Foster Mom’s Heart Never Runs Out Of Love

Pat Stoddard couldn’t ask the woman to leave, though it was long past Pat’s bedtime. The woman wanted to hold the grandchild she wouldn’t have a chance to spoil.

Social workers had placed the newborn with Pat while the baby’s mother weighed her options and chose adoption. A new family would take the baby the next day. The grandmother couldn’t let go.

“She was rocking and crying, rocking and crying,” Pat says. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was time to leave. Sometimes I really feel sorry for the grandparents.”

For 30 years as foster parents, Pat and her husband, Tom, have mourned with mothers relinquishing their babies and soared with ecstatic parents adopting one.

Pat’s arms have cradled about 200 children - mostly infants - and her hands have clutched thousands of bottles.

Children have arrived at all hours in all conditions. They’ve come wrapped in blankets for clothes, unrecognizably dirty, even strung out on their mother’s drugs.

“A lot of people talk about doing things for kids. She really does them,” says Donna Euler, who supervises adoptions for Lutheran Social Services. “I never have a worry when I place a baby with Pat.”

United Way of Kootenai County recently named Pat its senior volunteer for 1997, an honor that embarrasses the unassuming Hayden grandmother.

“She’s a natural,” says Tom Stoddard, who admires the woman he married 45 years ago. “She just never knew when to quit.”

Gray curls cover Pat’s head, but they indicate an age her sharp blue eyes contradict. Nothing escapes those eyes - not the drug-addicted baby’s rigid muscles, the well-behaved infant’s possible hearing problems, or the sadness in Tom’s eyes when a child he loves leaves.

She began foster parenting on a whim. Tom and their three children learned of it the day the first baby arrived. Over the years, the Stoddards adopted three more children. One is now in his third year of medical school at Georgetown University.

“We never thought we could feel as strong toward adopted children as our own,” Tom says.

“But once they’re handed to you, they’re yours,” Pat says.

Some of the babies they’ve sheltered grow up in photographs their families send to the Stoddards every year. Others stay infants forever in the Stoddards’ memories.

They don’t forget any of them.

“I get surprised at how long we’ve done this,” Pat says. “But they just kind of wiggle into your heart.”

My name is mud

I stupidly moved Spirit Lake’s new senior center to Athol last week, which probably surprised a few Atholites. The center that needs $22,000 in supplies and cash to open with a commercial kitchen is in the heart of Spirit Lake.

If you can help, call 623-5129.

African odyssey

Remember Tina Friedman, the Samuels woman who plans to bring Africa to Sandpoint for a month? That month starts Sunday.

At the Bonner Mall, Tina will exhibit photos she took and artifacts and crafts she collected during eight months in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique and Malawi.

The exhibit will open Sunday afternoon with a reception, refreshments and African music. At 7:30 p.m. March 6, Spokane’s Malidoma African drumming and dancing troupe will perform.

Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for children and seniors. For details, call 263-4890.

Which travelers from North Idaho impress you? Explain their escapades to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: To volunteer Lutheran Social Services always needs foster homes in the five northern counties, especially homes that will take older children. Call 667-1898 for details.