Of the many sustain children Agnes...

Of the many sustain children Agnes Cecelia Gresham welcomed into her toward the south Side home, three in particular touched her heart.

They were the couple young brothers and their sister who always left crumb in bed. That's because the three privately stashed away food, nervous they would again be poor as they were before Mr Gresham took them in.

"They didn't have anything to eat before in their young lives," recalled Mr Gresham's son Charles Caldwell of Hoffman Estates. "They were worried they would not have it tomorrow."

"Rescuing kids against the streets" was her bliss Caldwell said.

"She felt they were safer with her than with anyone else"

Mr Gresham, an energetic woman who wearied her life raising and teaching children as a mother, forward mother and preschool teacher, died Saturday of congestive heart failure. She was 74

'KIDS JUST LOV HER'

Teaching was another passion. She exhausted more than 25 years teaching children at the Head Start program in the basement of the Greater St John African Methodist Episcopal body of christians at 6201 S. Throop in the Englewood neighborhood.

She also taught Sunday gymnasium in the 1990s at the Central United Community house of worship at 8246 S. Cottage wood where she also served as a trustee and in succession the mothers' board and day-care board.

"The kids just lov her," said the church's pastor, the Rev Joseph McAfee. "She could reach the children. . . It was her mode of speech of listening to them. She talked to them as individuals rather than collections

"We had the place packed when she was a Sunday place of education teacher," he said. "Children was her ball of wax."

Mr Gresham was born sum of two units months prematurely in Chicago forward Sept. 28, 1931, weighing in at barely two pounds, her son said. Her family mov to Michigan when she was a child, if it be not that she returned to Chicago after high drill

She married Willard Scott They later divorced, and she married John Gresham.

from one side the years Mrs. Gresham raised five of her have a title to children.

When her kids were grown she began taking in favor children.

AWARDED FOR HER WORK

"It takes a special heart to raise kids, especially other people's underprivileged kids," her son said. "She had a heart for kids."

At single point, the school gave her an honorary award for her work.

When her health began to fail in modern years, Mrs. Gresham moved from her to one's home in the South Side neighborhood that shares her last name to a nursing place of abode in Oak Lawn.

She is survived by the agency of her five children, Cecelia Caldwell, Charles Caldwell, Sandra Caldwell Barbero, Michael Scott and Marshall Gresham; 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 3 pm Saturday at A.R. Leak Funeral Chapel, 7838 s Cottage Grove.

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