting for the Union during the Civil War.  The 14th was formed in North Carolina, his birthplace, in 1864. Langley, a 25-year-old who listed his occupation as a farmer, began a three-year enlistment on February 22, 1865, eventually transferring to Company F.  Langley’s unit performed garrison duty at New Berne and other places in North Carolina as General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union forces closed in on Confederate tro ..read more

Emmanuel Hodrick lets his fingers guide him whenever he plays the electronic keyboard at the Veterans Home of California-Redding. “I find the two raised black keys—D-Flat and E-Flat—and I know Middle-C is the key to the left,” Hodrick said. As we celebrate Black History Month, CalVet honors this resilient 60-year-old Army veteran who, blind for the past decade due to a condition called iritis, has taught himself how to play well enough to be part of the Home’s all-veterans band. “Personally, I think I’m awful,” Hodrick joked. “But people seem to enjoy it when I play and support the band leader ..read more

In 1908, Col. Allen Allensworth came to Tulare County in the southern San Joaquin Valley to create a town where African Americans could self-govern and be independent. Born in 1842, Allensworth was 12 years old when he defied a Kentucky law that prohibited enslaved people from learning to read or write. As punishment for learning to read, Allensworth was sent to work on a plantation in New Orleans. After the Civil War began, he escaped and went to work as a civilian nurse in the Army, then joined the U.S. Navy. After the Civil War ended, Allensworth continued gaining knowledge and civic respon ..read more

Your experiences matter, and your voice is invaluable. CalVet is on a mission to enhance the support and services we provide, and your insights will help us better serve women veterans.   By completing this survey, you’ll make a lasting impact on the support services we offer all California women veterans, now and for future generations. You’ll help us better connect women veterans with the resources and opportunities and help us create a stronger, more supportive community. “Your voice is a crucial part of this effort,” said Virginia Wimmer, deputy secretary for CalVet’s Women Veterans A ..read more

They, too, had a dream. In 1979, after Congress had yet again failed to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday, a group of students from an Oakland high school refused to take “no” for an answer. To the contrary, the Apollos—members of Oakland Technical High School’s Class of 1981—became students on a mission. Count longtime CalVet employee Craig Hollis among them; and while they couldn’t go to Washington, D.C., they instead went 80 miles east to make their point. Over the next two years, Hollis and his classmates made repeated trips to the State Capitol to attend legislative sessi ..read more