THERESA

Theresa is a woman who happens to be transient when she encounters baby Ivy. Ivy was brought into a women's shelter by a well-meaning homeless woman named Karen (in Issue #0196), and when Karen and her friends started overwhelming Ivy with attention, she snapped and threw one of them across the room, which caused the whole group of women to retreat from her. Ivy reacted to the abandonment with loud crying, which brought Theresa's attention for the first time. When the shelter worker demanded that someone take care of the crying baby, Theresa volunteered.

Later the same night Theresa witnessed Ivy blearily flying after waking up from a nightmare, and she didn't know what to make of it, but also couldn't help but respond to the needs of a poor distraught child. Theresa is very maternal, and is experienced in raising kids since she had three of her own before her ex-husband got custody of them.

Despite having no idea what she's taken on, Theresa became a bit of a guardian angel for Ivy; due to her own issues, she couldn't take anywhere near full responsibility for watching her, but she was a good voice of reason to push Melanie in the right direction sometimes when the child's lack of practicality prevented her from taking very good care of Ivy.

Theresa's life began moving into a better place shortly after she met the two girls, and this put a lid on how much she could help them. She eventually had to leave to pursue her new job, and kept in touch with Melanie through letters.

Theresa is average height and and average weight, with dark brown skin, dark brown eyes, and black hair. Her hair was not well cared for while she was houseless and it was usually anchored under a cover, but she got it cut short when she started her job and now maintains her hair to be short and natural. She is a divorced early-thirties Black woman with three children (two boys and a girl) and lived in New York City going in and out of shelters or housing arrangements for a while before getting a social work job and being transfered out of the city, where she began to live with a roommate for a while until finally getting her own place and initiating the procedures to get custody of her children again. She likes to wear bright colors and patterns and often wore a head scarf while in touch with Melanie and Ivy, and Theresa is a religious Christian and doesn't like to miss church, and she has some strong morals that she tries to instill in the children in her care. She practices compassionate aspects of her faith--it's not just talk to her--and fits in very well in the social work arena. Theresa has epilepsy that she controls with medication, and claims that she lost her last job indirectly because of it.

My favorite Theresa pictures (click on the small pictures to see large, good quality scans):