Jan Wozniak has been a mother to about 400 children, taking each young one in when no one else could.
When they grow up, the babies don’t remember the one who taught them how to crawl and stutter out the words ‘mama.’ They don’t remember the house in Portage, where they lived for a year. But, Jan Wozniak does.
Jan, this month’s Portage Life in the Spotlight, is 70-years-old, and continues to foster children in her home, a passion and lifestyle she has been doing since a young child herself. She and her husband Henry, have been foster parents for the last 42 years, caring for a minimum of five children at all times.
She grew up in Portage, and as a young girl she enviously watched a couple at her church foster children, knowing she wanted to do the same thing when she grew up. After graduating high school, she got a job in the clerk office of U.S Steel.
“I had no interest in going to college,” she admitted. “I wanted to get married and have a baby.”
On a blind date set up through colleagues at the mill, Jan was introduced to Henry, who fortunately for her came from a big family, she said. The two clicked and were engaged and married within a year.
“Henry knew right away,” she said. “I told him right away, I wanted a big family. So, he was in agreement of it.”
The two had their own biological children, Jim and Jodie, and then started fostering about six years after they were married in 1967. She adopted her daughter Krissi early on, and then in 1994 adopted Danny, who is severely mentally challenged.
Jan receives the babies at the newborn stage, her favorite age. However, now, she said, the format concerning foster families is changing and the state is trying to place kids with the relatives of their biological parents first.
“A lot of the time though, that falls through,” she explained. “By the time the baby is six weeks old, problems arise between the relatives and the parents, so they (the state) has to put the child into foster care.”
When the child is with Jan, the mother must follow all guidelines set by the judge to get the child back. By the second birthday, if the parent is not ready to handle the child, the judge terminates the parent’s rights and the child is set for adoption, Jan said. A case worker visits the child every month to update Jan on the status of the parent.
If the parent is doing well, like the current mother of a 15-month-old who Jan has raised since infancy, then the mother can visit, take the daughter at night and have more rights, she said. When the little girl leaves for good in a few weeks, which happens eventually to every one of Jan’s fostered children, she and Henry will be upset, but accepts the outcome with resolute faces.
“It is hard,” Jan admitted. “We do have time to say goodbye, but it is very, very hard.”
For the majority of the children, Jan and Henry don’t see or hear about them ever again.
Rarely when the child returns, he or she looks around as if they remember something of this petite, white-haired woman and her tall husband, but they do not run and hug their once caring parents, Jan explained.
“They were so little when they left, they just can’t remember anything about us,” she said. “I say that’s God’s way of letting them heal and move on with their life.”
Jan said she and Henry wish they could see the kids, whose photographed faces now plaster the wall of their living room.
“It is hard because we miss them so much and we wonder how they are doing, how they are growing up and adjusting to the new life,” she said. “But, that’s just the way it is and we have to accept it.”
When the babies are with the family, Jan usually spends a few hours a week making the rounds of appointments for doctor check-ups and shots. Everything needed to care for, transport, entertain with, is provided by Jan and Henry.
The Porter County Welfare Office provides a small per diem, which covers only about groceries, Jan said, but since the two have been parenting for so long, they have the supplies and schedule routine down.
Each day is a busy day, Jan admits – she is currently caring for four babies under the age of two - but with Henry cooking the group meals and her very supportive family helping out and babysitting when needed, Jan is able to continue to parent those who need her love.
“It just gets in your blood,” she said. “It is a challenge to take each child in, but God gave me this love and gave it to my husband. I love taking care of the children and giving them a home.”