LIMA — Jackie Wilson, 63, mother to three grown children, grandmother of 12 youngsters, great-grandmother to four, became a mother again Monday when Judge Glenn Derryberry of Allen County Probate Court granted the Lima resident’s request to adopt three children from Franklin County whom she’s been fostering since October.
Sitting before Derryberry in a third-floor hearing room at the Allen County Courthouse, Wilson dabbed tears from her eyes and beamed. Her new son, Shai, 9, sat beside her. Her new daughters, Annette, 11, and D’Aynn, 10, sat behind her, dressed, like the woman they call “Mama Jackie,” in sleeveless fuchsia tops, white pedal pusher pants and white flip-flop sandals.
Among those in attendance were two of Wilson’s three adult children, a sister from New Jersey, and several child welfare officials.
Highlighting the extraordinary quality of the day was Mayor David Berger, a friend of Wilson’s, who watched the proceedings from the back of the courtroom.
“With six kids, it sounds like it’s Christmas every day,” Derryberry said, addressing Wilson from the bench. “You’ve got a beautiful family there.”
Wilson thanked the judge for granting her petition “because the kids said they were going to tackle me if you didn’t.”
‘A great home’
The children were asked by Jerry Johnson, who filed Wilson’s petition, whether they understood the importance of this day.
“It means we’ll finally have a home,” Annette said.
D’Aynn said the events unfolding around her meant “having a home.”
Shai went even further than his sisters.
“It means having a great home,” he said.
A long road
The children’s case worker, Marian D. McCoy of Franklin County Children’s Services, would not say how and why Annette, D’Aynn and Shai came under the agency’s care.
“The parent was unable to continue to care for the children,” she said.
The three kids, who have four other siblings, were initially placed together in the same foster home, but McCoy said Annette was subsequently separated from D’Aynn and Shai and was moved to the first of several different foster families.
“The home was unable to meet the needs of the child,” McCoy said.
She said the children “have come through trauma, as kids who’ve suffered abuse and neglect,” and were not getting the counseling and other services they needed.
McCoy said Wilson became the children’s advocate.
“She has sought to meet their needs rather than have them meet her needs,” she told the judge. “I am going to try to hold back my tears, because it’s been a long road for these children. By the grace of God, they were placed in Miss Wilson’s home.”
Feeling complete
That she even has a stable home to offer to children is a miracle, Wilson concedes. She’s a recovering alcoholic, sober since 1997.
“I thought, I know God’s got something else for me to do,” she said. “There was a void there, and it wasn’t God.”
She stood at the rail of an empty fourth-floor courtroom, holding the adoption papers. Behind her, daughters Tomika Lowe, 41, and Keesha Smith, 43, had set up a post-adoption reception, with two large sheet cakes, cheese and crackers, and two crock pots filled with frank n’ beans and meatballs.
Wilson said that, at the suggestion of one of her daughters, she enrolled as a foster parent. She estimates she’s fostered about 70 children. She’s only adopted one other child, a boy who was placed with her when he was an infant and who is now in his mid-30s. She said it was Annette, D’Aynn and Shai’s story of being shuttled from home to home that prompted her once again to make that leap from foster parent to parent.
“Their hearts began to pull on my heart,” she said.
“I thought, ‘Empty nest, Mom?’” said daughter Tomika, describing her reaction to her mom’s plans. “I’m like, ‘My kids can come stay with you at any time!’ But she said, ‘If you knew their story, there’s no way you would let those kids go back into the system.’”
Lowe remembered how the children reacted during the Thanksgiving meal at sister Keesha’s place, the table groaning with food and the house crowded with extended family.
“They said, ‘This is what families do?’” Lowe said. “And I was like, at that point — yeah. They need us as much as we need them.”
Next steps
With their adoption, Derryberry said the children’s birth certificates will be changed to reflect Wilson as their mother. Their surnames will be changed from Stoops to Stoops-Wilson. And Wilson intends to write a book, her third, about falling in love with her new children.
But first, celebration. Wilson said the after-adoption party would continue at her house for the rest of the afternoon.
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