The former Pennsylvanian now lives in Sumter, South Carolina, and attends St. Anne and St. Jude Church. She was asked to reflect on her life as a mother, who also gave birth to seven children of her own. However, she was quick to correct that all the children, adopted or birthed, were her own.

“People always ask me why I did this,” she began. “The truth is, I don’t know. God just led me this way. I never had a real concrete reason.”

She said it began in 1970 when she and her husband Robert (Bob) had three children.

“My husband was looking for work and I prayed to God and said that if my husband can find a good job, I would foster children,” she said.

He ended up finding a good job, so the Migliaccios took in three foster children.

“I was asked to take them for three weeks. They were 6, 5 and 2-and-a-half. My kids were 3, 2 and 1. I figured I could do it for three weeks. Well, the 2-and-a-half-year-old is 56 now. We had them a little longer than three weeks.”

The couple adopted those first three foster children. From then on, Migliaccio didn’t want just to foster, she wanted to adopt and give children a permanent home.

Unwanted Kids

Migliaccio commented on the fact that, back then, children were adopted by searching through a catalog.

“We decided that we would go for the kids that other parents didn’t want,” she explained.

She spoke about the many kids with Down Syndrome she had over the years, the baby with a hole in her heart and a cleft palate, a paraplegic senior in high school, a blind and deaf son, a boy with half a heart who endured surgery only to come out of it paralyzed and many children who suffered due to emotional abuse.

To say the couple endured challenging times is a bit of an understatement.

Migliaccio noted the time that 23 children simultaneously had chicken pox. And then there was the epic move from Pennsylvania to Sumter in 2006. It involved a horse trailer, two campers and six vehicles, including a station wagon. Migliaccio admits that even though they went through tough times, she also has loved caring for the children and still has contact with all of them as adults.

Still My Family

She has so many fond memories, like when they appeared on the Phil Donahue show in 1985.

“The producers told us that we could just bring a few kids, but we told them that they either take all 25 of us or nothing. We had 23 kids at that time. So we piled into a Greyhound bus and drove to New York City.”

She and her husband always treated the children like they were family because, as Migliaccio explained, “they were and still are my family.”

Besides Bob’s death in 2019, she also lost one of her adopted sons to suicide, her paraplegic daughter in 2014, a son who passed on Thanksgiving eve morning one year and the baby with the hole in her heart only lived 13-and-a-half months before she died in Migliaccio’s arms.

Her advice to parents who are looking to adopt is to keep an open mind. She has fought so hard for the children over the years.

“You need a lot of patience, and I probably didn’t have enough,” she admitted. “Some of the kids thought I liked some of them more than others, and that was always hard for me to hear. Some of them just needed more attention than others, but I loved all of them the same.”

She’s had contact with biological relatives of many of the children since some of the adoptions were open. It has been a tough journey, and the rewards along the way have been immense.

Migliaccio said that her paraplegic daughter lived on her own and worked from 2004 until her death.

“After she passed, they had to hire five people to replace her at her job, that was how much she did there.”

Her son who was paralyzed after enduring open heart surgery at age six? He is 31 now with a job and walks only with a limp.

Everyone Was Accepted

At 80 years old, Migliaccio currently takes care of 11 children.

“I am pretty proud of myself. I drove 1,500 miles to visit some of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Erie, Pennsylvania, this summer. I’ve still got it!”

She realizes, however, that she won’t live forever. The plan is that after she passes, her oldest adopted son, Roger, and her youngest biological daughter, Kayla, will take over.

“My kids learned that it doesn’t take blood to make a family,” she concluded. “Everyone was accepted here right away, and they always will be.”