Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993 TAG: 9301130301
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`DREAM' MOTHER OF 88 DIES AFTER LIFE OF HELPING
Kitty Nelson's daughters never knew how many brothers and sisters they would have when they got home from school.Often there was a new face around the supper table. That's because Kitty Nelson could never turn down a foster child.
Kathleen Goodwin "Kitty" Nelson, mother to 88 children, stepchildren and foster children, died Monday. She was 75.
Nelson had three daughters of her own, a stepson - and 84 foster children placed in her home over a quarter of a century by the Roanoke Department of Social Services.
Sandra Bates, one of her foster daughters, said Nelson treated all of the children in her home the same.
"It wasn't like we were the foster children and they were `the real children,' " Bates said. "We were just all her children."
Nelson's father died of complications from a ruptured hernia when she was a teen-ager. When she was 21, she and her mother lost their home to fire. "She had a lot of tragedy in her life - and a lot of good, too," said one daughter, Dorothy Overstreet.
Kathleen Goodwin married Blake Bee Nelson when she was 25.
She had always wanted to be a schoolteacher, but she never had enough money to go to college. She decided that being a foster parent was another way she could do something for children.
She and her husband became foster parents in 1955, following in the footsteps of her mother, Annie Goodwin, who had been taking in foster kids for years.
In 1963, when her mother lost her sight, the Nelsons took in the four foster children that her mother had been caring for, including Bates.
The additions swelled the household to 10 foster children, three daughters, and her mother.
"We were all teen-agers and believe me, it was a job keeping the peace," Bates said. "She kept the peace and kept us all a family. She made it work."
Dorothy Fleenor bounced from foster family to foster family - at least 15 in a dozen years - before she found a home with the Nelsons.
"I was in welfare homes since I was 2 years old. To me, she was more of a mother than any mother I could dream about having."
Fleenor said that, unlike some of her foster parents, Kathleen Nelson "didn't use you as a slave" to clean and cook and do other chores. "She taught you as if you were her own." All of the children in the house shared the chores fairly.
Fleenor stayed with the Nelsons until she got married, and held her wedding and reception at the Nelson home. When Fleenor had children of her own, they called Nelson "Grandma."
Nelson was named Roanoke's Mother of the Year for family life in 1967.
Her husband died in 1973, but she continued to keep foster children until about 12 years ago.
Five years ago, more than 120 people, including about 30 foster children, gathered to celebrate her 70th birthday. In her last years, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease and needed nursing-home care.
Her survivors include two other daughters, Frances Gray of King William and Mary Goin of Bedford County, and a sister, Dorothy Dozier of Pompano Beach, Fla. Her funeral will be at noon Thursday at Lotz Salem Chapel.