THIS MOM TAKES IN FOSTER KIDS.

Byline: Cynthia Teed Daily News Staff Writer

At 63, Marilyn Chase can stand down stubborn teen-agers twice her size, cook meals for 12 from scratch and convince abandoned children that she loves them.

She has days when she puts out the fires her young wards spark in her own back yard, confiscates their Satanic artwork in her push to get them back on track.

And after her chores are finished with the dozens of foster children she's taken in over the years, she effortlessly loads her disabled daughter, Wendy, and her wheelchair into a huge Lincoln Towncar and roars off to fix dinner for Robert, her husband of 44 years, and their kids.

In these, and a few other things, Marilyn Chase differs from most moms.

For starters, over the past 30 years Chase has reared six daughters - two of them adopted - while offering foster care to more than 55 children - many of them kids that nobody else would take.

``Actually, Marilyn Chase - by the way, one terrific lady - took care of many more than 55 children,'' said Neil Rincover, spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services. ``I checked our records for only the last 10 years, but she has a history and has been fostering for more than the past 20.''

Chase is an unsung hero, credited by those in the system who know of wayward children she has turned around, those kids who frequently returned to stay with her.

She's the one who takes the kids turned away by other foster parents, said Maria Gordillo, social director of the Santa Clarita Valley Boys & Girls Club. Gordillo often sees Chase bring her foster children to the club, and always knows this special mom has to give up one of her ``kids.''

``I could tell when one was leaving, she would look so sad,'' Gordillo said. ``But then a new one would come and then she would perk up. I really think she's a special kind of person.''

Now into their 60s, Chase and her husband, an engineer with Lockheed Martin, accepted only female foster children when their own girls lived at home.

``Friends used to ask me if I worried that some of the hard-core kids would corrupt my own, but that never happened,'' she said. ``If anything, my kids influenced the others to straighten up and fly right.''

Most of the time, everyone got along as the Chases tried to meld the foster children into their family activities by eating dinner together at the table instead of on trays in front of television, keeping to a schedule with limited privileges and a few chores.

And the Chase family allowed no TV.

``I am so grateful for the Boys & Girls Club, my church and school activities,'' she said.

To establish a sense of routine, the Chases would take the foster children to school activities their own children attended at Newhall Elementary, Placerita Junior High and then Hart High School.

And regular church attendance was required for everyone in the family, rain or shine.

``She's brought a lot of foster children to Sunday school with her family over the past 15 years,'' said Vernadene Zigtema, secretary at First Presbyterian Church of Newhall. Everyone seemed to get along and work together as a family, she said.

Indeed, the Chases tried to give the children all the love they could, but admit there were some failures.

``I lost a few, some would run away,'' Chase said. ``It's impossible to restrain them and some have lived on the streets for so long that they have no fear.''

When they would slip out the back windows, Chase would follow and bring them back. For those who flew the coop into the San Fernando Valley, she called the authorities.

Many came from severely broken homes and showed the scars, both physical and emotional, received from their abusers.

``We saw everything from cigarette burns, beatings to sexual abuse - usually from stepdads,'' Chase said. ``Most of the children throw raging fits and eventually say they are angry with the parents who abandoned them, but they take it out on us.''

For that Chase only says that she tried to encourage her own kids to show friendship to the foster children and to help her teach each one to live in a successful family.

``I had good children and I was confident that our family could benefit these damaged children,'' she said. ``And I never could turn away one - no matter how emotionally injured - from my door stop.''

In fact, the Chases have turned many foster child relationships into lifelong friendships.

``We still hear from many of our former foster children,'' she said. ``They call me and my grown children and ask how we are doing, and they ask especially about my daughter, Wendy Lee.''

Chase found an unlikely helper in her own disabled daughter - one so helpless, only knowing how to feed herself.

``I think they respond to Wendy because she offers them unconditional love,'' Chase said. ``I always try to keep positive feelings going with the entire family and encourage children rather than criticize them. I believe discipline, fairness and schedules work with these children, but love, above all, always works the best.''

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PHOTO Marilyn Chase credits her disabled daughter, Wendy Lee, 25, for unconditional love.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News