The Miami Herald, Inc.; Monday, December 30, 1996
Ajowa Ifateyo; Herald Staff Writer

In some ways, it has made her stronger.

Walker, 57, lost her grown daughter, Cathleen, to AIDS and inherited the responsibility for Cathleen's three young children, one of whom was HIV positive.

Her plight is increasingly common. Aging grandmothers -- often poor, sometimes in fading health themselves -- are forced to step in and raise their children's children because of AIDS.

In Broward County, they have formed an organization, the Family to Family CARES Network.

Members meet every month at a Fort Lauderdale church to offer one another a friendly face and a shoulder to cry on. They share each other's anguish, pain and hope. They hold prayer vigils.

"I really consider them crusaders, taking on this incredible challenge," said Stormy Schevis, coordinator at the Children's Diagnostic Center, part of the North Broward Hospital District, where children with AIDS and their families come for medical care and counseling. "If they were not there, these children would be in foster homes at great expense to all of us."

The grandmothers pool such essentials as food, clothing and medical supplies. And they organize picnics, zoo trips and other outings for the kids.

When one grandmother needed to travel to Boston to get her orphaned year-old grandchild, the members chipped in for her plane ticket.

The monthly meetings are balm for the soul. Diane Jackson, one of the group's youngest members at age 42, was steered to the network by her sister, a social worker.

"It was good, because nobody was talking about death and dying," said Jackson, who, like some members, is HIV positive.

"It's a mother-daughter, sister-sister relationship," she said. "They give me strength to fight, courage to move forward."

Jackson, now vice president of the group, has become an activist for AIDS-afflicted families and has traveled to Washington to speak on behalf of the cause.

Some of the grandmothers have taken in the children of group members who have died. Evelyn Kendrick, 58, adopted a 3-year-old and is taking care of a 6-year-old whose father is in the hospital with an AIDS-related illness.

Kendrick was living the life of a typical grandmother when one of her relatives -- she would rather not say who -- came down with HIV, then AIDS. Kendrick took the relative's child, a young boy, into her Hallandale home.

The boy seemed to be constantly coming down with a fever. During a trip to the hospital, the cause was finally diagnosed -- HIV.

Kendrick's life went into a tailspin. To care for the child, she had to quit her job as an assistant at a Pic-N-Pay grocery store. Kendrick and her husband split up. Relatives helped with the monthly bills.

She began to read everything she could about the illness. And she received comfort and counseling from the Rev. Ruby Garland, a preacher who became a godparent to the child.

"It was uplifting to have someone who was so close to you that cared," Kendrick said of Garland. Personal loss

With the support of family members, her minister and her friends, Kendrick cared for the child for five years, through complicated medical regimens, trips to the emergency room and long nights of nurturing.

"He died in my arms," Kendrick said.

"I told him that I would miss him, but that I would always be an advocate for people with this disease," she said. She made good on that vow. First, she began doing volunteer work at the Children's Diagnostic Center. Determined to do more, she founded the Family to Family CARES Network.

The president of Family CARES is Catherine Walker. She lives in a crowded one-bedroom apartment in the back of the Overcoming Church of Jesus in Fort Lauderdale, sharing the cramped space with her two grandchildren, ages 8 and 10. The kindness of the pastor, a Family CARES member who has let her stay there rent free, sustains her financially and emotionally.

Two years ago, Walker lived in a rented house and was a cook at a Plantation restaurant. Then her daughter became sick with AIDS. A grandson was born with the virus that causes AIDS. Drawn together

Under the siege of AIDS, the family drew closer together. Walker found herself caring for an AIDS-stricken 27-year-old daughter, an HIV-positive grandson and two grandchildren who did not have the virus.

The grandson's health deteriorated. After the boy died, Walker's daughter seemed to lose hope.

"She stopped eating and started losing weight," Walker said. "Then she had a light stroke. She said she didn't feel she had a need to live."

After the daughter died in January 1994, Walker did all she could to keep her family together. But things kept unraveling. First, she couldn't keep up the insurance payments on her 1980 Buick Le Sabre. Then she couldn't quite meet the rent payment.

The stress took its toll on her health -- she has high blood pressure -- and she lost her job.

"Some days I can't get out of bed, everything is going round and round," Walker said.

"I would rather work," said Walker, who left school after fourth grade. "If I had enough education, I could get a desk job."

Without the support of her friends, "I'd have been homeless," Walker admits.

Friends, faith, courage and camaraderie -- they sustain these grandmothers, give them strength to carry on against the odds. A new future Eloise Fencher, 58, was first exposed to the group when Kendrick handed her a leaflet at the Children's Diagnostic Center.

"I took it and balled it up," Fencher said of the flier. "I already knew about AIDS."

That she did. Fencher's 29-year-old daughter, Delois, had been diagnosed with AIDS. Delois' daughter, Shandra, contracted it in the womb. Fencher had already lost two brothers to AIDS.

In 1990, Delois died, leaving Fencher with her grief and two healthy grandchildren -- ages 11 and 12 -- besides the HIV-positive Shandra, then 4.

The virus began to take its toll on Shandra. She had such a rattle when she breathed that it would awaken Fencher in the middle of the night. "The doctors told me she wasn't going to make it four years ago," Fencher said. New job, promise

Because she needed to be home with the children during the day, Fencher quit her job pressing clothes at a dry cleaner. While her husband watched the children at night, Fencher took a job cleaning offices in bank buildings.

About this time, Fencher made a promise to God. If her grandchild would hang on, she would stop running from a calling to become a preacher.

Today, Shandra is 11, doing better, growing tall, wearing out shoes and making plans for the future.

"She's a little lady," the proud grandmother said. She's now the Rev. Eloise Fencher, pastor of the Overcoming Church of Jesus in Fort Lauderdale, where Walker has received shelter from the storm. cutlines WALTER MICHOT / Herald Staff NEW FAMILY: Catherine Walker has cared for granddaughters Dedra and Donnie White since their mother died of AIDS. cutlines LONNIE TIMMONS III / Herald Staff FINDING THE WAY: Eloise Fencher took in her daughter's three children, one of whom is HIV positive. She made a promise to God: If the girl would hang on, she would become a preacher.

CAPTION: photo: Catherine Walker and Dedra White and Donnie White (A), Eloise Fencher (A)

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