MISS HANNAH
This mom has fostered 189 kids in four decades. She's 86 and has no plans to stop.
Hannah Ford didn't like the quiet stillness that settled into her home when her five children began
moving out on their own in 1983. The retired seamstress, who lost her husband nearly two decades earlier, found herself feeling isolated.
This was when a friend nudged Ford—aka Miss Hannah, as she’s known in her town of Marion, South Carolina—toward fostering. "She said, 'Hannah, you would be a good
one,'" the 86-year-old told TODAY Parents. "So I started doing that."
In the four decades since that conversation, Ford has had 189 kids come through her home.
"I'll never forget the first meal she cooked for us—it was pork chops and I’d never tasted meat that was so good," said Erica Woodberry, one of seven fosters who were adopted by Ford.
After more than four years of bouncing between
foster homes, when a then-12-year-old Woodberry and her younger sister went to live with Ford, they immediately knew she was not like any of their previous foster parents.
"She sat there at the table asking us questions about ourselves. We weren't used to that," the 48-year-old explained, adding that
Ford is "a very special person...read more
