When my kids, Tamara and Floyd, were in high school in Silver Spring, Maryland, they’d sometimes bring home friends who needed a place to stay. For whatever reason, their parents had kicked them out.

I’d been a housewife until my husband and I divorced, but at this point, I was working two jobs. My kids still thought I was the kind of mom who could make the cookies and fix the problem. So when one of their friends had trouble at home, they’d say, “Let’s go talk to my mom. She’ll know what to do.” We had a big house with extra bedrooms, and their friends who couldn’t go home were always welcome to stay.

I really don’t know what prompted me to formally apply to the foster care system, but after Tamara and Floyd were launched, in the 1990s, I decided to open my door to younger children. Often the agency would ask, “Will you just help us for a couple of days, until we can arrange for a longer-term placement?” They would bring the kids, and the kids would adjust and wouldn’t want to leave. And so the county would let them stay. Most of the babies and toddlers I fostered stayed with me until they graduated from high school and eventually college. And most of them still keep in touch. My last foster daughter just graduated from high school in the spring.

You do get a stipend from the county for their upkeep, but it doesn’t cover everything. Whenever a child needed a dress to wear to the prom, I would sew it for her. If someone needed money for an after-school activity, I took it from my savings. I never wanted them to feel different from the kids in biological families. I consider every single one of these children to be a member of my family.

I pray for my kids every night. I ask God to keep them safe and watch over them, because they all turned out to be really nice men and women. They all have jobs. Some of them own their own businesses, some of them work in the medical field.

Before I moved to a retirement community recently, I lived in the same house for 52 years, and the neighbors knew there were always children staying with me. Not too long ago, one of them told me they’d never known the kids were foster children. They’d thought I was just taking care of relatives—family members’ children. There’s no better compliment I could have gotten. Every child deserves that level of love and care. So when my neighbor said that, I thought to myself, You know what? I didn’t do too bad. —As told to Robin Westen

Emma Patterson, 88, a retired administrative worker, lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.