Sickly Babies Find a Grandmother : Children With AIDS and Drug Addictions Given a Home

The slim, black woman with soft gray curls lifts the baby from the crib, rocks him gently in her arms, and whispers, “Paul, you’re a beautiful boy.”

She holds the smiling 14-month-old like a proud grandmother before a group of visitors, but goes on to explain the sad truth: Baby Paul has AIDS.

“The doctor said these babies live 1 or 2 years. But who knows? Maybe this one will survive,” the elderly woman says, placing the baby back in the crib. “I’m just trying to give him a start--to let him know that life is worth living.”

At 83, “Mother” Clara Hale is determined to make life a little easier for infants who inherit the deadly AIDS virus in their mothers’ wombs.

Hale, best known for raising children who inherit the horror of drug addiction at birth, is now caring for three AIDS babies in her 5-story brownstone in central Harlem.

She had hoped to open a separate home for AIDS babies, but New York City did not grant the application.

Despite the city’s refusal to approve the new home, Hale has been allowed to care for AIDS babies at her existing house on West 122 Street--a registered child-care facility known as The Hale House Center for the Promotion of Human Potential.

Hale’s drive to help babies who contract the AIDS virus from their mothers is just her latest effort to provide good care, a positive environment and love to society’s youngest victims.

Hale raised more than 40 foster children in Harlem between 1941 and 1968. At 65, she began raising babies born to heroin and cocaine addicts. Over the years, the soft-spoken, determined widow has rocked more than 600 infants through the horror of withdrawal.

With the help of her daughter Lorraine and a small staff, Hale looks after these “drug babies” for 3 or 4 years as the mothers go through a rehabilitation program. The goal is to reunite child and mother once the woman is drug free, and more often than not the program succeeds.

The effort has earned Hale a wall full of awards, tens of thousands of dollars in donations, and mention as a real American hero in President Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union Address. Still energetic and enthusiastic, she plans to open a home for recovered addicts next year.

“If you’re not working and trying your best, what are you doing?” she asks. “You’re doing nothing.”

The AIDS babies at Hale House sleep in a cheerful nursery on the third floor with dolls dangling over their cribs and pictures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse on the walls. The room looks like other nurseries; the babies look like other infants. The only difference is that the children carry the AIDS virus and run a risk of developing full-blown AIDS before reaching kindergarten.

The 22 “drug children” at Hale House are kept away from the AIDS babies. Child-care workers wash the AIDS babies’ clothes separately and wear plastic gloves when changing their diapers. But Mother Hale does not hesitate to hold and cuddle the AIDS babies, pointing out that AIDS cannot be transmitted through casual contact.

“I treat the AIDS babies just like the drug babies,” she says. “There’s no difference to me.”

Hale clearly enjoys offering these children the love they need, but admits that disappointment comes with the territory. Child-care workers often turn down employment after learning that AIDS babies are at Hale House. Doctors often hold out little hope that the infants will live through childhood. The mothers of these babies are usually nowhere to be found--most have disappeared into the shadows of Harlem to die slow, anonymous deaths.

Nevertheless, Hale holds out hope that many of these kids will survive, at least through childhood. She recalls a 7-year-old boy named Nicholas who came to Hale House as a drug baby several years ago and was diagnosed with AIDS at age 4. Nicholas is still alive, although the virus is now killing him.

“I went to the hospital to visit him,” Hale says. “He did remember me, but you could not tell it was the same boy. He’s just a big head and skin and bones. He’s dying.

“He said, ‘Mother Hale, you look so sad. Don’t feel sorry for me.’ It was hard. I’m supposed to be cheering him, and he is cheering me.”

Sometimes Hale looks out her window into the mean streets of Harlem and wonders whether AIDS is a plague sent by God, retribution for those drug users who send a never-ending wave of child victims to her doorstep.

But there is little time for such unproductive reflection. It detracts from the work at hand. The new home for recovered addicts must be opened. More AIDS babies need care. And a house full of kids need her love.

“I’m the mother here, and there is plenty of love to go around,” she says. “God willing, we’ll carry on.”