Loving child care was Everett woman’s mission

The last time I saw my friend Darlene Fox, the Saturday before Christmas, I held her hand and thanked her for raising my children.

It was a hard, hard moment. It was not an overstatement. Ask my kids, all three, they’ll say they grew up “at Darlene’s.” She took care of them from infancy, and they loved her.

The first time I saw this tall, blonde, unforgettable woman was a fall day in 1983. I was 29, a new mom out walking with my newborn daughter in a stroller. I’d been back at work a couple months after maternity leave. My husband stayed home with our baby the first few months of her life, but his schedule was soon to change. We needed full-time child care.

A sign in the window of a house on Everett’s Grand Avenue answered our need — Bayview Child Care. I rang the bell. Fox answered the door, and we were welcomed into her licensed home day-care. For more than 20 years, from 1983 until my youngest child started first grade in 2005, it was my children’s second home. Fox was their second mom.

Her spaghetti was better than mine, her Christmas trees prettier, her Halloween decorations spookier, her jokes funnier. My kids always said so — and I was glad to hear it.

Darlene Fox died Saturday after a heroic, decade-long struggle with breast cancer. She was 52.

“She just never stopped, not only giving to everyone else, but she never stopped fighting. She battled that for 10 and a half years,” said her son, 28-year-old Logan Fox.

Her daughter Mariah Miller, 30, now operates the child care business that Fox started in 1978 as Darlene’s Daycare.

“She was a free spirit. She was outgoing and very, very funny. You could be in the worst mood in the world, she’d do something goofy — have music going, dance, something to lighten the mood,” Miller said.

It was 1986 when Carol Go­garty returned to work as a nurse after the birth of her daughter, Sarah. “I wanted to make sure she was going to be in an environment that was home-like. It was an answer to prayer,” Gogarty said of Fox’s day-care home.

“We grew to love their family so much, and to be considered part of their family. I really felt in some ways that Darlene and I co-parented,” said Gogarty, whose daughter is now a 21-year-old student at Oklahoma Christian University.

“Darlene built a sense of responsibility into Sarah,” Gogar­ty said. “Sarah is an only child, she didn’t have that brother or sister. She kind of got that (need) met vicariously.”

As a nurse, Carol Gogarty cared for Fox in November when she was hospitalized at Providence Everett Medical Center. “I was grateful to be able to do that. Now, her spirit lives on,” she said.

Jeanne Murray, whose three children were cared for by Fox, said that long after their day-care years were past, her kids wanted to visit Fox. “We went back every year on Halloween,” Murray said. “It always felt like a friendship. She was beautiful.”

The daughter of immigrants from a Swedish-speaking area of Finland, Fox often spoke Swedish, giving kids in her care an experience of another culture.

Betty Morrow knew Fox through her involvement in the Assistance League of Everett. Through its Operation School Bell, the philanthropic organization provides school clothes to needy children in Snoho­mish County.

“Darlene joined in 1987. She did a lot of committee work and chaired the fundraising part of our group many times,” Morrow said. “Her exuberance and enthusiasm were just unmatched. She was a wonderful woman.” Morrow met Fox while teaching early childhood education at Everett Community College. “She went through that whole program. She was such a pretty girl, tall and willowy with a sunshine smile,” Morrow said.

Her children said Fox welcomed their friends as though they were her own. “You can’t imagine how many people called her a second mom,” Logan Fox said. “She had an open-door policy,” Miller agreed. “Many of our friends, she cooked them dinner every night. That’s just how it was at our house.”

Fox’s children plan to walk in her name in the 2008 Breast Cancer 3-Day, a 60-mile walk and fundraising event for cancer prevention and research.

Pam Herzog’s friendship with Fox blossomed as their children grew up together. Phil Fox, Darlene’s husband, for years worked nights, and Herzog spent many hours with her friend.

“She was amazing person,” said Herzog, who saw how difficult it was for her friend to stop caring for children as her illness progressed.

“That was the hardest thing, to give that up. It was her mission. To be able to trust someone to raise your children while you’re working — man, alive,” Herzog said. “Holidays were celebrated, and ethics were taught — how to treat people, diversity, how to be respectful. It was a happy place.

“She had a lot of challenges the last couple years, but was she ever a life force — and such fun,” Herzog said.

A celebration of life for Darlene Fox will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Everett’s Trinity Lutheran Church, 2324 Lombard Ave. Friends are invited to bring cards sharing their memories.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.