Adoption Option: This Family Always Has Room for More

Margot and Allen Condon of Newport Beach lead busy lives. He’s a successful real estate development broker. She teaches at Pepperdine University and runs two special academies for younger students.

He loves to surf and coach youth sports. She writes children’s books. Both are active at Temple Bat Yahm. Oh, and add in that other thing they do: The Condons have eleven children.

They’re like a small corporation. Their calendar has more notes than the Dallas Cowboys’ playbook. The Condons deserve an award just for making all this work.

Turns out, they’re getting one. Sunday night, they will be honored, along with two other couples, by Jewish Family Service of Orange County at its first “Celebration of the Jewish Family.” The event will be at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach.

The Condons laugh now at how their family came about.

“When we got married, we agreed on three children,” Allen Condon says. And eventually that’s what they had. Then they learned about a situation in which a newborn would be put up for adoption. They talked it over and decided to request the child.

They just never stopped. They’ve now adopted eight. Margot Condon teaches multiculturalism to student teachers. Her husband laughs that “she’s living it at home.” Their children’s backgrounds are Puerto Rican, Latino, Norwegian-Danish, Asian, South American, Italian and Irish. All came to them as newborns.

The 11 range from preschool to age 30. Every time an adoption is final, everybody in the family signs the paperwork.

“That’s one of our policies,” says Margot Condon. “The whole family is adopting.”

I asked the Condons if I could meet with them in their home to see how they did it. The key, they say, is organization.

The hockey sticks and skates are lined at the door in the morning, ready for use in the afternoon. The huge calendar on the kitchen door notes everybody’s schedule for that month. The bedrooms are loaded with small cubicles so that everything is kept in order. Each child has her or his own cupboard in the kitchen marked by name. A hallway sign says, “Your Mother doesn’t work here. Pick up after yourself.”

“We talk each night before bed and each morning about schedules,” Allen Condon says. “It works because of Margot--she is incredible.”

Don’t think the Condons do this just to give good homes to youngsters who need one. The Condons proudly say their motivation is selfish.

“My best friends are my wife and my children,” Allen Condon says. “These kids give so much. If I go to the store for a gallon of milk--we go through six to seven gallons a week--they’ll want to jump in and go. We go anywhere, the kids go too.”

When Margot Condon got her doctorate degree a few years ago, the whole family--nine children then--shouted as she received her certificate “Yea, Mom, no more pizza!” Pizza had been a Dad’s favorite while Mom was away nights at school.

The ethnic mix in the family has never presented any problems. A favorite Condon story: One brother came home from school and asked another: “Am I black?” The brother replied, “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Dad.”

Count this a happy family too. With 13 of them--and two now married--you never go too long without a birthday party.

Home Dirt: Monday is Earth Day, but you don’t need to leave home to celebrate. One way you can contribute to the cause, plus do your yard some good, say Fullerton Arboretum officials, is to start your own compost heap. Whether in bins or piles, you can cut your garbage in half by dumping some foods and your yard clippings into the backyard.

“Celery leaves, carrot tops, just about anything like that will make great compost,” says Warren Bower, who heads the arboretum’s garden education program. “It not only helps to save the environment, but it’s nice, rich fertilizer for Orange County’s clay soil.”

If you want to know more, the arboretum is putting on a composting workshop May 4. Its last one drew nearly 100 people.

Namedrops: Marilyn Quayle hit Orange County two weeks ago to promote her new novel. Now husband and former Vice President Dan Quayle has scheduled a stop here--April 30 at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach--to promote his latest book, “The American Family: Discovering the Values That Make Us Strong.” Translated: Read this, Murphy Brown . . . .

Former General Services Administrator for the Clinton administration, Roger Johnson, addresses the Orange County Forum at the Hyatt Regency Irvine at a Wednesday lunch. Johnson is a longtime local business executive who, as a Republican, parted ways with then-President George Bush over the economy . . . .

And speaking of Bush, he and his wife, Barbara, are both scheduled to speak Tuesday at the Pond of Anaheim at something billed as a “Success 1996 Seminar.” Tickets average $49. They’ll have company: Ret. Gen. Colin Powell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are scheduled too. Plus, Elizabeth Dole is a late addition to the speakers’ list. . . .

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Barney Villa has a special reason to chair the Arthritis Foundation’s Mini Grand Prix in Cypress today: His teenage daughter suffers from an arthritis-related autoimmune disease.

Wrap-Up: What’s next for the Condons? What else? They’re gearing up for another adoption. And then another.

Says Margot Condon: “We really don’t see any need to say, ‘This is the end.’ We’re too selfish to want to stop.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or sending a fax to (714) 966-7711.