Rose Groom gave loving boost to scores of foster children

If you lived in Rose Groom's house, you learned to fear the staircase.

The stairs weren't a hazard in and of themselves. But if she made you sit on them alone for an hour, you were in big trouble.

"She was one of the old-school, tough-love moms," said Keith Groom, Rose's stepson. "She was very clear about what you could and couldn't do. "And if you did it anyway, there were repercussions."

Like bringing home a substandard report card.

"They'd get an hour for every grade less than a C, even a C minus," said Chuck Groom, Rose's husband of 34 years. "It was easier to get at least a C in class than sit on the stairs."

Lots of kids took their turns on the stairs. More than 150 children lived under Rose's firm but loving watch since 1983.

Some went on to become doctors, lawyers and athletes.

When the four Groom boys had either finished high school or were nearing graduation, Rose looked around her spacious five-bedroom home in Medical Lake and imagined how lonely life would be without children.

"So she said `Let's do foster care,'" remembered Chuck.

Barely two months after her announcement came the Groom's first foster child. In the succeeding two decades, their home saw a hodgepodge of boys and girls between ages 5 and 18, often as many as eight living there at a time. Some stayed for just days, others for as long as 10 years.

But foster care wasn't simply a matter of warehousing troubled children. Rose and Chuck were advocates of changing what they perceived to be a flawed foster care system, which included too much interference by the schools.

"We dealt with a lot of handicapped children, some diagnosed with severe mental retardation," said Chuck. "Yet these same kids wound up with A's and B's and were often on the honor roll. Rose gave them a good environment and good encouragement."

She insisted the kids be involved with school as much as possible, encouraged them to participate in sports and, of course, maintain those high grades.

"Rose was an advocate of making all children succeed. That was No. 1, no matter what. Even to this day probably 100 of them call to check in," said Chuck, adding that their "children" now live across the United States.

As a nurse, nurturing and healing was what Rose was taught to do. As a mother, it's what she felt she was born to do.

"It was natural for her to take care of kids, to see their needs and provide for them," said Chuck.

Rose was a single mother with two hemophiliac sons when she met and married Chuck. Hemophilia brings large responsibility: If a child fell and bruised a knee, he was rushed to the hospital to tend to internal bleeding.

"She was very protective all the time," said Chuck.

Her protective nature extended from her biological sons, Rick Groom and David Gardner, to her stepsons Don and Keith. And so did the discipline.

"For the first time in many of these kids' lives they experienced accountability. No one ever told them `no' in their entire life. That same impact was made on myself," Keith Groom said of the foster children.

"That translates into love at the end of the day, and that's why many of these kids loved her to death when they left."

In 1992, David died from AIDS complications, as a result of infected blood he received in a transfusion for treatment of his hemophilia. His death devastated Rose.

On June 8, at age 65, Rose Groom died after a long fight with cardiac obstruction pulmonary disease, an illness that was aggravated by years of cigarette smoking. A week to the hour later, on June 15, her son Rick died from liver cancer.

Rose refused to let the diagnosis hinder her lifestyle. Upon learning of her illness, she immediately quit smoking.

Although she required oxygen support 24 hours a day, Chuck rigged 75-foot tubing to let Rose work all over the house and yard.

"Her house was spotless. You could come here anytime and it was clean, and she kept it that way," recalled Chuck, looking around the now not-so-spotless home that misses Rose's touch almost as much as he does.

And the new handicap didn't keep her from one of her favorite passions: bowling.

On any given day she could roll at least 180, despite, or possibly because of, her unusual style.

"She always kept her back straight and solid, but she made those pins go where she wanted them to go," said Chuck who, when partnered with Rose in mixed league tournaments, said the pair "were deadly" together.

Rose's prowess on the lanes enabled her to flirt with turning professional. The owner of her local bowling alley insisted that she invest in the sport as a career.

She declined.

"She had foster kids," said Chuck with a laugh. "She knew she'd have to spend a lot of time down there practicing, and that would take her away from her family and obligations."

Copyright 2002 Cowles Publishing Company
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