Patricia Bivona, 94, mother to hundreds of foster kids

For more than 40 years, Patricia Bivona opened her home to foster children. Some stayed a few days or a few weeks. Others stayed a lifetime.

But what made Bivona care so deeply for children, particularly those who were disabled or underprivileged, is something of a family mystery.

"I really don't know where it came from," said her daughter, Carolyn James, 65, of Bay Shore. "She just loved children and always wanted to be there to help them out."

One indelible image of a foster child's life always seemed to tug at her mother's emotions, James said. "A child would come to her home, and everything in their life was carried in a black plastic garbage bag," James said. "That would just break her heart.

Patricia Bivona, who had five children of her own and who was mother to hundreds more, died April 13 of a heart illness. She was 94.

Bivona was born and raised in Brooklyn and moved to Lindenhurst with her husband, Vincent, in 1968, her family said.

The two always seemed to have foster children around, her daughter said, often from families in which the mother was unmarried or abused. "Early on, there were few laws, it seems, protecting women, especially unwed mothers and their children," James said.

The Bivonas often took children no one else would take, James said.

More than 50 years ago, a 9-week-old boy was placed in their home, and doctors did not give him much chance for survival, said James. The boy, severely disabled, stayed in Bivona's home until she turned 87. He is still alive, James said, living in an extended care facility. "Every child had value to her; every child had a future," James said.

James said her mother was a lifelong volunteer at the New York Foundling Hospital in Manhattan, which caters to children at risk. "Helping children who were suffering tremendously was a huge part of her identity and my father's," James said.

Vincent died in 1996, and Patricia Bivona lived at home until she was 91, James said. She then moved into a home in Bay Shore with James and her husband, Alfred.

In addition to Carolyn James, Bivona is survived by her sons, Anthony Bivona of Riverhead, Vincent Bivona of Lindenhurst and Richard James of Coram; a daughter, Marie Broderick of Middle Island; 14 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass was celebrated Friday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church, Lindenhurst, followed by burial at Pinelawn Memorial Park.