Hewlett’s Grace Wiener shows Lego mastery

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Covid had much of the world stuck indoors. With many places closed one Hewlett senior discovered a new hobby that she has since become an expert at.

Grace Wiener, 90, of Hewlett, was a regular at the Center for Adult Life Enrichment, also in Hewlett. With CALE closed, her activities were unavailable. Her daughter Eileen says it was a very difficult time.

“They had closed the card room during the pandemic, so all the people that she used to see and play Scrabble with and socialized with, were no longer able to meet and unfortunately, some of them had Covid and passed away and that was so it was a really difficult time,” Eileen said.

Wiener has lived in the Five Towns for 58 years and during the pandemic, she became quite the Lego master. Her son, Neil Wiener, who lives in Massachusetts thought that it would be nice to give his mother something to do to keep herself occupied while she was shut in and introduced her to a Lego building.

“I created a monster,” Neil said. Wiener became so immersed in Lego building that Neil wrote to the Lego Group on her behalf and they sent her a letter as well as a kit from Lego to build a trophy, which she quickly put together.

“I’m quite impressed with the Lego company and how they cater to the users and that they sent me that trophy,” Wiener said. “I think it’s really nice. I’m enjoying it and now I consider myself a semi Lego expert.”

When Wiener was younger she worked as an electroencephalogram technician. She showed her creative side making award-winning quilts and tapestries. She stopped when she got older. In her younger days, Wiener was involved with the National Council of Jewish Women.

“She'd always been creative, but she kind of moved away from the things she used to do, like quilting and other crafty things and those LEGO sets became addicting,” Eileen said.

Eileen’s son, Benjamin, 27, has always loved Lego and his grandmother would see the children building things, but she never thought to try it herself. Once she was presented with them during the pandemic, she completed numerous sets including a complex 12-inch tall Mickey and Minnie Lego builds.

Benjamin works on Broadway and was able to lend his grandmother some companionship over there at her house during the pandemic, with Broadway being closed.

“In the beginning, she struggled with it a little bit and it was a really nice bonding time with her grandson,” Eileen said. “My son would go over and tell her some of the tricks for beating the blueprints on the Lego, then she really got the hang of it and after she would finish one, I'd go on Amazon and we’d see which ones she would want to do next.”

The family is happy that Wiener was able to find a new skill, albeit an expensive one with Eileen saying that the amount of Lego sets bought easily surpassed $500 but was well worth it. “She cleaned out one bookcase with old records and video cassettes so she could display her Lego sets,” Eileen said.

As the pandemic wanes and activities and programs restart at CALE, Eileen said she would love it if the senior activities could include Lego building in the future. “I think it would be so great if everybody could get the same set and sort of work on it together,” she said.