Couple adopts five sisters

FIVE POINTS, Ala. -- Vera Dardy had reached middle age. Her four sons were grown, and she was looking forward to going back to school to get a better job.

Then her life changed dramatically. First she started taking care of two little girls. Then three. Then four. Then five.

Now the 48-year-old grandmother and her second husband are in the process of adopting the girls -- five sisters between the ages of 2 and 7.

To Gov. Don Siegelman, the Dardys are heroes. He said the state has about 200 children awaiting adoption and most have special needs that make them harder to place, such as being in family groups, having emotional problems or being school age.

Dardy and her husband, 40-year-old Bennie Dardy, often get asked about the difficulty of adopting five children, but Vera Dardy has been impressed by how quickly Bennie, who had never had any children, has adjusted.

It shows in the way he pulls out a roll of Life Savers to comfort one of the girls when she gets a nick or gets her feelings hurt.

"He wanted this. He wanted those kids like they were his own," his wife said.

Vera and Bennie Dardy met while working at the LaFayette hospital a decade ago. Her sons from her first marriage were about grown, and the single mom had set goals for herself when the nest became empty.

But first came marriage to Bennie. Then came a chance meeting with a teen-age mother who entered the hospital to have twins, but had trouble looking after them.

The Dardys said they tried to help the teen-ager, who already had a 1-year-old child. But she kept moving from one bad relationship to another and kept having children.

Eventually, the state started removing her children.

The Dardys took two. Then three. Then four. Then five.

They're Tel'neschia Mathis, 7; twins Yasmeen and Jasmine Cammon, 6; Yakera Cammon, 4; and Erynn Avery, 2.

Vera Dardy said that initially, she was determined that her role would not go beyond that of a foster parent -- but things didn't work out like she planned. The girls were never able to return to their mother full time, and Bennie Dardy decided they should be a family. So did a judge who terminated the natural mother's parental rights.

"It seemed natural because we'd had them for so many months," said Dardy, who supports his family by working nights at a rubber plant.

Bennie Dardy, the quieter and calmer of the pair, says the key to success is patience.