Kids post has got me reflective today!!!

JD Seller

Well-known Member
Thinking about helping kids got me going down memory lane. Like I posted my wife did not have the best Father in the world. Her Mother tried to do her best but she had a tough hand to play.

My first wife started to help other kids RIGHT after we where married and she was in a stable environment. We did not have a lot of money but she had LABOR!! She would go around to some of the local Churches that got cloths donated. She would take all of the kids cloths that had been donated but where in need of repair. She would use my Grand Mothers sewing machine and repair/remake those kids cloths into NICE stuff. She then would take those cloths back to the Churches so they could give them out.

My Grand Mother got involved with it too. They had plenty of room. So the two of them started to put together "Go bags" of cloths and personal need for kids an adults. These bags would have a couple of changes of cloths plus the stuff you use in daily life, soap, combs, etc. Then when ever they heard of someone that had a home burn or just need the basic they would take those bags to them.

Later when we bought our first home she started talking in foster children. She was driven to not let any child, she knew of, have the home life she had as a child. Some of these lost young one where only with us for hours. She became know as the lady that could care for kids at a moments notice. Some times this was just over night until family or "OFFICIAL" placement was found for those kids. Every single one of those kids left with a bag/back pack with cloths and a few toys. The longest we enjoyed a foster child was 12 years. She took care of just short of 70 children over the years. She kept track of a large part of them too.

One of the hardest things she suffered when she fought her cancer was when she had to quit fostering the kids. That bothered her terribly. She felt she was letting them down.

The thing that amazed me is that she did this while raising five of our own kids and being a wife an partner to me in our life.

She had been gone for 19 years this last November. Think of her every single day.

I have been blessed with another great woman as my second wife as well. I guess I am luckier than I really deserve. LOL Maybe they are sent to keep me in "line"
 
JD You have truly been Blessed. You must be a wonderful man to have such great women in your life. MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and your family.

Scott in NY
 
Well someone has to keep you in line! We hope with a cast iron skillet! :twisted: :twisted:

I know what you mean. My wife was always helping out kids. Not to the extent you did but kids always came first. When I was in the Army a lot of the families didn't handle money well and we were not over paid. We had neighbor kids banging on the door a couple of days before payday wanting to eat lunch at our house because they were tired of eating peanut butter every day. She would feed them whatever she had fix our kids. By the time we got to Ft Knox we had 7 of our own kids. But we had our money in order enough that we could easily afford a boat payment so we got a boat do I could take the kids fishing. Plus we still had money enough to have tuna and lunch meat without running out before payday. That's because we only had the boat as debt. These other soldiers had new furniture and cars and were tight on finances. She donated time before Christmas for toy drives and spent hours making doll dresses so a little girl getting a doll had a couple of sets of cloths to play with it. After I retired from the Army she still did stuff like that. When she went to college they had a table that people could put donated stuff on. She knew there were a lot of struggling parents trying to work and attend school so they could get better jobs. She would go to yard sales and buy Barbies by the box full. Then after homework was done she'd make tons of cloths for them too. At Christmas time she would put a doll in a gallon freezer bag with several sets of clothing. She took shopping bags full of those to school and put them on that table so that these struggling parents could give something nice to their kids for Christmas. She's done a lot of other things too. She and I have been married 41 years. She had the most difficult job I can think of and that was being an Army wife. Then her trying to help others on top of raising 7 kids when I could be gone for some time.

I think of that and tell both her and others that she is the nicest person that I know. I often wonder why she has put up with me all these years. She darn sure didn't stay for the money!

Rick
 
Old tanker it sounds like you have been very blessed too. We both are lucky to have been able to share our lives with such good women.
 
Caring for orphan children is a wonderful committment to society, but after being a big part of raising 7 of my own and my second wife's, I don't think I could have the ambition to try to raise any more...
 

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