88-Year-Old ‘Proud’ Foster Mom Retires After Raising Over 40 Children

Special recognition was given to an elderly foster mother from Maryland: elderly because she is 88 years old, and elderly because she is one of the most experienced foster mothers in the U.S. foster home system.

Since opening her Montgomery County home in the 1980s, she has cared for more than 40 children and recently received an award for her service to youth in her state when she announced she was finally retiring.

In an interview with ABC News as part of its “America Strong” segment, Emma Patterson said she first became involved in helping when the two children she gave birth to began occasionally bringing home other children who needed help.

Whether it was food, warm clothes, or a safe place to hang out after school, the siblings knew their mother was the right person to help them.

At the time, Patterson was separated from the father of her children, and in addition to working at a local university, she also had a retail job that she could use to buy what her children, her own and others, needed.

This led her to register herself and her White Oak, Maryland, home with the Montgomery County foster care system, where she occasionally took in infants (drug-dependent children who could not return home to their parents). She cared for as many as nine children at a time, some of whom stayed with her until they were adults.

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A Montgomery County spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that Patterson is one of the foster families in the county that has provided homes to the most children for an extended period of time, as well as one of the longest-serving foster families.

“It wasn’t something that anyone paid attention to. You know, I didn’t do it for anyone’s approval,” Patterson told ABC News. “It was always a situation where a boy or a girl just didn’t have anyone to take care of them. And they needed a place to sleep or something to eat.”

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“I’m so proud of all the kids because, you know, they all turned out to be just wonderful people.”

WATCH the ABC News footage below…

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