Susan Braley, a Florida mother to more than 300 foster children, has died at the age of 66 from COVID-19.
Braley and her husband, Dennis Braley, both tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks ago. A resident of Davenport, Florida, died of the disease on January 20 a week ago while Dennis was staying in the hospital. Over the past twenty years, the couple, originally from Bangor, Maine, have become foster parents to a total of 309 children and then seven of their adoptive parents.
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Carianne Braley, the couple’s biological daughter, told parents TODAY that her mother started having children at 46, as she herself is. She said her mother was moving to foster care when she saw Carianne’s biological brother Craig and his husband struggling to conceive, and she always tried to keep siblings together where possible.
“My mother said, ‘We have a house and we like to give, so why not?’ Carianne said in a telephone interview.
It did not matter if a child stayed two days, two weeks, two months or two years – they were all treated well and given the love and support they lacked.
“You would walk into the house and it was always impeccable,” Carianne recalls. Her mother was the leader of the family, and her experience as a regional director in America meant she was skilled at giving children structure and an organized home. “That’s why the kids thrive because of her structure. She gave the consistency,” Carianne said.
Susan was known for taking her children with behavioral problems and giving them the support they needed to turn their lives around. She takes in a young girl with autism who comes from deplorable conditions and cannot speak. “My mother worked with Layla one by one and gave her reinforcement,” Carianne explained. “Within six months, she imposed full sentences.” Layla is now 7 and Carianne says she is thriving.
Another of the children Susan raised is eventually adopted by the principal of the school she attended.
Because of Susan’s work, she was able to provide the children she took with a good home, always decorate their rooms and give them things they had never experienced before, from a new duvet and room decorations to trips to Disney World and Sea World.
“They were financially stable,” Carianne said of her parents. “They did it not for money, but for love.”
Susan and Dennis were willing to adopt children whose parents had died or were in difficult situations. Even when she was 64, Susan did not want to adopt a child in need of a home again. “She told me, ‘It’s not like we want to be parents all over again, it’s that we have a home and stability,'” Carianne recalled.
Knowing that her mother gives nature made it even harder for Carianne to face her sudden death. She and her brother and all the children had the chance to say goodbye to Susan when they learned that her health was rapidly declining, but like so many other COVID-19 patients, Susan was only at her last moments at the hospital staff.
“She said, ‘Make sure you come to church and look after these children,'” 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 struggles with COVID-19 and to keep all the adopted children, who she says ‘siblings are children’, in their home.
“The biggest concern is making sure everything is maintained,” she said. A friend of hers started a GoFundMe campaign to help.
“She was not that grandmother who gets along,” Carianne said of her mother. “She was amazing at teaching them how to be adults – how to cook, how to clean, how to talk to people.”
When Carianne asked her mother if she was taking on too much, she always had the same answer.
“She said, ‘We’re fine. ‘
