Susan Braley, mom who had 300 and adopted 7, dies at 66

Susan Braley, mother of more than 300 foster children in Florida, has died of COVID-19 at age 66.

Braley and her husband, Dennis Braley, both tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks ago. The Davenport, Florida resident succumbed to the disease more than a week ago on January 20, while Dennis remains in hospital. Over the past 20 years, the couple, from Bangor, Maine, have become foster parents for a total of 309 children, and then adoptive parents for seven of them.

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Carianne Braley, the couple’s biological daughter, told parents today her mother started fostering children at 46, the age she herself is today. She said her mother moved to foster care when she saw Carianne’s biological brother Craig and his wife fight to get pregnant and she always tried to keep her siblings together every day. times as possible.

“My mother said, ‘We have a house and we have love to give, so why not?” Carianne said in a phone interview.

It didn’t matter if a child stayed two days, two weeks, two months or two years – they were all treated well and received the love and support they lacked.

“You came into the house and it was always spotless,” Carianne recalls. Her mother was the head of the family, and her experience as a regional manager in American companies meant that she was adept at providing children with an organized structure and home. “That’s why these kids thrived, because of her structure. She gave that consistency,” Carianne said.

Susan was known to take children with behavioral problems and give them the support they needed to change their lives. She welcomed a young girl with autism who came from appalling conditions and could not speak. “My mother worked with Layla one-on-one, giving her reinforcement,” Carianne explained. “Within six months, she was sentenced to full sentences. Layla is now 7 years old and Carianne says she is on the rise.

Another of the children Susan took in ended up being adopted by the principal of the school she was attending.

Thanks to Susan’s work, she was able to provide a good home for the children she welcomed, always decorating their rooms and providing them with things they had never experienced before, from a new comforter and room decorations to travel. at Disney World and Sea World.

“They were financially stable,” Carianne said of her parents. “They didn’t do it for money, they did it for love.”

Susan and Dennis were willing to adopt children whose parents had died or had encountered difficult circumstances. Even at age 64, Susan didn’t hesitate to adopt another child who needed a home. “She told me, ‘It’s not like we want to be parents again, it’s that we have a home and stability,” Carianne recalls.

Knowing about her mother’s generous nature made it even more difficult for Carianne to cope with her sudden death. She, her brother, and all the children had a chance to say goodbye to Susan when they learned her health was declining rapidly, but like so many other COVID-19 patients, Susan was not with the staff at hospital only in its final moments.

“She said, ‘Make sure you go to church and take care of these kids,’” Carianne said of their last conversation. Susan also told Carianne’s adult son Thomas to do the same.

Carianne and Thomas are now doing their best to support Dennis as he battles COVID-19 and to keep any adopted children, whom she considers her “siblings to slash the children” in their homes.

“The biggest worry is making sure everything is maintained,” she said. A friend of his has started a GoFundMe campaign to help.

“She wasn’t that grandmother,” Carianne said of her mother. “She has been great teaching them how to be adults – how to cook, how to clean, how to talk to people.”

Every time Carianne asked her mother if she was taking too much, she always had the same answer.

“She said, ‘We’ll be fine.'”