Labor of love

Woman started as a volunteer, stayed 40 years

By Dmitry Kiper

He will never walk on his own," a doctor told the parents of a brain-damaged 7-year-old.

But Maria Tsacle, who works at the Janet Pomeroy Center, walked with the child every day for six months, holding him up, helping him up, trying to teach him how to walk on his own, trying to defy the doctor's enervating diagnosis. One day, when the kid's mother came to pick him up, Tsacle told him to "walk to your mom" - and the child did.

The mother instantly began to weep. When she got home, she called her husband and told him to come home right away. In disbelief, he watched his son walk toward him.

The next day, the mother told Tsacle, "We never cried so hard in our lives."

Tsacle has been working as an assistant recreation leader at the Janet Pomeroy Center - formerly known as the Recreation Center for the Handicapped - for the last 40 years.

Founded in 1952, the center provides programs and services for the developmentally disabled. It currently serves 2,000 children and adults.

Tsacle wears big-rimmed glasses and has short, ginger-colored hair. Born in St. Mary's Hospital, Tsacle is still living in the same 33rd Avenue home where she was raised by her parents and grandmother. Her grandmother did not allow English to be spoken in the house - the family is Greek - so Tsacle didn't learn English until she went to kindergarten. She later attended George Washington High School.

"Growing up, I did a lot of babysitting. I really enjoyed being with children," Tsacle said.

She was studying art at City College until a counselor suggested she go to the Recreation Center for the Handicapped, as it was then known, to see if she liked working with handicapped kids.

"I volunteered there for six months, and I cried every day when I came home.

"Some children didn't have a hand or a leg. Some would hit you or bite you," she said. "I would come home with scratches and bite marks."

The attitude some adults took toward handicapped or mentally retarded children at that time also upset her. Whenever she would take her group to a playground, adults would tell their children not to play with the handicapped children or would simply take their children and leave.

This was during the '60s, and Tsacle admits things have gotten much better. She now takes her class to movies, barbecues at Lake Merced, window shopping at Stonestown and the SF Zoo.

"They like watching the monkeys," Tsacle said.

After volunteering at the center for six months, she was offered a job.

"If you want to make this your life, you can start getting paid tomorrow," her supervisor told her. She accepted the position and has held the same job for four decades.

"Every day it got a little bit easier," she said. "I've gotten more patient with the children. I don't see their handicaps."

After she became close with some of the parents, they would ask her to babysit their child because of her temperament and experience.

She vividly recalls one girl with Downs Syndrome - she had a big tongue, swollen hands and a weak heart - whom she was asked to babysit. The girl's brother was a talented pianist, and he was to entertain the family's guests that evening with his virtuosity. The mother asked Tsacle to stay with the girl in her room and not to come out until the end of the party. The desire of the family to hide their daughter from visitors saddened Tsacle.

She also recalls a blind girl name Suzie.

"I had never worked with a blind child before," Tsacle said. "She was so remarkable."

The independence with which Suzie would move about the room or go upstairs amazed her.

"If there was a chair in front of her, she knew it. She would walk around the chair," Tsacle said.

Through the decades, she has come to know dozens of children and their families intimately.

"I'm very close to the parents. We talk a lot and they tell me, 'I trust you with my child,' which is nice to hear," Tsacle said.