Macon aunt struggles to raise kids after mother goes to jail

Editor's note: The Reindeer Gang is an annual holiday feature about people and families in need. Donations to Myrtice Davis and the Jordan children can be made through Campus Clubs, 2193 Vineville Ave. in Macon. For information, call 742-7794 or email tcrudupcc@gmail.com.

Myrtice Davis was cleaning house the other day. Her kitchen was spotless, even if there wasn't much in it. No table, one chair.

In the living room, four children munched after-school snacks and played on the couch.

The place smelled like Doritos and Clorox.

Davis, a lean 60-year-old with a stern voice and an easy laugh, led a visitor into the kitchen to talk. She didn't want the kids hearing what she was about to say.

The visitor was the reporter writing this story, a glimpse at what life is like for the thousands of Middle Georgians who struggle to pay their bills, raise their children, catch rides to the supermarket, find places to live and, on occasion, as in Davis' case, dig through other people's curbside trash.

Hers is one of a half-dozen stories The Telegraph will tell in the coming week, portraits of perseverance in the midst of hardship.

In her kitchen, Davis said, "Go ahead, ask me anything."

Those children in the living room? Not hers. They're her brother's kids. Up until last year, the children lived with their mother. But for the past 16 months, since their mom went to jail, Davis has become their guardian.

Davis has bought their clothes, cooked their meals, helped them with homework and made sure they're bathed and in bed by 9:30 on weeknights. That's her rule.

The children's mother, in the Bibb County jail since May 2014, is accused of intentionally running over and killing her boyfriend in a Ford Explorer. The episode, or at least part of it, was caught on camera in the parking lot of a Pio Nono Avenue post office.

The night it happened, Davis told her 50-year-old brother, Chadwick Jordan, "She's in trouble. Go get your kids. It's time for you to step up."

Jordan, a machine operator, and Davis, who does janitorial work for her landlord, have had the children ever since.

For a while, the six of them lived in a one-bedroom apartment. In recent months they've moved into a rental house on the upper end of Ridge Avenue, not far from Vineville Avenue and Forest Hill Road in north Macon.

"Sometimes," Davis said, "I think, 'Girl, what have you gotten into?'"

She raised three sons. The youngest is 36. She has four grandchildren.

"Kids," she said, "ain't like they used to be."

But she and brother's children have bonded. She considers them gifts.

Nine-year-old Kyla, 7-year-old Chadaesia, and the 6-year-old twin boys, Chadwick Jr. and Chadien, have taught her patience.

They call her Auntie and Granny. They like her steak and, on weekends, the frozen pizzas she bakes.

"I say that the Lord put us together," Davis said. "For me to take care of them and for them to take care of me. ... They don't have anybody, so they are my babies."

If their mother is convicted and sent to prison, Davis plans to look after the siblings for years to come.

"If that's what it takes," she said, "I'm gonna be right here."

While she spoke, one of her young nieces peeked around the corner.

"That one's nosey," Davis laughed.

When the girl was gone, Davis said, "I don't talk about it in front of them. Maybe I should, but I don't."

She tries not to miss the times once a week when the children can chat with their mother on a computer monitor. There's a camera at the jail so they can see her face, hear her talk.

Sometimes Davis hears Kyla, the oldest, crying at night.

"I miss mommy," Kyla will say.

Davis tells her, "I do, too, baby."

The younger children are behind in school. They need reading tutors. At home some days, Kyla, who is in the Beta Club at Williams Elementary, will sit her three siblings down and pretend she's the teacher and they're her pupils.

Davis called Kyla into the kitchen.

"Tell the reporter what your job is," Davis said.

Kyla, who has chubby cheeks and is tall for her age, said, "To clean, to make sure they be quiet and bathe them and put on their clothes."

Later, the children, one at a time, darted into the kitchen to toss their empty chip bags in the trash.

"I'm sort of a neat freak," Davis said. "I don't like dirt and nastiness."

Even so, since taking in the four kids, she has begun what she refers to as "my new hobby."

Every week on trash days she cruises the city, looking for thrown-away items the family can use.

"I would never have seen myself going through other people's trash," she said.

Still, the children need clothes, shoes, coats. Davis could use a clothes dryer and a kitchen table with chairs. She only recently found suitable mattresses.

"When people give me something for these kids," Davis said, "I appreciate it."

When's the last time she did anything for herself? She couldn't remember.

She mentioned how, in her semiretirement, she used to like shooting pool, bowling. She doesn't get her hair and nails done anymore.

"But it's OK," Davis said. "These kids come first for me -- over everything."

This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Macon aunt struggles to raise kids after mother goes to jail ."