ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996 TAG: 9611050113
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Had the term soccer mom been coined in the 1950s, Nettie Neighbors would have fit the description.
Married to the first boy she ever kissed, Nettie stayed home with her children. She cooked and cleaned. She took her parents in to live with her when they became old and sick - long before the phrase ``sandwich generation'' was ever coined.
Nettie, who is 73 and dying, called me Sept. 3, the day I wrote about Claudine Mayhew, the 97-year-old who recalled voting in 1920, the first year women were allowed to vote. Claudine has never missed voting in a presidential election.
``I thought she was wonderful,'' Nettie said of Claudine. ``I have never voted in my life and this year, before I die, I'd like to cast my vote.''
Nettie didn't graduate from high school. She remembers crying when she learned President Franklin Roosevelt died. She didn't follow politics, though she has a 5-inch-thick scrapbook on the Kennedys.
``I didn't have time to vote, I didn't know how,'' she said. ``I had too much to do.''
So, for the first time in her life, Nettie registered to vote. She called Roanoke's office of the registrar for registration materials and an absentee ballot.
Shelva Painter, the registrar, says there are always some first-time voters in the over-70 set. Most are women who were either too busy to vote during the so-called soccer mom years, or deferred to their husbands' votes instead.
``We used to give out `I registered' stickers to first-time voters, and we found out the older people didn't want them,'' Painter says. ``They were embarrassed for people to know they'd never voted before.''
Nettie Neighbors is not embarrassed. She is proud.
Asked what it felt like to cast her mail-in vote, she said: ``It was the most wonderful feeling. For the first time in my life, it made me feel like I was important.''
Roanoke-area voters who need a ride to the polls today can call the Republican headquarters at 389-1170, or the Democrats at 982-7163.
* * *
Readers responded in droves to the recent column on Vicki Catron, the Bedford County woman who has mothered 57 foster children in 14 years, 10 of whom she legally adopted. Catron was in danger of losing custody of her foster child, 4-year-old Bear, because Roanoke's Social Services Department deemed her unstable and financially unsuitable.
The reason: Her husband left her; she is not legally divorced.
One reader, Bedford's Vicki Hamm, said: "This child is a ward of the state of Virginia. If we have not considered the psychological impact [of moving him to another home], we're negligent."
Other readers echoed Catron's concerns, saying that Bear has already lost too much in his short life. His biological parents died of AIDS, as did his sister Key Key earlier this year.
Lynn Paiva, also an adoptive mom, said her 8-year-old daughter was one of Vicki's foster children, from the time she was 2 months old to 2 years old. "Although everyone involved in this adoption had the best of intentions, the removal of my daughter from the only home [Catron's] she had ever known was very traumatic to her," Paiva said.
"In fact, this wonderful child has recently begun to see a psychologist for severe problems that we and the therapist believe stem from this earlier trauma."
Paiva and a number of people voiced their concerns to Social Services, but last week, the boy was officially removed from Catron's home and placed with another foster family who plans to adopt him.
"He didn't go real peacefully," said Kim Rose, a family friend. "He was begging her to put his things back in her room."
Tim Greenway, the Roanoke accountant who heard about Catron's plight at church and is coordinating efforts on her behalf, has been besieged by calls from people who want to help - either by writing letters to officials or donating money.
"She's not asking for anything definite," Greenway says. "She just wants more time" to get her finances in order.
Salem lawyer Ellen Weinman volunteered to represent Vicki, free of charge, as she tries to regain custody of Bear.
Greenway has set up a fund for donations to Vicki through Crestar Bank and her pastor, Rev. Bob Chittum. Checks can be written to "Bob Chittum for Vicki Catron family" and mailed to Valley View Baptist Church, Route 2, Box 135, Goodview, Va. 24095. (Account number 850604192 should be noted in the memo.)
LENGTH: Medium: 84 linesby CNB