When Mildred “Mikki” Murray started taking care of foster children in 1978, she thought her lungs would eventually slow her down.
It took 44 years — and more than 200 children through the doors of her Tucson home — for Murray to reluctantly retire.
“I wanted to continue, but my lungs are getting worse,” said Murray, 76, who was recently honored for being the longest-serving foster parent in Arizona. She also received the first-ever lifetime achievement award from the #LoveUp Foundation, which was started by Arizona radio broadcasters Johnjay & Rich to help foster children and Arizona families.
Murray started fostering children within a few years of moving to Tucson from New York City in the mid-1970s. Her lungs were unhealthy, and Murray and her husband hoped the dry desert air would help.
The couple had one child, but it wasn’t something Murray could do again without serious risk to her health. Instead, they started fostering children and hoped to also adopt one day.
People are also reading…
During those early years, Murray said they took in children who were eventually returned to their parents.
Murray was content to continue as a foster mom, but her husband wasn’t as keen.
“It was a roller coaster, and my husband said, ‘I really don’t want to go through this again. You love them and then they’re gone,’” she said of their conversation years ago.
The couple eventually divorced, and Murray kept on fostering. Some of the kids were only with her a day or two, others lived with her for years.
Sometimes the kids she housed had lived through horrible experiences, she said. Other times, she said, they were children she says never should have been removed from home in the first place and she advocated for their return.
At one time, there were seven or eight children living in her home.
“There was such a need for beds that they gave us a waiver,” she said. “It was like a zoo, and I loved every minute of it.”
As she got older, so did the children she took in — in part because the rules changed about young children being placed in homes with swimming pools. Murray eventually began helping teens through the Arizona Young Adult Program.
As she ages, she sometimes forgets names, but she can always see their faces.
“I think about the kids a lot. I had so many kids. I couldn’t tell you the names of half now, but I can see their faces,” she said.
…….