Mother’s Day Has a Special Meaning at Her House

--If all her children sent Mother’s Day cards, Leontina Albina could just about paper a wall in her cramped two-room shack. The Guinness Book of World Records says the Colina, Chile, mother has had 55 children--more than any other woman alive. The book records her births before 1981 and Albina reports four children since then, with 18 of the total still at home with her and her husband, Gerardo. Six died at birth or shortly afterward, and many of the grown ones are scattered around the globe, in Japan, the United States, Switzerland, Sweden and Argentina. Keeping track of names is a problem, especially with three Susanas, three Miriams, two Estrellas and two Soledades. Albina married at age 12 and her children came two and three at a time. The first 21 were boys. Despite the family’s poverty, she kept a pledge to herself to never give up any children, because she had been abandoned as an infant. And she could have more. “If God sends them to me, yes. But I’d like God to also consider me, now that I’m approaching old age.” She says she is 59; Guinness says she is 62.

--Patrick Kennedy, wearing a neck brace and carrying a cane, walked out of a Boston hospital after surgery to remove a benign growth on his spinal cord. Kennedy, 20, was accompanied by his father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and older brother, Edward Kennedy Jr. Edward Jr. had a cancerous leg amputated in 1973, at age 12. He has completely recovered from cancer and wears a prosthesis.

--The back of the post cards carried a cheery thank-you to the 600 patrons of an annual Washington fund-raiser: “Thanks for making this year’s Brady Dinner such a success. See you next year!” The front of the cards--which referred to James S. Brady, the press secretary gravely wounded in a gunman’s attempt to kill President Reagan--depicted a young Reagan dressed for a cowboy role, with six-shooter drawn and a shotgun cradled in his other arm. “It wins my insensitivity award of the year,” said one patron and Brady friend. Organizers of the Will Rogers Chili Humanitarian Awards Gala, which again gave half its proceeds to the James S. Brady Foundation, said this year’s dinner had a cowboy theme. Brady’s wife, Sarah, who promotes handgun control, said the card was “in very poor taste. . . . But I’m sure they were just thinking cowboy and it never even occurred to them.”