By Thea Jarvis

(Third in a Series)

Dorothy Miller has been taking care of children for as long as she can remember.

The adoptive mother of 10 handicapped youngsters remembers growing up in Philadelphia as the youngest of four children. After her father died when she was only two years old, everyone in the Miller family had to pitch in and pull his own weight. Dorothy’s eventual baby-sitting kept her active and independent.

“I remember a lot from taking care of those children,” she says now, adding that her early charges included an autistic child and a Down’s Syndrome baby.

The road from teenage baby sitter to single mother of 10 very special children wasn’t an easy one, but Dorothy managed to set out on her journey with a single-mindedness and faith that is a strength to those who have known her over the years.

After high school, she entered the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, whose motherhouse is in Yardley, Pennsylvania. Interestingly, Mother D’Youville, the founder of the order, began her own work with the poor and handicapped. She may not have known it then, but Dorothy was to follow closely in Mother D’Youville’s footsteps.

In the 1960’s, Christ the King and Immaculate Heart of Mary schools were staffed by the Grey Nuns and Dorothy was sent south to teach. For three years she taught first grade at the cathedral school and loved every minute of it.

Earlier, she had changed her undergraduate major at D’Youville College in Buffalo to psychology when physical problems threatened her career plans. Originally destined for a spot in a college math classroom, Dorothy learned that her partial deafness would eventually restrict any teaching she might undertake.

“The doctor said I couldn’t teach in a regular classroom much longer,” she recalls, “but I knew I’d never be happy unless I could work with children.”

She pursued psychology thinking that she would at least be able to do “therapeutic type educational work,” one-on-one testing, counseling and individualized care.

By 1965, she was working towards a master’s degree in special education, attending classes at Georgia State three nights a week and teaching at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Atlanta. Her duties at IHM included after school religion classes and Dorothy gamefully took on two handicapped students who had no one else to teach them.

Andy and Mary Beth were Dorothy’s first special charges. Difficult though it is to remember, both children grew up at a time when education for the handicapped was not widely available.

“Handicapped kids didn’t go to school like they do today,” Dorothy emphasizes.

As it became apparent that Andy and Mary Beth were just the tip of the iceberg, Dorothy enlarged IHM’s program for the handicapped. News of the school spread, more children came, and not just for religious instruction. Math, reading and socialization skills were taught on Saturday mornings before religion class began at 11 o’clock.

In 1969, IHM school planned a new addition and Dorothy was told that a room for the handicapped would be available if they could raise the funds to pay for it. In 30 days, they managed to have $35,000 in hand and the Elaine Clark Center for the Growth and Development of Exceptional Children, Inc. was born, named after a student who had died in a tragic car accident.

“I didn’t want the word ‘retarded’ in there because I wanted it to serve the needs of any child who had no other place to go,” Dorothy recounts.

The personal risks she took were substantial.

“I was the laughing stock of the city,” she says honestly but without rancor. Teaching the alphabet, reading, adding, and subtracting to handicapped children was a new and untried idea.

“It was difficult to be basically unaccepted for what I was doing,” Dorothy admits, but “I never had a struggle with it – not now, either.”

Within her religious community, her work was viewed as “something completely new and different.” Eventually, she found “I wasn’t being fair to either thing (the children or the order)” and decided to take a two-year leave of absence. She left the community officially in 1972.

Meanwhile, the work continued. The school at IHM grew, enrollment increased and, Dorothy recalls, “We were bulging at the walls.” The center moved to various locations around metro Atlanta to accommodate the children, including the Georgia Retardation Center, Morningside Presbyterian Church, the Laura Haygood School and its final and current home on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

Dorothy saw the children, who by now ranged “all the way from the most profoundly mentally and physically handicapped to those who just had physical handicaps,” settled in their new home and remained with the center until 1977.

The daily program she had developed now included occupational and vocational therapy, student transportation and infant day care.

But her work was really just beginning.

As Dorothy had become more and more familiar with the plight of the handicapped, she realized that some were at a greater disadvantage than others because of basic non-acceptance.

Shawnee was such a child. At four years, she weighed 16 pounds and had a severe and unusual type of cerebral palsy that causes excessive and rapid movements.

Although the county wanted custody of Shawnee, they could find no foster home willing to take her because of her extensive disabilities. Dorothy offered her own home to Shawnee in 1974 and began her quiet, but not uneventful march toward motherhood.

