The woman who’s now Victory Grund got her first name because her dad was in the war (World War II), and Mom told him there “was a victory waiting for him at home.” She didn’t meet him until she was 4.
Victory was the eldest sibling of four, and she had a fairly normal childhood—until Victory was 6. That’s when she moved into an iron lung.
A refresher course: An iron lung looks like a hi-tech coffin, or a sleep chamber on a 40-year space mission—except your head is poking out. In Victory’s case, she was in it because she had contracted polio and was paralyzed from the neck down.
“Twelve kids went into that hospital the same day; 10 of them died,” she said. “The others all had very, very severe residual effects.”
After spending 5 1/2 months in the iron lung, she had to learn to walk, breathe and swallow all over again. When she was 8, March of Dimes, the organization that paid for the lion’s share of her care, made her the poster child for polio in San Mateo County.
Fully recovered at 18, Victory visited her cousin, whose husband was a colonel on a Marine base. Victory was a big hit at the officer’s club; all the boys wanted a chance to chat her up … except for one good-looking Marine in the corner who was paying zero attention to her.
Of course, they fell in love; of course, they married. I would love to tell you they lived happily ever after—but his helicopter was shot down. Six weeks after saying “I do,” Victory was an 18-year-old widow.
She met and married a doctor 18 years her senior with three children. They were 13, 12 and 10. She was 23. The union produced two children of their own. There were struggles early on, and when Victory saw her step-kids courting danger, they rented a 47-foot cruiser with another family to take them out of the environment and on a vacation. They were cruising the waterfalls off British Columbia when they realized they’d run out of bread and beer, and pulled into a beautiful island port. Instead of finding a town, they found a “young life” camp for troubled kids.
Victory’s husband would return there as camp doctor with the entire family. The kids were angry at first. “By the end of the week, each had given their life to Christ and said, ‘I don’t need drugs anymore. I don’t want a life that’s going nowhere. I can’t thank you enough for bringing us here,’” Victory said. “They’re all young life leaders to this day.”
Cracks in the marriage became chasms, and after 25 years, they divorced. Her mother and father had divorced, too; she’d remarried a swell guy who Victory called “Dad.” Her birth father, well … he drank. A lot. He eventually skipped out on not just his family, but his life.
She was 49, and single, but that changed when she met Richard Grund. She married him a year later.
Victory, who moved to La Quinta in 1993, was in her late 50s or early 60s when her mother surprised everyone with their French half-sister, and arranged for everyone to meet. She was close in age to Victory, and a lifelong bond was formed.
Ten years into Victory’s marriage, her Mom and “Dad” moved in with them. “(They) lived with us for eight years,” Victory said. “Every Sunday, we would take them to Canard’s restaurant, and Mom and I would sit by the fountain. Our joy was taking care of them.”
When they needed more than Victory and Richard could provide, they went into assisted living—and Victory succumbed to depression. Wine helped, but she knew she was genetically predisposed to alcoholism, so she stopped. Her depression deepened.
Richard shared his concern with an artist friend who invited Victory over to his studio. That friend gave her a lump of clay and said, “Make an oval around the stick.” He then gave her two smaller lumps and said, “Connect them to the bottom sides of the oval.” When she was done, she sat back and thought: Whadda ya know—it’s a bust without a face. As she began to give it features, she felt the darkness fade, and a sense of peace washed over her. Can art heal others too, she wondered?
She went to the Boys and Girls Club of Coachella Valley and approached the afterschool program director, Maria Gonzalez.
“‘Hi, my name is Victory,’” she remembered saying. “I just wondered: Do they just do sports here? Or do you think they’d like to do art, like clay or anything?”
Very much, Maria said, but there’s no budget. Victory smiled and replied: “Could you get them to our studio if I opened one and provided classes?”
In 2009, Victory and Richard put in $30,000, and 100 friends donated $100 per month, and Old Town Artisan Studios opened. They grew so fast that they moved four times by 2016, so Victory raised money to purchase land and build. They couldn’t find the right location until a 16,000-square-foot former restaurant and homestead/hacienda came up for sale.
It was the old Canard’s.
Bungalows became homes for ceramics, pottery, sculpture, glass, mixed media, fabric art, painting, watercolor and pastels. The fountain became the Veteran Fountain, made up of more than 600 tiles painted by the children of Coachella, honoring the men and women who served—including Victory’s Dad and her first love.
What struck me most about Victory (besides her strength, endurance and leadership style) was her capacity to give, recognize and accept love.
She began her story: “When I was a little girl, I was deeply loved.” I can’t stop thinking about that. What if all little girls felt that way? Now imagine all of those deeply loved, badass girls growing up and ruling the world. What a Victory.
For more information about Old Town Artisan Studios, visit oldtownartisanstudios.org.
The Girl Club: Meet Victory Grund, a Person Dedicated to Sharing the Healing Power of Art is a story from Coachella Valley Independent, the Coachella Valley’s alternative news source.