Stefan Lonce founded the PRESERVE SOCIAL SECURITY & HEALTHCARE COALITION, INC. in 2005, as a New York not-for-profit
corporation, to oppose President George W. Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. The Internal
Revenue Service has recognized PSSHC as a public advocacy organization, under IRC § 501(c)(4).
Stefan Lonce is the editor of The Montauk Sun newspaper
and is the author and designer of the DRIVING WITH FDR 2013 BIOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIBLE CALENDAR, which begins with a 4-page MINIBOOK, SOCIAL SECURITY & THE AMAZING ROOSEVELT/REAGAN CONNECTION, which
was read aloud at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library at the National Birthday Party for Social Security on 8-14-2012
(which Lonce chaired). Lonce is working on a forthcoming book, DRIVING WITH FDR: A CALENDRICAL BIOGRAPHY.
Lonce's life was dramatically affected by Social Security,
as he recounted in his story, "Social Security Preserved My Family," which was included in a book, A Promise
to All Generations: Stories & Essays About Social Security & Frances Perkins (published by the Frances Perkins
Center in Newcastle, Maine), which is reproduced below.
SOCIAL SECURITY PRESERVED MY FAMILY
BY STEFAN LONCE
My
father was a carpenter. He loved building things. He was almost 40 when he married and started building a family.
My mother was a housewife. As
part of the rent for our apartment in Buchanan, New York, my father helped maintain the building.
On April 22, 1972, my father had a sudden, massive heart attack
while tending the furnace in our building. I was eight years old; I had three older brothers and two younger ones.
As I watched the paramedics wheel my father's body out to the ambulance, I worred about who was going to support my family.
After my father's funeral, my mother
applied for Social Security survivors benerfits, which we began receiving within weeks.
Each month, after our seven Social Security checks had cleared,
my mother, borthers and I headed for the supermarket where we filled three grocery carts full of nonperishable food -- six
growing boys ate a lot.
Although
she started working after my father died, without the Social Security survivors benefits that we received, my mother could
not have afforded to raise my brothers and me together. We would have been split up, and most of us would have been
sent to live with relatives, or would have been placed in foster care.
Which is not to say that we lived extravagantly. We were frugal, but there were times
at the end of the month when we were just about out of food. My mother always worried that she wouldn't be able to afford
to keep our family together.
My brothers and I all worked, to contribute to the household. The Social Security benefits, by themselves,
just weren't enough, although they later helped me pay for college.
