A Mom To Celebrate For 22 Years, Foster Mother Has Had Open Arms, Open Heart For Children In Need Of A Home

Peace descends upon Jessie Moore’s living room like the white stained-glass dove hanging in the front window.

Two rambunctious little boys, who spent the morning pounding on toy drums and tumbling on the sofa, finally sleep soundly. One naps in his room. The other, a 40-pound 2-year-old, sprawls in Moore’s lap in the living room.

Jessie Moore runs a foster home, a safe harbor, where for 22 years children have come to nestle in, away from harsh words and fear. Like the 15 children before them, these toddlers find peace in this Valley house, where swearing and toy guns are forbidden, where little boys aren’t even allowed to pick up sticks and pretend they are pistols.

Some children stay a few weeks, others a few years. A single mother, Moore adopted two boys who came to her as children. Now they’re in their 20s, and living on their own, and she is planning to adopt the brown-eyed treasure who sleeps in her lap.

This Mother’s Day, Moore is celebrating another year of deep patience, firm limits and small rewards - a bouquet of flowers at church from a grateful teen, an expression of sheer glee on a toddler’s face.

No matter how demanding and clingy the children, or how difficult the parents, Moore is always able to spread herself thin enough to go around, says Myrah Swim, a foster parent licenser for the Division of Children and Family Services in Spokane.

“She’s warm and loving and gentle and fun,” Swim says.

Adopted son Orlando Moore, 23, can list her best gifts to him: “Love, and understanding, and helping me be able to take care of myself.”

About 15 years ago, Moore took a break from foster parenting. One day, she was working at her former job in J.C. Penney, when she spotted a white foster family. A group of children trooped through with a lone little African-American boy.

As Moore noticed his matted, linty hair, and his ashy complexion, she grew irritated. It was clear this family didn’t have a clue about caring for an African-American child. It doesn’t take much effort to ask someone, she fumed, or call a black beauty salon, to find out about the extra oils and lotions that can make a dark-skinned child shine.

The little boy looked up at her, and an expression of amazement stole over his face. Finally, someone who looked like him!

That did it. Spotting that little boy was enough to bring Moore back into foster care, where there are never enough black foster parents to go around.

“I’m not prejudiced,” she says. “I just feel black children should be raised with a black family.”

At Moore’s home, children find a foster mother who cares for their hair and skin as expertly as she cares for her own. They’ll eat food that reflects Moore’s heritage. Mississippi-born Moore loves collard greens, blackeyed peas, corn bread and ham hocks and beans.

They’ll head to the Holy Temple Church of God and Christ, a largely black Pentecostal congregation, for Bible study and singing each Sunday morning.

Moore sings a soft tenor with the church choir and appeared with her choir in Patty Duke’s TV series, “Amazing Grace.”

The toddler in her arms stirs. He nestles his sleepy head into her chest.

He was taken from his mother two days after his birth. When Moore met him two months later, he wore a vacant, expressionless gaze.

But Moore looked into his eyes, and knew this was a child she wanted to take into her heart for good.

At night she tucked him in bed with a bear that plays “You Are My Sunshine.” She sang, and gave him a hug and kiss, and soon he fell fast asleep.

Now he ricochets with all the wildly fluctuating emotions of any other healthy 2-year-old, and calls Moore, the only mother he’s known, “Mom.”

He’s a lucky boy. Moore, in a fuchsia sweat suit today, is a storehouse of both firm and tender maternal energy. Capable of peacefully coexisting with the Legos and the playpen in the middle of her living room floor, she brings a loving steadiness to a child. Her pastor’s wife, Eleise Kinlow, has known her for 15 years and calls her “very compassionate.”

Moore began baby-sitting as a girl, and she’s always preferred to be surrounded by family.

She is proud of her mother, who has worked in Sacred Heart Medical Center’s dietary department for more than 35 years, and raised three girls on her own, never needing to turn to public assistance for help.

“She’s our heart,” says Moore. “She’s also my best friend.”

Moore works as a phone dispatcher for the American Automobile Association, while a baby sitter cares for the little boys at her home.

That salary helps cover the costs of raising her foster children. The state pays a monthly reimbursement for foster care, but Moore always spends more. She insists on buying new clothing, because, especially for boys who are so rough on their clothes, it’s difficult to find decent-looking pants and shirts at the local clothing banks.

“I’m not going to let them look like they’re orphans,” she says.

Moore would like to earn a master’s degree in social work from Eastern Washington University. In the meantime, she’s earning real-life training in dealing with troubled children.

When a child imagines Moore must be like a bad witch who snatches children away from their parents, she says firmly, “I’m not the one who said you have to be here. It’s the judge who makes the decision. It’s your parents that have to make the difference.”

A homesick child gets a big calendar in his room, marking off the days until his next visitation with his mom. Angry ones get a clear message: “If they get in trouble, I might have to call the caseworker and have them removed. It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.”

When it’s time to say good-bye, Moore often feels mixed emotions. But even the most difficult children leave an emptiness behind.

“All of a sudden, you’ve got a houseful of voices and when they’re gone, there’s no voices at all,” she says.

For a time, Moore’s foster children receive a taste of a life they otherwise might not have experienced, with a parent who signs them up for Camp Fire, teaches them the alphabet, brings them peace.

Gazing down at the sleeping toddler in her arms, Moore contemplates her dreams for these children.

“That they will have a bigger future in life, a better future, a happier future. Also a positive attitude toward themselves,” she muses.

She rocks gently, bends over the trusting toddler, and grazes his soft forehead with a kiss.