After 60 Children, Parents Foster Hope for More

Randele and Mildred Bouldin of Los Angeles, who are 82 and 76 respectively, have 60 children. They are hoping that they will live long enough to have another 60.

The Bouldins are foster parents. Unable to have children of their own, they became foster parents in 1944. Foster parents longer than anyone else in Los Angeles, the Bouldins have four girls living with them, and they have just been reissued their license for another year.

They have raised children of both sexes and of all races and colors, some of whom had been abused. They once cared for a 14-year-old girl and her newborn baby. With all the children they’ve housed, the most serious incident the Bouldins ever had with any of them was a cut finger on a pair of clippers left out in the garden, said Peggy Dixon, a spokeswoman for the county Department of Children’s Services.

On Sunday, Children’s Services and the San Fernando Valley Child Abuse Council honored the Bouldins with the Foster Life Achievement Award at the inaugural “Dream Maker Benefit” luncheon at Farmers Market in Los Angeles. Four hundred other foster parents--and their children--were also honored.

The Bouldins say being foster parents is everything to them.

“It’s become a part of me, I love children. As long as I’m able and as long as they will let me be a foster mother, I will,” Mildred Bouldin said.

“I’ve been one so long I can’t help from liking it,” Randele Bouldin said. “After a while, it just kind of gets to feeling natural.”

It was when Randele Bouldin was in the service 44 years ago that Mildred Bouldin got the idea of becoming a foster parent. One of her neighbors was a foster mother and Mildred decided, “If she can do it, so can I.”

In addition to the luncheon, there was a children’s petting zoo, pony rides, an elephant ride and live music.

To raise money, some television actors and actresses got behind some of the counters of the market and served the public. Merchants agreed to donate 10% of the day’s sales, or $100, to the Family and Children’s Services Trust Fund, said Heidi Solomon, coordinator of the event.

“When they told me where the money was going I thought it was a wonderful idea. I was delighted,” Phyllis Magee, owner of Magee’s Kitchen, said.

“The money raised today will pay for the kinds of things the county doesn’t give the foster parents money for, such as dentistry, plastic surgery, camp and other little things,” Solomon, said.

Many of the 4,000 foster parents in Los Angeles County often use their own money to pay for those and other unreimbursed expenses, said Robert L. Chaffee, director of Children’s Services.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.