Tonya came to Dorothy at the age of seven, suffering from abuse and neglect, “so wild the county couldn’t find a home for her,” Dorothy says. Tonya’s natural sister, Carrie Ann, joined Tonya in 1978 at the age of four. She had been in a foster home but was not thriving. Like Tonya, her hyperactivity and significant brain damage with motor, speech and language disabilities made her difficult to manage.

That same year, Tonya and Carrie Ann’s natural brother, Jody, arrived. Just a year older than Carrie, Jody had suffered the same type of brain damage from abuse and neglect and was extremely hyperactive.

In 1979, Aaron joined the family. Born with spina bifida, his disability was the cause of numerous other physical problems that resulted in care and placement difficulties in institutions and foster homes.

Two years later, Dorothy welcomed Philip, who suffers from Moebius Syndrome, which causes a paralysis of one side of his face similar to Bell’s Palsy. Chris, a Down’s Syndrome child with a severe hearing loss, came shortly afterwards. He had been attending an out-of-state school but was doing poorly. Peter – Jody, Carrie Ann and Tony’s natural brother – who had extensive learning disabilities, joined the group in 1982.

Last February, Dorothy celebrated a formal end to the often difficult and harrowing adoption procedures she had undertaken on behalf of all eight children with a special Mass at Holy Cross Church in Chamblee. The children were baptized into the faith of the Catholic Church and the older ones received first Eucharist.

Many who know Dorothy and her children thought the “eight is enough” principle would apply. But Dorothy still cherished hope of adopting a handicapped infant. This summer, she was pleased to find her arms full of a tiny bundle of cuddle named Mary Beth, a Down Syndrome baby who was the answer to her dreams.

Mary Beth was not to be the last. Andy, a victim of cerebral neuromuscular degenerative disease, had often stayed with Dorothy for weekends to give his foster parents some time to themselves. Confined to a wheelchair, Andy always felt at home with the Millers, and Dorothy’s decision to adopt him made her family complete.

When she remembers that her first two handicapped students at Immaculate Heart of Mary School bear the same names as the last two adopted members of her family, Dorothy admits she might have come full circle. “It must be over,” she says with a twinkle in her eye that makes you wonder if she really means it.

This family of Millers has gained some notoriety over the years, especially because Dorothy, now 42, is a single mother who has taken on such heavy responsibilities. Some have seen them on television or read about them in local papers. But Dorothy is in no way a publicity seeker.

“I’d never do it just for myself,” she stresses. What she seeks, through such exposure, is the opportunity for others to see the joy and happiness that the handicapped bring to a home, the enormous potential that such individuals have for learning, growth and love.

The life she has chosen is not an easy one, though it is certainly full of genuine Christian joy. Caring for 10 children who range in age from three months to 16 years, all with varying degrees of physical, mental and emotional handicaps, is a challenge to anyone, and Dorothy readily admits that she is no superwoman.

Her day begins around 6 a.m. when she and Mary Beth share some time with an early bottle. The other children are up shortly afterwards, getting ready for school and the day ahead.

Dorothy must, of course, perform very basic helping tasks for her three children whose movements are limited by braces or wheelchairs. Those who are more independent help out with personal care and household chores as far as they are able. Dorothy encourages independence, self-discipline and cooperation within her family, and careful planning – basically anticipating “what comes next” – makes it all come together.

During the week, she often makes trips to the various physicians who care for her children. Her intensive schedule does not allow time for a full-time job, but she hopes to do some free-lance writing, especially on the subject of the handicapped, in the near future.

Dorothy is, in effect, a handicapped person herself. Rheumatoid arthritis often plagues her with pain and limits her movement. Problems with her vision have required cataract operations. And her hearing loss in both ears allows her to empathize with those for whom sounds are muffled or non-existent.

She sees clearly God’s hand in her life and the somewhat unusual road she has traveled.

Her children are growing and thriving – all but Mary Beth are settled in schools that allow them to develop to their highest potential. Anyone who runs into them at Mass or a local store realizes that have been carefully integrated into a family where children are accepted for who they are, not for what they can do or not do

“I feel I’ve reached the point where I wanted to be,” Dorothy says peacefully. Her years of worrying that adoptions would fall through or permission would not be granted are basically over. Her family is hers to nurture and love.

She admits to having no master plan when she first began her work with the handicapped, but looking back, says that “if I had planned my life, it wouldn’t be any different than it is now.”