VERNA KEPT UNTOLD HOMELESS GOING.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
A lot of people living in the shadows of the Northeast San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. are mourning MOURNING. This word has several significations. 1. It is the apparel worn at funerals, and for a time afterwards, in order to manifest grief for the death of some one, and to honor his memory. 2. The expenses paid for such apparel. 2. Verna Mae Porter, who died last Sunday Sunday: see Sabbath; week. at age 86. For the last 30 years, this remarkable woman - called mom (1) (Messaging-Oriented Middleware) See messaging middleware. (2) (Microsoft Operations Manager) Software that monitors and captures system and application events throughout the network. by the homeless - got up at 5 a.m. to cook them breakfast in the kitchen of the Sepulveda Sepúlveda is a name of families of Spanish descent. The Sepúlveda family was prominent in the early days of Los Angeles, California and Orange County, and many features of the area are named for those families. Methodist Church in North Hills. Some mornings, only 10 people would show up. More often than not, it would be 100. Verna Mae didn't did·n't Contraction of did not. didn't did not didn't do care. There was always enough food and room at her breakfast table for everyone. ``Mom knew if they had a hot breakfast, they could make it the rest of the day,'' says her daughter, Judi Brady. ``It was the way she was raised. She was passionate about feeding the poor. She never turned her back on anyone.'' She couldn't, Verna Mae would tell her children growing up. Her parents had taught her too well. They were called hobos back then, during the Great Depression. Twelve-year-old Verna Mae saw them hanging out on the street corners and sleeping in the fields behind her dad's Van Nuys chicken farm on Roscoe Boulevard. They weren't bad people, her parents told her. They just needed a little help until the hard times were over and they could get back on their feet. So James and Gladys Frachtling cooked chicken dinners for the hobos and packed up oranges from their grove to take with them. Verna Mae watched and learned. And when the hobos of the 1930s became the homeless in the `70s, she was ready to carry on the family legacy. She went to the pastor of her church - the church her parents helped build - and told him she was beginning to see an awful lot of people facing hard times in the shadows. ``She said she wanted to start a soup kitchen to feed them, and that's exactly what she did,'' said the Rev. Richman Johnson, who was pastor of the church from 1968-75. ``If anything had to be done, you could always count on Verna to do it. She was a strong-willed, dedicated woman who fed thousands of homeless people over the years, and got them through some pretty hard times in their lives.'' When soup wasn't enough, Verna started cooking them breakfast because her mother always said you needed a good breakfast to get through the day. ``She would get upset when people called the homeless undesirables,'' said Dan Rathburn, kitchen coordinator at Knollwood Methodist Church, who took over for Verna Mae last year when she became too ill to continue. ``There was a lot of poverty out there, people falling on hard times, just like during the Great Depression. They needed help, not people turning their backs on them. ``Verna never turned her back on anyone.'' Most of the stories came to the family second-hand from church members, like Al Roth, who worked in the kitchen with Verna Mae for 13 years. There was the Vietnam vet vet common idiomatic version of veterinarian. who would sit with Verna for hours after breakfast was over, telling mom how his life was falling apart. She convinced him to reunite re·u·nite tr. & intr.v. re·u·nit·ed, re·u·nit·ing, re·u·nites To bring or come together again. reunite Verb [-niting, -nited with his family on the East Coast. Every Christmas in the mail there was a card thanking her. There was the homeless man who made an audio tape for Verna Mae's kids, telling them how their mom had gotten him back on his feet. How when everyone else turned their back on him, their mother welcomed him to the breakfast table with open arms. ``She redeemed re·deem tr.v. re·deemed, re·deem·ing, re·deems 1. To recover ownership of by paying a specified sum. 2. To pay off (a promissory note, for example). 3. a lot of people,'' Roth said Wednesday. ``They would come back years later and tell the victory stories about how Verna was the major factor in restoring their lives. ``They all called her mom,'' Roth, 73, said. ``We all did.'' And now mom is gone, and a lot of people living in the shadows who sat at her breakfast table are crying. A funeral service funeral service n → misa de cuerpo presente funeral service n → service m funèbre funeral service funeral n for Verna Mae will be held at 10 a.m., Saturday at the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery The Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery is located at 22601 Lassen Street, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California. It has been used as a cemetery since 1924, and there was an Indian graveyard next to the cemetery before a fire destryed the old wooden crosses that marked the site. Chapel, 22601 Lassen St., Chatsworth. Memorial donations can be made to the breakfast program at Sepulveda Methodist Church, 15435 Rayen St., North Hills 91343. Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Verna Mae Porter rose at 5 a.m. for 30 years to make a hot breakfast for those who needed it. Although Porter is gone, the program will continue. David Sprague/Staff Photographer |
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