Foster parent Elizabeth Evans, 72, leaned forward in her chair in a wood-paneled room adorned with black-and-white and color photos of babies, toddlers, school-aged kids, adults… and a dearly departed dog. A well-worn piano and older PC contrasted with a newer TV in the comfortable room.

Shifting from a smile to a serious gaze, Evans recalled the time in 1993 when she and husband Elijah decided to become foster parents.  

“We had seven kids of our own, all grown, and were working at the time,” said Elizabeth, as Elijah watched a Western movie in the back room of their three-story home off Gilbert Avenue in Walnut Hills. Their 4-year-old mixed breed dog, King, sat nearby. Two foster children (sisters, ages 6 and 9) were at school. 

“We came home and the lady across the street and her three kids had been set out with no place to go,” Evans said. “This really upset me. I wanted to take them in.” 

Her children convinced her that the neighbor’s kids would need to be “in the system” for her to care for them. So, when Evans saw a piece in the newspaper about foster parenting, she called the (513) 632-6366 adoption and foster care line at the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services. 

First foster child still keeps in touch
After completing training, Elizabeth and Elijah welcomed a 7-year-old boy and his sister, 5, into their home. They stayed for nearly two years, at a time when Elizabeth was ending her career as a supervisor at a toy company and Elijah was wrapping up his manufacturing job at U.S. Shoe. 

“The boy, actually a man now, still comes to see me,” said Evans, with a smile. “He’s married now.” 

Thirty foster children have lived in the Evans home, situated on a hill near downtown, Eden Park and – quickly mentioned by Elizabeth – the Cincinnati Zoo. They’ve cared for three sets of twins. 

In March, a family in Columbus adopted a 14-year-old girl who had lived in the Evans home for seven years.

“We do not usually keep them that long, but it worked out OK,” Evans said. “She calls me at least two times a week.” 

Nurturing foster parents love kids
Steve Evans (no relation), the family’s foster care worker, said the teenager checks on the family and “lets them know she stills loves them.”

“I think that genuine love for children make Mr. and Mrs. Evans excellent foster parents,” he said. “They are very experienced parents who have adult children and grandchildren. Both parents are nurturing and treat children like they are their own.” 

All of the foster children call Elizabeth Evans “grandma,” even though she gives them the option of calling her Miss Evans. 

Relationships often continue long after foster children leave, Evans said. She told stories about counseling former foster children over the phone when they had gotten in trouble in school. She recently spoke with a boy who cried as he confessed a misdeed. She asked him what he had done, listened, and told him: “Don’t do it again.” He responded: “I won’t.” 

A former foster daughter phoned and said: “Grandma. I’ve been bad. What should I do?” She had continued talking on a cell phone after her adoptive mom repeatedly had told her to stop. “What would I do?” Evans said. “I’d take the phone. She knew she had done wrong.” 

Teaching life skills to parents, too
Evans shares practical advice with older foster children (and sometimes, their moms) about life skills such as shopping for groceries and clothing. One birth mom even insisted that Evans accompany her to the grocery store. Evans watched as the mom loaded her cart with pre-cooked items. Then, she guided the woman to the aisle with beans and rice – and gave her the recipe for making a tasty, nutritious, low-cost meal. 

She revels in taking children to a thrift store – “grandma’s store” – to buy name-brand clothing. She dissuades them from going to “rip-off stores” that sell overpriced gym shoes to inner-city kids. 

“One time, a girl came home and told me how the other girls were impressed by her clothes,” said Evans, noting that others wondered where they could find this “Grandma’s Store.”  

Evans learned how to live on a tight budget growing up in a family of three in rural Alabama. 

“I was poor, but didn’t know I was poor,” she said. “I appreciate having a roof over my head, clothing… When you grow up in a poor family, you learn to make a pot of beans with a piece of meat and some rice. You learn how to get by.” 

Background gives Evans compassion
Elijah and Elizabeth moved to Cincinnati a few years after their marriage in 1957. Elijah wanted to reunite with his mother, who had given him to a relative when he was 11 months old. She ended up living upstairs and then in a house they purchased next door. She’s 94. 

“He understands because he’s been there,” Elizabeth Evans said. “He had cousins, but he felt like an outsider.” 

Evans, too, feels compassion for the children and their moms, but doesn’t allow them to manipulate. For example, when a mother kept telling a 9-year-old that authorities had snatched her and a sister for no reason, Evans gave the girl a message for her mom. (This is the same girl who had taken the role as mother for her younger sister when – for all intents and purposes – the birth mom had left their lives.) 

“You tell your mama to do what she needs to do so that you can go home – that she needs to go to her parenting classes and stay off drugs,” Evans said. “They need to know that kids aren’t just taken from homes for no reason.” 

When the girl asked whom she should love more, her mom or siblings, Evans responded that she should love all of them. “And I added that she should love herself,” she said. 

Trust, direction key ingredients
Evans sets clear rules for kids unaccustomed to structure. She builds trusting relationships by listening intently as kids not used to attention pour out their hearts. 

“You just let them talk to you,” she said. “They empty themselves out. Even though they tell you things that could knock you out of your shoes, you stay calm and listen.” 

Evens offered this advice to those considering foster parenting: “No. 1, you have to really care about kids, love kids. You have to have patience and be a person who listens, too. You have to understand why they are they are the way they are. They have had no discipline, nobody to say no. You have to explain to them. You have to really be a teacher, too.” 

Rewards of foster parenting come in many ways for Evans. She especially likes visits by former foster kids. 

“They always run up to their room,” she said. “They don’t forget their room. They have good memories of it.” 

Evans said it’s difficult giving up a foster child to an adoptive or birth family. 

“You love them, but they must leave,” she said. “They are going to a good home environment. You have done your job. And once your job is finished, the rewarding thing is you can see the difference you’ve made in their lives.”

For information on becoming a foster parent, call (513) 632-6366 or visit www.hcfoster.org