'The Hamilton Baby Sitter'

Second Career in Sitting Spans Quarter Century

By Bill Snead

Monday, November 26, 2007

Edie Rokus is sitting in her Purcellville dining room sorting through dozens of photographs that are scattered across her table. She picks them up one at a time, looking at them closely before returning them to the table.

Most are snapshots that show children being children, playing with dolls, dressed for Halloween or riding a toy tractor. Others that are more formal show youngsters with combed hair, sitting up straight, posing for their family Christmas card. Each brings a smile to Edie's face. Many stir up memories.

"Oh, look at these beautiful girls," an excited Edie said while holding a photo of three blond girls, pointing to the eldest.

"She's my first little girl ... lived in Round Hill, just two-and-a-half when I got her," Edie said. "I baby-sat five days a week ... today she's 26 and a nurse, she's precious, works in Harrisonburg … her name is Lou ... I cried for a month when they moved to Harrisonburg."

Edie's face lights up when she says she's been invited to her sister's wedding and the bride's parents will be coming by to pick her up.

"That's Julie, wonderful family, the Richies. Such nice people," she said softly, returning to her piles of memories.

'They Were All Good Kids'

Edie is 88. She arrived in Loudoun County 26 years ago, settling in Hamilton just a couple of miles up the road from Purcellville. She spent her first 62 years in Mildred, Pa., her birthplace and hometown.

Her parents emigrated from Italy. Her father, Nazareno Chickerilli, worked in Pennsylvania coal mines for 26 years before opening Chick's Place, which was a bar and restaurant. His wife, Maria, was the cook.

"Some of our regular customers would just walk back in the kitchen to see what my mother was going to serve that day," Edie said. "Everybody loved my parents."

After high school, Edie became a seamstress in a clothing mill. Jobs were scarce and "even the local boys got jobs sewing."

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Loudoun's Baby Sitter

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During her 25 years of baby-sitting, Edie Rokus, 88, has been referred to as Loudoun County's Baby Sitter or The Hamilton Baby Sitter. (Bill Snead)

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Edie Rokus, 88, has been referred to as Loudoun County's Baby Sitter or The Hamilton Baby Sitter, a name given to her after baby-sitting for 25 years in the Hamilton area. Today, three years after having a small stroke that curtailed her labor of love, she lives in Purcellville and keeps in touch with many of her former "children" and their families. (Bill Snead)

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Edie Rokus, 88, reminices over photographs of many of her "children," former clients during her 25 years of baby-sitting in Loudoun County. (Bill Snead)

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Edie Rokus, 88, of Purcellville sifts through photographs of many of her "children" she cared for during her 25-year career as a baby sitter in Loudoun County. Rokus, known as the Hamilton Baby Sitter, cared for many of the children in the photographs for most of their adolescent life. (Bill Snead)

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During her 25 years of baby-sitting, Edie Rokus, 88, has been referred to as Loudoun County's Baby Sitter or The Hamilton Baby Sitter. Today, three years after having a small stroke that curtailed her labor of love, she lives in Purcellville. (Bill Snead)

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Edie Rokus looks at photographs of her "children" she cared for as Hamilton's Baby Sitter during the 25 years she watched children in the Loudoun area. (Bill Snead)

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During her 25 years of baby-sitting, Edie Rokus, 88, has been referred to as Loudoun County's Baby Sitter or The Hamilton Baby Sitter. That's because she touched the lives of so many children, parents and grandparents during the years she cared for children. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. Rokus was taken on vacations with families to care for the children. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. Here, some of Rokus's "children" pose at Halloween in their costumes. (Bill Snead)

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Edie in the red sweater, became part of many of the families she would baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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Kara and Garrett Swankowski on a toy tractor when their baby sitter was Edie Rokus. Today, Kara is 17. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. Edie is at the far left at a birthday celebration for one of her "children" she cared for during her 25 year career as a baby sitter. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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Lou Ritchie, left, was the first child Edie baby-sat for when her family lived in Round Hill. They now live in Harrisonburg. "I cried for a month after they left," Edie remembered. (Bill Snead)

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Edie with Ryan Foster, who is now 20 years old and in college. She began caring for Ryan when he was six weeks old. Today they're best friends. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. Rokus was asked by many of the families she baby-sat for to join them for holiday celebrations and birthdays. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit for. (Bill Snead)

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After spending many years of his life in Pennsylvania coal mines, Edie Rokus' father, Nazareno Chickerilli, opened a bar and restaurant called Chick's Place in Mildred, Pa. (Bill Snead)

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Edie Rokus lived in her hometown of Mildred, Pa., for 62 years. For all of her adult years there she worked in three factories as a seamstress. One of them produced these pajamas. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of children she used to baby-sit. While most of her photographs are of children playing, this photo of Ashley and Brittany Allen is more formal. (Bill Snead)

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A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of Jessica, Ryan and Erin Foster. (Bill Snead)

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Edie Rokus, center, first met Tammy Swankowski, left, when she was a teenager and Rokus was working for her father doing men's clothing alterations. Rokus also attended Tammy's wedding. Rokus began baby-sitting Kara, right when she was an infant. (Bill Snead)

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Edie Rokus, center, first met Tammy Swankowski, right, when she was a teenager. Rokus began baby-sitting Kara, 17, left, when she was an infant. Rokus and the Swankowskis have been getting together for dinners and other occasions for years. (Bill Snead)

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"I worked for years in Weldon's Pajama Factory sewing collars on pajama tops," she recalled. "Weldon Pajamas were high quality and most of them were shipped to big cities like New York."

Edie married in 1939 and 28 years later was widowed.

When the pajama factory moved to South America she moved to a blouse factory. When that closed, she sewed leather in the Endicott Johnson shoe factory.

She retired from assembly-line sewing in 1982 and soon after moved to Hamilton.

She got a job making alterations at Dick Duvall's Men's Clothiers in Purcellville. She spent her weekends and evenings as a baby sitter, caring for children in their homes.

As word spread, parents -- lots of them -- began bringing children to her home. It became her full-time job.

"Those kids kept me alive," she said. "I loved each and every one of them, God bless them, but we had laws. Oh yes, we had to have laws."

Law No. 1: You might be as tall as your 4-foot-9-inch baby sitter, but don't ever talk back.

One time, she was baby-sitting children in their parents' home holding a baby in her arms. The baby's older sister answered Edie by sticking out her tongue and "answered me back," Edie said.

Photo: Bill Snead

Edie Rokus lived in her hometown of Mildred, Pa., for 62 years. For all of her adult years there she worked in three factories as a seamstress. One of them produced these pajamas.

"I smacked her with two fingers and told her never to do that again." Edie then sent the girl downstairs to "tell your parents what I did to you."

The following week, there was a repeat performance.

"Her father flew into the room, pulled her little jeans down, whacked her on the hind end and said 'young lady, you'll never talk to Edie or anybody else like that."

Looking serious and leaning forward in her chair, Edie said, "and did she ever do that again? No, she didn't. No."

"No, no" was followed by a long "hummmmm" from a Miss Edie who, leaning back in her rocker, appeared to be savoring that moment.

She loves telling the story about her trip to the grocery store with five of "her children."

When she and her troops arrived at the store she put the two smaller children in a shopping cart and told the three on foot "to walk in front of me, not behind me, and do not touch a thing."

In the store one of the boys said, "Mommy lets me play with the toys here."

"'No,' I said, 'you're not at home. Edie's the boss here.'" She told them if they were good they'd get a treat when they got home, and if not, "you'll get nothing."

When Edie and her little group got to the checkout counter, the cashier said, "you're doing a great job, grandma."

She told him she wasn't grandma. She was the baby sitter.

