Vera Stone never had a baby, but almost 200 kids knew her as Mom. Now 78, Stone has lived her whole life on a dairy farm on Bell Island, two minutes' walk from a lighthouse that sits 150 feet above the Atlantic. From 1965 to 1990, Stone and her husband, Kevin, were Mom and Dad to a steady stream of foster kids. Gladys Stephens was one of those children. The frightened eight-year-old arrived with her two sisters on a cold and rainy day in 1976 and were met by a woman with rollers in her hair, held in place by a pair of white underpants. A pot of seal flipper stew awaited them on the stove. At one point, Vera was looking after five babies at once. "I used to just line them up and give them their cereal, then give them their bottles." Still, she always found time to do something special with each child - picking wild blueberries, teaching them to knit, playing cards in the evening or just listening to their fears about the future. Most of the children eventually returned to their parents, and Vera had to get used to saying goodbye. She remembers the day a six-year-old named Denis left after being with her for three years. "We put him in the car and he was screeching and patting the seat, saying, 'Come on, Mom.' I'm telling you, that was hard." When Gladys Stephens headed for Toronto at 18, Vera just waved and made her promise to write. "It had been 10 years and she wasn't crying," Stephens remembers thinking. "Well, Dad drove me down to the boat, but it didn't run that day because the ice was in. When we came back home, that's when I saw her up in her bedroom crying. She just didn't do it in front of people." Chosen charity: Wabana Boys & Girls Club |
