A Christmas Visit With A Long Lost Foster Sister

Alma Jean is recovering from a bad case of flu, but Joanie
and I enjoyed our little annual Christmas gift exchange today.

I was six years old when my parents began providing temporary foster care for children from the Augusta County Social Services Department. Over the next several years more than a dozen foster kids were in and out of our busy farm house, home to my parents and their five daughters and three sons (I being the youngest).

The first of these, Mary Beth, was only four weeks old when she joined us, and our family eventually adopted her to take my place as "the baby in the family." 

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2016/01/in-memory-of-my-sister-mary-beth.html

Our second was a special needs child with cerebral palsy, Janet Hanshaw, who had been abandoned by her mother and had no connections with any of her family or relatives. She was 18 months old when she arrived, unable to walk and having difficulty with verbal communication. She was with us for a full year and half until Social Services moved her to the Central Virginia Training School near Lynchburg. 

I remember visiting with Janet there some years later, feeling badly about conditions in her new home and about the kind of care she and others were receiving in that crowded facility.

Fast forwarding to over three decades later, I was invited to speak at a vesper service one evening at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community, where they just happened to have a number of guests present from nearby Harrison House, a part of a new Pleasant View Homes for the Handicapped location just north of VMRC. 

After the service I chatted with the Harrison House staff and guests, one of whom was introduced as Joanie Hanshaw, a friendly, smiling resident in a wheelchair. The name immediately rang a bell. Could this possibly be the cheerful little foster kid who wheeled around our house in a walker many years before?

The name was slightly different, but I learned she was indeed a former resident at the Lynchburg based Training School, and that she was making amazing progress at Harrison House, learning to take care of herself and to take on many tasks no one had formerly thought she was capable of. The next day I was able to confirm she was indeed one of my more memorable former foster siblings.

Ever since Joanie has insisted on calling me her "brother," and Alma Jean and I have had her for multiple birthday and Christmas celebrations with our family since that time, and I have continued to stay in touch.

Joanie is now 77 and has gone through numerous health crises and hospitalizations in recent years. But she has now been in a nearby Moyer Apartment assisted living unit of Pleasant View for several decades, and is always delighted to welcome us and others as her guests. 

She has truly been a blessing to us and to everyone whose lives she has touched.