ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 14, 1996 TAG: 9603140094
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
WHEN John Hancock speaks about his wife, Gladys, his face beams.
``I just can't ever forget what she did for me,'' he says. "It's because of her that I'm where I am today."
Three Sunday afternoons each month, Hancock, a factory worker during the week, "ministers " on radio station WTOY. At home, he helps care for two disabled foster children.
The Hancocks have been married only four years, but Gladys' help came many years ago - before they decided they were "meant for each other," as Gladys says.
"We were talking and dating," John Hancock says. "I had the problem - alcohol - and she had some family members with the problem. She talked to me and listened to me. When I lost my license, she drove me. She tried hard to get me to quit drinking."
Gladys persuaded him to enter a detox program, but he left because "I just couldn't stand it."
They had attended church together for a while, and Gladys suggested he read the Bible.
"I said I didn't have a Bible, and she gave me one," he recalls.
But reading the Bible created other problems for the couple. They were convinced marriage would be sinful because Gladys was divorced. So they parted company, and John eventually married someone else. It didn't work out, and he was left to rear his 8-year-old son alone.
"I think the age difference had a lot to do with it," he says of his first marriage. "She was a lot younger.''
Meanwhile, Gladys worked in Roanoke school cafeterias to provide for her six children - two girls and four boys, one of whom was deaf. After seeing a newspaper advertisement for DePaul Family Services, she thought about becoming a foster parent.
"I thought maybe I could get a deaf child to be a companion to my son," she says.
Although a deaf child was not available, she found many other children in need of foster care. She says she couldn't turn away from their need.
"So I talked it over with my children, and they agreed it would be a good thing to do."
Although many families keep foster children, few of them are willing to tackle those with profound disabilities, says Tom Hall, director of DePaul, a private agency that specializes in placing children with profound emotional problems, severe medical problems, mental retardation and physical handicaps.
During the next 11 years, Gladys cared for seven children - usually only one at a time. They called her "Mama," and they went to church and Sunday school with her.
All six of her natural children eventually left home, and 11 years ago, she took in Marcus, a 9-year-old who was retarded and suffered from cerebral palsy.
At 20, he must use a wheelchair and is "unable to do anything for himself." But Gladys doesn't seem to mind.
"It's hard work, but you get used to it," she says. "I really enjoy it. I have a lifter for him, and he's in a program at Northside High School all day."
It was just Gladys and Marcus when she ran into John one Saturday afternoon. Gladys was leaving choir practice, and there John was on the steps of the church.
His years of Bible study had produced a change in his attitude toward God and sin.
"The more I studied the Bible," he says, "the more I realized God is a forgiving God, and it would be right for Gladys and me to get together."
He admired her labor of love for unfortunate children, and became a foster parent himself. He courted her with valentines and candy.
Gladys retired from the Roanoke City School system when she and John married. The two of them, with 11-year-old John III and Marcus, became a family.
After two years as newlyweds, they went together to DePaul's and applied for another foster child - 4-year-old Ray,who is now 6.
The Hancocks say they are dedicated to being foster parents.
"They really care about the children and treat them as their own," says DePaul social worker Jan Sprouse. "They are dedicated to each other and to God."
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. John and Gladys Hancock metby CNBduring a difficult period in his life. Now they are married and care
for two foster children in
their Salem home. color.
MARY JO SHANNON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES