Courtesy Photo
Adelaide Bruce and a group of children during story time.
Adelaide Bruce Celebrating over three decades with Taos children
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By Jordan Miera
n the grand scheme of things, not many people have watched more children grow up than Adelaide Bruce. She estimates she has watched and cared for at least 200 of them during her 35 years of childcare in Taos. Her childcare group is called “Maison des Petits,” or “Home for Little Ones.” Although Bruce will continue taking care of two children one day per week for a short amount of time, down from four children four
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days per week, she considers this to be her retirement.
Dumrese says she knew she wanted Bruce to look after her children.
asked the same question, Clark said he loved to play with her toys.
“A lot of children in town were kind of raised through their toddler years by Adelaide,” Lily Dumrese, a mother of two children Bruce has cared for, says. Dumrese says she had heard of Adelaide from other people, so she and her husband Derric went to meet her and look at the care facilities. With the beautiful, tree-filled, green backyard with swings, sandboxes, other play things and rabbits, along with Adelaide’s “sweet self,”
The fruits of Bruce’s labors are evident in the lives and homes of the children she looked after. Dumrese’s children, 3-year-old Clark, and Ricky, nearly 5, learned the alphabet, songs, how to count and much more from Bruce.
Bruce attended Johns Hopkins University, where she got a degree in nursing. Bruce and her husband Tom moved to Eureka, California. It was there that the Bruces had a son named Michael, who now runs a computer business in Taos. Adelaide wanted to do something where she could spend time with her son, so she started a small licensed playgroup there in 1979 when he was about 4 years old.
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When asked by his mother what he loves about Bruce, Ricky said, “That she makes pictures with me.” Two walls in the family’s home are adorned by the art Ricky and Clark made while with Bruce. When
ADELAIDE BRUCE continues on Page 20