Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 26, 1994 TAG: 9405260186
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NANCY BELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Foster parents, social workers and a pair of juvenile judges stood clapping.
The 79-year-old Northwest Roanoke resident, known in youth circles as "Grandma," has reared - and continues to rear - hundreds of children of all races and with all conditions. She was honored at a Roanoke City Department of Social Services banquet Thursday for 41 years of service.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Spencer consistently had 8 to 10 children at one time living under her roof. She's attended more graduations and weddings than anyone she knows. Former foster children bring their children to see her. On Mother's Day, her home is filled with balloons, flowers and homemade cards.
"I like my job. I want to do it until the Lord calls," she said. "I have raised some nice children."
Spencer first became a foster parent in 1951. Her husband, a cook, rose early for his job, and her only son was serving overseas in the Air Force. "I was home by myself, and it was lonely," she recalled.
Spencer's first trip to Social Services was not fruitful. "I didn't want any money to help with the kids, but that was the only way I could do it."
Eventually, Spencer enrolled as a foster parent. She remembers the very first child she got.
"Nancy was a biracial, sweet little girl from out of town. I kept her until she was 5 years old, and then she was adopted. That nearly broke my heart."
But Spencer still wanted to help children, so she asked for another. Eventually, more than a hundred toddlers and infants, pre-teens and adolescents lived under her roof. She reared nearly a dozen from infancy to adulthood.
Spencer, a pianist with Reed Street Baptist Church for 63 years, attributes her success as a parent to her faith in God.
For more Sundays than most folks remember, Spencer has marched her children to church and lined them up behind her as she played piano and sang in the choir.
"With the help of God, we made it."
But it wasn't always easy. Her first husband died suddenly on the same day she received two young girls who needed a home.
In 1975, after 20 years in the service, her only son returned to Roanoke and was murdered. The grief was almost more than she could bear. Still, she continued keeping children.
Some of the children came with scars. Others came with disabilities or skin color different from her own.
"If they need me, so what? Color of skin is just on the outside. They are all children. They all need love. So long as I live, when I take a child, I treat it as my own."
In a tribute to Spencer and other foster parents attending the banquet, Judge John Ferguson of Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court said, "You folks in this room - with your love and your commitment to children - you are the people who make the system work."
Ferguson noted some positive trends in foster care since the 1970s when he was a case worker in Roanoke.
"There are half as many children in foster care now as when I was a case worker." Nationally, however, numbers continue to climb, he said.
He said today's foster parents have challenges that were not present in the 1970s.
"We'd have a kid who'd break into a Coke machine for change. Now, there is more violence. We are dealing with guns and knives, and I don't know how to make it stop."
Also recognized at the banquet were a number of foster parents with 20 or more years of service, and some parents who have just entered the foster care system. Foster parents were also recognized for numbers of hours spent in foster parent training.
No one was surprised when Bridie Spencer again took the podium - to be recognized for 315 hours of parenting training.
by CNB