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20
years
of making dreams come true
Rickey Gadson, top, and his family, Maurice,
14, left, Veronica, 12, center, and Roderick,7.
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Published Sunday, November 23,
2003, in the San Jose Mercury News
Family
ties still tight
By
Jack Fischer
in the years since he was featured
in the Wish Book, Ricky Gadson gradually has traded trials of tragedy
for the challenges of raising a growing family.
It was the summer of 1996, when Ricky's joy at the birth of his
new son -- the family's sixth child -- turned to grief when complications
from delivery left his wife in a prolonged coma.
As the family waited and prayed, Ricky juggled the demands of a
newborn and five other children with a job on a night shift at Valley
Medical Center. Wish Book readers kicked in coats and toys for that
first Christmas, as well as babysitting and cleaning help.
Despite the family's prayers, Ricky's wife, Mary, died of massive
infection two years later in the fall of 1998.
Since then, Ricky has persevered, providing a stable home life
for the kids: same house, same job -- even the same old night shift.
``It's better,'' Ricky says. ``It gives me more time with them.''
Although no more for sleep, he admits.
Those kids are big now. The three oldest, grown and out on their
own. Of those still at home, Maurice is a freshman at Oak Grove
High School interested in sports; Veronica is a basketball-playing
seventh-grader at Sylvandale Middle School; and young Roderick is
a second-grader at Seven Trees Elementary School, where he's a born
extrovert.
Despite the stability, things are about to change for Ricky.
A co-worker, Olive, from Sierra Leone, recently told him yes, and
is now his fiancee.
“Wish Book: Legacy of Giving”
Photography by Richard Koci Hernandez.
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