2000: This mom raised 10 kids

Madalene sat at the top of the stairs and cried.

"My little chickees were leaving the nest," Madalene said.

Her oldest daughter, Margaret, had just married and was leaving home. The two-story house on 14th Street would never be the same. Only nine kids were left.

That was 1977, and Madalene sat on those stairs and cried when each one left. The oldest eight kids were only nine years apart, so there were wild days in the three-bedroom house. Now grown with families of their own, Madalene's kids look back with wonder.

How did she do it?

"I don't remember her sleeping," Margaret said. "When did this woman sleep?"

John, her seventh child, remembers little things. Always having clean socks. Always having breakfast. "I grew up blind to it. Now I think, how in the world did she do these things?"

Madalene did it with organization and spunk and blood that ran pure Italian and faith and love. Lots of faith. Lots and lots of love.

"It was chaotic," Margaret said. "But it was a good place to grow up. I never heard my mother complain. Not once."

Madalene and her husband, Leroy, raised 10 kids, "and not a lemon in the bunch," she said. "They care about the important things in life."

Madalene ran a house of rules.

Everybody came home after school. Maybe there was someplace to go later, but that was to be decided after dinner.

Everybody looked presentable. You didn't look scraggly going to school, and you dressed up to go to church.

Everybody cleaned their plate. Hot meals were the standard. Meat, potatoes, vegetable and salad every night.

Madalene tells young mothers, "You can rest when you die." She did laundry every day and never let it pile. "If you get behind," she said, "then you cry.

"I can't remember going through menopause. Too busy."

She never had a breakdown. Never took a Valium. Never been on Prozac. "That's saying a lot nowadays," Madalene said.

Her word was law. When Margaret turned 16, she started driving the other kids to school in one of the two family cars. But when the next oldest, Leroy, turned 16, he wasn't allowed a turn behind the wheel. "Too feisty," Madalene said.

"You can't be popular and be a parent. It worked. My best friends are my kids."

It worked. That doesn't mean it was easy.

Space was tight. Money was tighter.

"Obviously, we didn't get all the nice things," John said. "But I never felt we were doing without."

Both Madalene and her husband had good jobs. Madalene is in her 40th year as a nurse at Mercy Hospital. She worked the graveyard shift, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., so she could be home when the kids left for school and when they returned.

But add it up. Go through two gallons of milk a day and four chickens for a meal and doctor bills and school clothes for 10 kids. Money goes quick.

"I can remember borrowing $3,000 for necessities," Madalene said. "Toward the end of the month, we were scratching our head. We scrimped."

But not on things she thought important. All the boys were athletes, the girls were cheerleaders and Madalene figured her kids feeling good about themselves was worth the cost.

A family vacation was mandatory. They piled 12 strong into the Oldsmobile station wagon. "Couldn't stay in a motel, no one wanted us," Madalene said. So they camped and fished and made more memories.

And once a month the family would go out to dinner, not so Madalene could have a break but because she wanted her kids to learn how to act in public.

"She's one of the most unique people I know," John said. "She's tough, but she's soft. One thing my mom really gave us was a celebration of life. Living good and clean, but living happy."

Living by faith. Every day, Madalene would leave the house on 14th Street and go to Mass. If Mass at her parish, St. Paul the Apostle, conflicted with one of the kids' activities, Madalene made it to another service.

Mass was a haven from her hectic life. A place to go for 30 minutes, shut the door and forget about clean socks and gallons of milk and paying bills before it was time to go back to being Mom.

Madalene still makes daily Mass, and sometimes she attends Little Flower Catholic Church in the shadow of downtown Oklahoma City. She likes to take some of her 25 grandchildren to Little Flower, even though the service now is in Spanish. Madalene figures it does them good to see people who might not be as fortunate.

"We've been blessed," Madalene said. "It's been a good life. We don't have many complaints."

Most of the kids are still close by and come around often to the house on 14th Street in Del City. Madalene sometimes feels sorry for co-workers or patients who have small families. "They miss out on life." Then she remembers that her daughters have small families, too.

"That's OK," Madalene said. "Things are a little different now. We had our children at a good time."

And so this morning, a tip of the hat to the mother of not just wrestling champions Leroy, John, Pat and Mark, but the mother of Margaret, Cathy, JoAnn, Rita, Carol and Mary Ann. The mother of not just Oklahoma's most successful wrestling family, but one of its most amazing families period.

Happy Mother's Day to Madalene Smith.