Mother recalls laughter, tears of 150 foster children
Chelmsford woman, turning 90, hoping for large birthday turnout
CHELMSFORD - Jane Cryan of Chelmsford will celebrate her 90th birthday with a party this Saturday surrounded by lifelong friends and many of her five children, 18 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
While she insists that she does not need anything and that she is "too old for birthday presents anyway," there is one thing that would make her very happy: a visit at the party from as many of her 150 former foster children and their families as possible.
"It's been a long time since I've seen a lot of them," said Cryan, who occasionally receives cards, phone calls, and visits from some of the foster children who lived with her and her husband, Jack, between 1954 and 1987. "It would be nice to see them again before I kick the bucket."
Alice da Silva of Lowell, who lived with the Cryans during her senior year at Lowell High School and a year following graduation, remembers the couple well.
"She deserves sainthood for taking in that many foster children, with five of her own," said da Silva, who is planning to bring her own two daughters to the party. "I was very fortunate that Mr. and Mrs. Cryan came along when they did. Even as a 17-year-old, it was scary not knowing where you were going to end up. They had huge hearts and lots of love. I wouldn't miss it."
The Cryans' youngest daughter, Kathy Cryan-Hicks, remembers a happy childhood growing up, with others always around to play with.
"I didn't think it was that different or unique until someone would ask how many were in our family, and I'd say: 'Right now, we have 10. The number changes,' " Cryan-Hicks said.
She laughed at recollections of big family dinners, her father sleeping without a pillow when an extra child unexpectedly arrived, the family and living rooms being partitioned into impromptu bedrooms, competition for the single bathroom, her mother's creativity in turning household chores into games, an assembly line of bag lunches for school, the period in which four Johns lived in the house, and the bus stop just for their house.
"There have been times with my own three kids that I'd be exhausted at the end of the day, and I'd think of my mom and wonder how she managed," Cryan-Hicks added. "She was such a natural. Now more than ever, I realize how generous my parents really were."
Born in County Mayo, Ireland, on Oct. 12, 1917, Cryan moved with her parents and six siblings to the United States when she was 7. They settled in Lowell, where she met her husband in 1938, after walking by the gas station at which he worked on her way to her job as a nurse's assistant at St. John's Hospital (now Saints Memorial Medical Center).
"He noticed me," Cryan recalled, "and a neighbor introduced us." They were married in 1940 and settled about 10 years later in a white clapboard farmhouse on School Street in Chelmsford.
Their first child, Tom, was born in 1942, followed in quick succession by Mary Jane, Sheila, John, and Kathy.
In 1953, they applied to be foster parents to 8-year-old Carol, whom Jane's brother and sister-in-law were trying to adopt but could not before they moved to California. Carol was sent to a different foster home because the Cryans lived outside the child's district, but the state Department of Social Services kept their application on file. About six months later, the phone rang. Would they be willing to take in 15-month-old Lenny?
"He was scrawny, sallow-skinned, and so weak he couldn't even sit up," said Cryan, whose initial dismay quickly changed to determination to give him "all the love and care I could provide."
"In a few short months, he was chubby, bright-eyed, and running around getting into all kinds of mischief, just like my own children," she added, recalling his spilling a bottle of black ink on her new rug and living-room furniture, as well as his fascination with flushing objects down the toilet.
"We went from there," she said, "one after another."
Over the next 33 years, the Cryans' foster children would include brothers Raymond and Ricky, who would take advantage of Cryan's diverted attention whenever the telephone rang to raid the refrigerator or throw off their shoes, dunk their feet in the toilet, and slide around on the kitchen floor.
Four-year-old triplets Jimmy, Joey, and Johnny were affectionately dubbed The Three Stooges because they were so rough with each other. Michael Patrick arrived as a 7-month-old baby and grew up to resemble the Cryans' two biological sons. Accepted by the neighborhood as one of the family, he lived with the Cryans until he joined the Army around age 18.
For years, the family also hosted children from New York City through the Fresh Air Fund, which provides free summer vacations to urban youth.
Foster children lived with the Cryans for days, months, and years. Although Cryan said "all of them were good kids," she acknowledged that some were emotionally troubled, acted out, or got into the same kind of trouble as many of their teenage peers.
"There was never a dull moment - or a quiet one," said Cryan, who believes that the keys to parenting are never-ending patience and love.
"I had a lot of energy then; I don't know where it's gone," she said.
The Cryans stopped taking in foster children shortly before Jack Cryan fell ill and died in July 1987. Since that time, Cryan said, she has often thought of her foster children, all of whose names she has written down, and wondered how the lives of those with whom she has lost contact have turned out.
"They're all doing OK, as far as I know," she said. "I hope I taught them manners and compassion and how to get along with different people. I hope they respect other people and love themselves. I hope they all have good lives."
Cindy Cantrell can be reached at cantrell@globe.com.
Cryan's former foster children and their families are invited to her 90th birthday party and extended family reunion Saturday at the Radisson Hotel and Suites in Chelmsford. For information or to RSVP, call 978-251-3518, e-mail schoolstreetreunion@comcast.net, or visit http://home.comcast.net/~cryhicks/.
In lieu of birthday gifts, Cryan asks that donations go to My Father's House for mothers and their babies, at 83 Middlesex St., North Chelmsford, MA 01863. For more information, call 978-251-8191. 