For this week’s blog post, I will be interviewing and discussing my Grandmother’s life! This is the mother of my mother for future reference.
Cathy Regan was born on April 6th, 1942 in London, Ontario. It was here where she did her schooling up until Grade 9, then moved over to Sarnia, Ontario where she then finished high school. Post high school my grandmother ventured back to London, Ontario where she graduated from Western, and got her teacher’s certificate. With this post-secondary education, Cathy taught grade 2/3 in Toronto for a total of 5 years.
In her first year of teaching at Toronto it was here where she met her future husband, my mother’s father, and my grandfather; Ronald Regan (see next week’s post)! It was then 3.5 years later where they started their family with the of birth my mother Kathleen. With this big event, my grandmother retired so she could become a stay-at-home mom, for Kathleen and all the children to come.
Having my mom at the age of 27, it was quickly after when the remaining 11 children came into the Regan Clan. By the time Cathy turned 30, she had 4 children under the age of 4 (Kathleen, Sherry, Brett and Shanon). So needless to say someone had to be a stay-at-home mom for all these toddlers.
The craziest part of this is my grandmother never stopped wanting to take care of children. In 1990 my grandmother adopted the final Regan member; Mark, leaving my grandmother taking care of a 2 year old at the age of 48!
You might be thinking that 12 kids in one family is quite a lot, but she and my grandfather didn’t stop there. Before even adopting Mark, my grandparents took part in the foster program. For 25 years (until October 2003), and fostering close to 150 kids, it is needless to stay that my grandma has a soft spot for children in need. Apparently being a mom to young children from the age of 27 to finally stopping fostering at the age of 61 is where she drew the line. But she can’t stop there, hosting over 50 different UVic exchange student’s from 2003-2015.
I might be biased, but I like to think my Grandmother has a heart of gold, being the most caring person I know. Even to her her 10 grandchildren, she treats us like we deserve the world.
The one question I had to ask was; why would you commit so much of your life to taking care of the youth? Her response was simple: “All these kids needed a home, and they just kept coming through the door!” And I think that says it all.
Here are a few pictures of my grandmother Cathy for reference!
Riley
