Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993                   TAG: 9312190147
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THINGS WERE LOOKING UP, THEN HER HUSBAND WALKED OUT

Louise (not her real name), 34, is the youngest of 10 children. She watched many of her siblings grow up, start families and live on Aid for Dependent Children, she said. That life was not for her, she decided.

Although she describes herself as a "slow learner," Louise was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. She even attended college for a year and a half, until she was too old to be covered by her father's veteran's benefits.

She went to work as a telemarketer. In her spare time, she worked with elderly people in her church, doing personal chores for them as a volunteer.

Her pastor urged her to earn a certificate as a nurse's aide, since she was doing the work already, she said. But she never gave the idea much thought until a little over a year ago. During a visit to North Carolina, she drove by the campus of Duke University and saw the nursing students in their uniforms.

"Then it clicked in my head," she said. Earlier that year, she had gone to Roanoke Area Ministries for help with a utility bill and was encouraged to sign up for nursing classes offered by Total Action Against Poverty.

But to her frustration, Louise found that the program was open only to people on ADC. She was working, but she wasn't making enough to pay for the class herself.

"I was willing to go for it," she said, but the working poor "can't get the opportunities. We can't get anything, unless we pay for it."

So she went to Roanoke's Social Services Department, which gave her tuition money.

Louise studied hard for the certification test and passed the manual portion, but she got nervous and failed the written part. Luckily, the department paid for her to take the test again. She studied even harder and passed.

Today, she is working as a home health aide, usually taking on more than one case at a time. She and her husband and daughter live in a modest home they bought several years ago, and although money was never plentiful, there was enough.

In September, however, Louise and her husband separated. He left her with the bills, and she was unable to pay them. Although it was hard to ask for help, she said, she returned to RAM and was given money raised through the Good Neighbors Fund.

Louise is not sure when or if she and her husband will get back together. In the meantime, she is looking for a second job to pay the bills. She also hopes someday to become an LPN so she can get a hospital job with benefits.

But even if there is a reconciliation, she said, she will try to keep some money aside for emergencies in the future. That way, she said, she won't need to ask anyone for help.

Checks should be made payable to Good Neighbors Fund and mailed to Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 1951, Roanoke 24008.

Names - but not the amounts of donations - of contributing businesses, individuals or organizations, as well as memorial and honorific designations, will be listed. Those requesting that their names not be used will remain anonymous. If no preference is stated, the donor's name will be listed.

Gifts cannot be earmarked for any particular individual or family. Gifts are tax-deductible.