All our married lives, my first husband and I fostered children. It was something I had wanted to do long before I married. There was a part of me who was always aware that there were children who for one reason or another could not be taken care of by their own parents.
I was fortunate enough to marry a man who shared my feelings. So when we had been married for 7 months, and I was 20 years old, we went to Nazareth House in Salisbury, Rhodesia, and spoke to the nuns.
We both worked full time, so they suggested to us that we become weekend parents.
And so we became the weekend parents to a little girl of 20 months, called Shirley Ann.
Some time ago I wrote a post on The Lost Children, so I will take you forward in time to the time we fostered Matthew.
We had 3 daughters, lived in South Africa, and contacted the welfare authorities in Pretoria after our immigration to this country.
It was decided that we would become place of safety parents. We had our own children now and they had to be considered first.
In order to be available to take children in as a place of safety parent, we had to be prepared to take a child with only 2 hours notice, because the welfare had to have a placement for the child before it was removed from it's parents home. That is how Matthew, then 2 years old, came to us. A maximum of 6 months is as long as a child is in a place of safety home, during that time the welfare look for suitable permanent placements for the children.
There were 4 boys in this family. They were immigrants from Scotland and came to South Africa to find work. At that time there were plenty of vacancies with the post offices throughout the country, and Matthew's father came to South Africa in a plane full of immigrants looking for work.
The marriage did not survive the change and the father of the children found himself a single parent to 4 very small boys. The 2 youngest went to placements first, that was Matthew and his younger brother. When he arrived all we had for him was a black bag with a few odds and ends of clothing in it. Only 3 nappies for the nights (no Kimbies then) and a 6 oz bottle he slept with. Friends rallied around and before the end of the day I had enough nappies, waterproofs and a pin. That was at least a start.
In the picture above he was 3 years old and we had started him in the nursery school next to our children's school.
After 9 months we were all called into the social workers offices, no suitable home had been found for any of them. They had become very much a part of our respective families, and we all wanted the boys placed with us. And so it became permanent. They would not have to move again.
When Matthew was 5 years old we had Brian, our fourth child. Seen above are Matthew and Brian "gardening".
When Matthew was 7 years old his mother had remarried and the children were being returned to her one at a time. They all adapted except for Matthew, and his mother eventually brought him back to us. For some years he went back and fourth until eventually his mother said it would be better if he lived with us permanently as he wouldn't settle with her and he kept running away from his home and back to us.
So once more he lived with us permanently. It was a private arrangement not involving the Child Welfare. We put him through school, his mother would phone him from time to time, but he stayed with us until he had almost finished school.
He had two mom's, called us both mom, he also had many siblings, not only 3 brothers of his own, but he had 3 sisters and a little brother too.
To this day, my own children and Matthew still think of one another as brothers and sisters, especially Brian, the two of them still contact one another.
So my 5th child, together with my 4, not forgetting all the others who have lived with us, are among the memorable young people who have left footprints on my memory as they have walked across my life.
There were hectic, crazy days, trying to fit them all into a 3 bedroom house was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. They all wanted their own room, going out in the car, and they all fought to be near the window.....
Would I do it again? Probably. I have no regrets but a lifetime full of memories.
