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She has no time for grief

Since her daughter was slain, she has cared for 11 children. “If it kills me, I’m going to make sure these kids make it,” she says.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN
Published August 20, 2006

	[Times photo: Cheri Diez]
	Francina Brown, is in the process of getting custody of her deceased granddaughter's children, from left to right: Henry Zinn, 12; Desmond Johnson, 14; Tamara Johnson, 16; Sharie Johnson, 16; Christopher Johnson, 17, and Germesha Zinn, 10.

ST. PETERSBURG — The grandmother wakes up at 4 a.m. without an alarm clock.

Francina Brown, 52, has to get the children ready for school.

All 11 of them.

Since July, they have lived together in a tiny apartment with one bedroom and one bathroom.

Brown, a full-time chef at a nursing home, already was caring for six of her grandchildren and other relatives whose parents had run into trouble with money, drugs, the law. Then on July 16, Brown’s daughter was killed, leaving behind five more children.

Brown took them in, too.

The youngest of her charges is 8 years old; the oldest, 17. One grandson is brain damaged and has mood swings.

“I’ve always been looking after them, helping them out,” Brown said. “But I never thought I’d have them permanently before I died. I never dreamed of that.”

Experience has taught Brown some tricks to keep things moving, like making sure the children bathe before they go to bed so they don’t tie up the bathroom after getting up. But mornings remain a whirlwind of kids brushing their teeth, grabbing bookbags and running out the door.

The evenings are just as hectic. Kids run in and out of the house with toys, some watch television, a few of the older ones cook.

In some ways, the day-to-day turmoil is easy to endure compared to what they’ve gone through in the past month.

Brown’s daughter Jacqueline Johnson was killed by a longtime friend, police said. Ebony Williams, 25, stabbed Johnson, 33, in the neck with a screwdriver after an argument, according to police. Williams was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder.

Two of Johnson’s six  children watched their mother bleed to death, police said.

The next day, all of Johnson’s kids packed their bags and left a roomy two-story yellow house on Preston Avenue for Brown’s yellow apartment on Newton Avenue, a small duplex with faded paint and worn brown carpet.

They are among a generation of black youths being raised by single women. According to the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau, about 22 percent of black families in 2002 consisted of single mothers raising children. That’s about four times greater than in white and Asian households.

The family portraits that cover the walls of homes like Brown’s rarely show any fathers. Just mothers, grandmothers and smiling kids.

With all those children to care for, Brown said she doesn’t ever expect to retire. After making sure the children are on their way to school, she goes to her job as a cook at the Boca Ciega Center, a nursing home. She works overtime when she can, and returns home late on many nights to help cook dinner.

“It’s just so much on her,” said her longtime friend Antoinette Cooper, 49. “I’ve never heard of nobody taking care of that many kids. She’s doing it because, well, what else can she do?”

Brown is a short woman with a smooth, young face and thick hair. She hunches over when she sits. She smiles and shrugs her way through a conversation about her life.

“We’ll be fine,” she said. “If it kills me, I’m going to make sure these kids make it.”

She grew up on a farm in Marion County, and proudly says that she “worked all my life” picking crops in the fields.

She only took breaks from work to raise three daughters and a son.

She acknowledges that her kids ran into trouble. When they did, she didn’t mind helping raise her grandchildren.
“They just had a hard time keeping things together,” she said. “I was always there when the kids needed me.”

She moved to St. Petersburg about 16 years ago and got a job at Burger King. She moved on to other cooking jobs over the years, and usually spent her money on groceries and school supplies for her grandchildren.

Money is even tighter now. Brown has about $60 in her pocket and not much in the bank. Groceries — mostly meats, cereal and canned vegetables — cost about $100 a week. The latest power bill ran up to $319, Brown said; rent is $550. She brings home about $1,800 a month.

Six of the children sleep in the bunk beds in the bedroom; the rest sleep on a futon or the floor. Their shoes are stacked neatly in a corner of the living room, and their clothes lie in big laundry baskets that line a small hallway to the bedroom.

The close quarters can get aggravating. Tamara Johnson, 16, had her own room once. Now she sleeps in the living room.

“I miss not having my own room,” she said. “I could go in there and be alone.”

But Tamara, who is six months pregnant, said she can’t imagine living away from her family. They cook together and play together.

Sometimes, they’ll listen to music and dance together. The kids favor Mary J. Blige, and Brown is partial to Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye.

But Tamara says she can also see the hurt in her grandmother’s eyes, especially when she thinks about the daughter she lost.

“Her and my mom were best friends,” Tamara said. “It’s hard for her sometimes at night. I can see it in her face.”

Before her grandchildren moved in, Brown used her savings to buy things for herself, like clothes or a big screen television. She loves watching the Miami Dolphins and the San Francisco 49ers.

Now, she shops for the kids.

Is it hard?

“It’s all hard,” she said. “But I’m not begging nobody for nothing.”

Times researcher Carolyn Edds and Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8472.

[Last modified August 20, 2006, 22:49:23]