"That man said we should get some mothers in here to show them how to run things," she said proudly. "I loved them but they had to listen to me. I had laws, and after they knew them, well, they were all good kids, you know."

Following 'Laws' and Loving to Pieces

Edie first met Tammy Swankowski when she was a teenager and Edie was working in her father's clothing store.

Photo: Bill Snead

Edie Rokus, center, first met Tammy Swankowski, right, when she was a teenager. Rokus began baby-sitting Kara, 17, left, when she was an infant. Rokus and the Swankowskis have been getting together for dinners and other occasions for years.

"With kids, she has an unbelievable ability to love them to pieces but she expects them to mind," Swankowski said.

Edie attended Tammy's wedding. They go way back.

"She didn't put away her Waterford Crystal or her plants. Those kids just knew," Swankowski said. "The thing Edie gives is love, not stuff, and she's the most unselfish person I know."

Later, Edie was asked about the Swankowski family.

"Oh my, my yes, I got their daughter, Kara, when she was a month old. Oh, she was the sweetest, sweetest child (Edie nicknamed her "peaches and cream") and then later her brother, Garrett, came along. They're a fabulous family."

At one time, Edie said, she had 15 children coming and going from her Hamilton home.

"The school bus would stop at my door," Edie said. "The principal and I were good friends and he'd call me if the bus was going to be late because he knew I'd be waiting on my front porch."

She sometimes substituted as a grandparent for her "children" on Hamilton Elementary's grandparents day.

But, all didn't always go according to the "laws."

"I told the kids that if they busted anything at my house they had to pay for it," she said.

A boy "who knew better" threw a stone and put a hole through one of Edie's windows. "I said, 'do you know what you've done' and the kid said, 'that's OK, my father will pay for it.'" When the father arrived he told Edie to have it repaired and to send him the bill.

"Instead of correcting him, (telling him) you don't do those things," Edie said. "And you wonder why kids are like they are ... no, no, you don't do those things," she said, wagging a finger.

'The Hamilton baby sitter?'

Photo: Bill Snead

A photograph among those in Edie Rokus' collection of Jessica, Ryan and Erin Foster.

When Edie is talking about "her children," she speaks softly in an accent that borders on Irish. When she talks about children breaking her windows and parents who should know better, her accent is pure Italian.

She lost the sight in her right eye following retina transplant surgery 14 years ago. She had a "mini-stroke" when she was 85 that brought an end to her baby-sitting career. But it hasn't stopped her from staying in touch with her former "clients."

"Edie has been part of our family for over 20 years," said Marcia Foster, who lives in Hamilton. "She's cared for our three children and first took care of my son, Ryan, when he was six weeks old."

Today, Ryan is 20 and Edie continues to cheer him on at his Sunday night hockey matches. She drops in on the Fosters regularly, "always bringing something to eat."

"She's one incredible woman," Marcia Foster said.

"Look, I've had so many families, I can't tell you," Edie said. "I went all over day and night ... worked for doctors' kids and lawyers' kids, oh let me tell you."

She's watched her kids graduate from high school and college, has taken vacations with families caring for their children and has been saddened when marriages end.

"There's so many divorced, my heart breaks, my heart aches for those kids and it's never, never easy for anyone," she said.

Edie says husbands, as a rule, were very nice to her.

"One doctor treated me like I was his mother -- gifts on birthdays -- he was good to me," she said sadly. "When his divorce happened it was like my father was leaving me, you know. I was crushed, but you know it's a bigger, different world out there now. We're past 'Leave it to Beaver.'"

Edie said if she had known she was going to care for so many children she would have kept records with all the children's names. "I remember lots of the faces, but oh my, the names," she said.

"Like the other day I had one kid looking at me in the store. He was boxing groceries," she recalled. "When she got to the cash register the boy said, 'Aren't you the Hamilton baby sitter?'"

Bill Snead can be contacted at sneadb@washpost.com.

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