From sisterly bonds to open-door moms, Southwest Las Vegas women take all paths to parenting

It takes more than biology to be a mom.

Three Southwest View readers wrote in about women who filled a maternal role for children who weren’t their own.

Sisterly love

Donna Gosnella commended her daughter, Laurie Perry.

“Although Laurie is single and has no biological children, she has been a blessing to our family time and time again,” Gosnella wrote.

She said that a few years ago, Perry’s brother-in-law died from an asthma complication, leaving three children and a young widow, Perry’s sister Danielle Guy, behind.

“Laurie stepped in immediately and offered to share her three-bedroom home with her widowed sister and three nephews, ranging in age from 4 years old to 12 years old. She helps her sister to raise the boys. She drives one of the boys to school before she goes to work. She helps with homework, attends every baseball game the boys play in and even taught them to ride a bike.”

Perry said after their father died, the kids — Jared, Alex and Carson — and their mom just couldn’t bear the thought of going back home.

“Then don’t,” she told them.

She cleared out her extra bedrooms that had been used for workout equipment and storage, and the family moved in.

“I didn’t even really have to ask,” Guy said. “She just opened her home without question to me and the boys, and that was just wonderful.”

Perry said there were a few adjustments. She had to get used to wearing modest pajamas around the house.

“The only change is the activity in my house 24/7,” she said. “Before, it was just me and my cat. Now we have a lot of company.”

“It’s been really good for me, though I do feel bad sometimes,” Guy said. “Not that she’s ever complained or anything like that. It’s just that she’s given up a lot of her own personal space and her house and time, and I’m very thankful. I’m just very grateful I have a sister who is willing to do that for me and my children.”

Guy said their younger sister, Jonna Gilmore, and her husband, Larry Gilmore Jr., have been a huge help, too. And Larry has been a strong masculine influence in the boys’ lives.

“It’s so great to have sisters who are not just family but friends,” Guy said.

The Guy children adjusted to life at their aunt’s house quickly and like to joke around about their “parents.” Once when Alex was on the phone with a friend while he was supposed to be doing homework, both mother and aunt pushed him to get off.

“I have to go,” he said. “My parents are yelling at me.”

Perry said she always thought she would have kids of her own. She was engaged to a man who was in the Marines years ago when she was “very young.”

“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “It just didn’t work out. I didn’t meet the right guy.”

Then in 2012, she had breast cancer. The medications she took to fight it ended any dreams she may have had of having her own children.

At 53, she said she realizes her sister’s kids are the closest she’s going to get. But she’s quick to point out she’s not the mom; her sister is.

“I’m just a helper. She does everything for those kids,” she said of her sister. “I’ve just helped to make things a little easier. She is really just a good mom. She is so in tune with them.”

Gosnella said when someone remarked that Perry didn’t have children, Carson, the youngest, looked astonished and said, “Yes, she does; she has us!”

Leading youth

Sylvia Rowe wrote in to applaud the efforts of Western High School English teacher Vanessa Anguiano. In addition to teaching, Anguiano advises Western’s hip-hop club and is one of the advisers for the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

“Though she does not have children of her own, she serves as a parental figure to her students and to members of the club,” Rowe said. “Vanessa has an open-door policy, and kids know that they can talk to her without judgment. For many of the LGBT kids at Western, she is a second mom. She gives them the resources they need to navigate high school life, and she is often the first person that they come out to. She also serves as a role model for all of her students because they see that a tattooed and pierced individual can be intelligent, educated and successful.”

Rowe said Anguiano loves her job and the kids at Western.

“They can be a tough bunch to work with, but she greets each day with enthusiasm and hope, and she treats each child with respect and understanding,” Rowe said.

No monkeying around

Michelle Van Holton shared memories of her mother, Grace Ophelia Zeleninsky Van Holton.

Grace always tried to be there for her daughter and son, and she was a mom to all the neighborhood kids, too, her daughter said.

“I went Western High School, and everybody used to come to my house,” Michelle Van Holton said. “We had a swimming pool. We had a pool table. We had a pingpong table, and everyone loved my mom.”

Even when Michelle was away, teens would stop by just to hang out with Grace.

When Michelle went to Mesa Community College in Arizona, Grace continued to roll out the red carpet.

“A lot of my schoolmates were from the East Coast, and they couldn’t afford to go home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Michelle said. “So everybody would load up and come to my house.”

Grace would layer the pingpong table on top of the pool table and put out a grand spread with a turkey at both ends. Most years, there were as many as eight extra mouths at the table.

Grace not only mothered her kids’ friends, she frequently stepped in to help strangers. Michelle recalls her mom’s reaction on drives home when she spotted kids congregating for an after-school fight.

“My mother always stopped the car and broke it up,” Michelle said.

Her mother never weighed more than 100 pounds except when she was pregnant, but Michelle said she wasn’t afraid.

“She would get out of the car, and she would say, ‘Break it up.’ And there would be all these kids there, many her size. As a little kid, you don’t realize how much that sticks with you. You don’t let things get out of control. You take a stand, no matter what size you are.”

Grace took a stand again when she was ostracized after her divorce. After more than 24 years of marriage, her husband bought a sports car and drove away.

Michelle said her mom struggled socially in an era when divorces weren’t common. Grace was dropped from couples-only parties, and the women she had always golfed with asked rude or snide questions until she stopped playing.

About a year after the divorce, Grace was determined to return to the course for a big tournament but not as herself.

Michelle arrived home to find her mom dying long underwear black in the sink. Grace stitched long black socks and bottle nipples to the underwear and added a bone to her hair. With a gorilla mask to cover her face, she convinced a groundskeeper at the golf course to let her in early and help her into a tree near a tee-off spot.

As her former friends arrived to swing their clubs, Grace let loose with a loud rat-a-tat from a plastic child’s toy machine gun.

Michelle said the startled women would check the tree. Some saw the gorilla, and some did not. Those who did poked Grace with a club and walked away convinced she was just a dummy.

Michelle is certain no one knew it was her mother.

“As my mom told me this story, giggling, I saw a different, more powerful woman ready to move on from the past. And she did,” Michelle said.

Grace died from lung cancer at 49 more than 30 ago, but Michelle is convinced her friends from Western will never forget her.

“Everyone loved my mother,” she said.

To reach View contributing reporter Ginger Meurer, email gmeurer@viewnews.com. Find her on Twitter: @gingermmm.