Forty-year-old Chicago native Ella Thomas has always believed in paying it forward and she credits her success to the case workers at the Department of Children and Family Services ( DCFS ) who gave her a chance at a better life. Thomas is not only a product of DCFS she also works for them and became a foster/adoptive mother herself.
Thomas came to DCFS as a newborn and she was immediately placed in Viola Maddox's home. When Maddox died two years later her daughter Aretha Nichols took Thomas in and raised her from that point on. "When I was 10 years old, she adopted me [Nichols was separated from her husband way before Thomas was born] so my foster sister/mom [who was born in 1923] became my adoptive mother. She had two children of her own so I have 61- and 68-year-old sisters," said Thomas. Nichols later decided to foster other children so Thomas would have playmates as she grew up.
"To this very day, people say I act like an older lady and have the ways of an older person because I was brought up by an older lady," said Thomas. "My mom was old school in terms of her ideas on raising a child so she was hard on me but as I got older myself I began to understand why I was raised the way I was raised. For example, when the street lights went on I had to be on our porch."
Thomas knew she was a lesbian at an early age and her first crush was her fourth-grade teacher. Her mom knew before she died that Thomas was a lesbian. "She didn't react positively, however, she didn't turn her back on me or judge me but we only talked about it once. She continued to love me after that and met two of the women I was dating over the course of time but she wanted me to get married to a man and then have a child. I did get married to a man when I was 21 but we didn't have any children together. We've been separated for quite some time and I'm currently in the process of getting a divorce," said Thomas. "I'm still waiting to find my queen."
Working for DCFS has been a lifelong dream for Thomas. "I had some very good case workers and they were the reason why I wanted to work for DCFS. I wanted to do everything I could to help children like myself and if I could help one child that was in the same situation that would make me happy ," said Thomas.
Thomas did seek out her birth mom Louella when she was 18 years old but was told that she was deceased. People encouraged her to keep looking though because there wasn't definitive proof that her birth mom was dead. When she was 21 she went out and looked again, this time with the help of a man named Michael Egan. She met her birth mom that year at the halfway house where she was staying, however, that wasn't their first encounter.
Two years earlier, Thomas bought a car so she could drive her now elderly mom around. One day she Thomas was at the mall with her mom when a pan-handler came up to her car looking for money. "At the time I did not know that she [the pan-handler] was my biological mom but when I met her officially when I was 21 the resemblance between the two of us became clear to me. One of the women working at the half-way house told me that Louella was adamant that she would find me and no one believed her because of her mental illness," said Thomas. Thomas is still in contact with her birth mom and visits her at the long-term facility where she resides.
"My biological mom was diagnosed as schizophrenic and bi-polar when she was 13 and she had me when she was 23. She was in a mental institution when I was born and due to the different drugs I had inside my system when I was born I stayed in the hospital for three weeks even though my biological mom was already discharged from the hospital. I was a sickly baby and weighed just over a pound when I was born," said Thomas. "What I was told from my adoptive mom when they called my biological mom to come back and get me when I was able to be released from the hospital she never showed up. The hospital contacted DCFS and that's how I became a part of the system."
She decided to become a foster mother when she was 22 because she wanted to give other children the same great experience she had growing up in a foster home. "I wanted to give a child love just like I was loved by my adoptive mom," said Thomas.
Over the years, Thomas has fostered many children and in a twist of fate Thomas took in one of her mom's foster sons Brandon ( who was 13 at the time ) in 2000 when her mom died from leukemia. "I had already been fostering Tianna and another girl before this and had to get a three bedroom apartment so I could become Brandon's foster mom," said Thomas.
"Of all the foster children I had, Tianna is the one I decided to adopt. I'll never forget the day when the caseworker put two-month old Tianna in my arms. I just knew she was my daughter. There was just something special about her and I felt the connection with her immediately. It was love at first sight."
As a child, Tianna was aware that her mom dated women and Thomas did come out to Tianna when she was old enough to understand. When Tianna was 12 she told her mom that she also was a lesbian. Tianna knew she was a lesbian when she was in kindergarten. "When she told me I said to her that I just wanted her to be happy which was different than my mom's reaction," said Thomas. "I've always encouraged Tianna to be open with me and express her opinions so there wasn't a reason why she couldn't tell me. Tianna is very open with her sexuality."
Now a 17-year-old senior honor-roll student at John Hope College Prep High School, Tianna plans on being a lawyer or a doctor. As for college, Tianna has her eyes on Jackson State University in Mississippi.
Tianna's played basketball since fifth grade and is on the varsity women's team at her high school. Last year her team won the regional championship. Her memoir essay, "The Newly Old Trend," was published in a compilation book called Filling Blank Pages and it was recently turned into a stage production at the American Blues Theater.
When asked what she would tell young people, Tianna said, "Don't let your situation or what happened to you in the past affect your future."
One thing that Thomas said is missing in her life is a Bachelors degree. She has attended college classes off and on over the years and is 26 credits away from receiving her diploma. "I plan on completing my degree but this has been delayed because last year I was in a coma for two weeks due to complications from endometrial cancer surgery and I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer so I'm fighting that as well. I just want to make sure my health is perfect before I go back to school because I've always been a great student and was on the dean's list so I want that to continue," said Thomas.
"One of my favorite phrases is 'Life is short and live life to the fullest,' and that is what I do. I'm going to continue to be me and nothing is going to get in my way."
