LeeAnn Petersen remembers the relief she felt when she was removed from her California home at 15 and placed with loving foster parents, Karen and Dave Schwartzkopf, who lived in a large and compassion-filled house in the mountains near San Bernardino.
LeeAnn Petersen remembers the relief she felt when she was removed from her
California home at 15 and placed with loving foster parents, Karen and Dave Schwartzkopf, who lived in a large and compassion-filled house in the mountains near San Bernardino.
Both of Petersen’s now-deceased biological parents were alcoholics, and her
mother had assaulted and even bitten her in a drunken rage before friends called
authorities for help.
“The first time I set foot in the Schwartzkopf’s home, I knew that I could succeed there,” Petersen, now 47, recalls.And there, living on a lake, she thrived, playing sports, earning good grades
and later attending college, all with the support of a family — “my real parents” — who believed in her potential.
“I wouldn’t say that at that age, I was ambitious, but I would say that I was stubborn,” Petersen tells PEOPLE of her determination to push beyond her circumstances. “My stepfather, when I was 13 years old, told me that I would either be pregnant or in jail or both by the time I turned 16. Imagine saying that to a 13 year old. My stepfather said to me, ‘You are a waste of time,’ and everything I did from that moment on was to prove him wrong.”
“She’s not of my womb but of my heart,” Karen, 70, a retired real estate agent who along with her husband, Dave, a retired police officer, fostered 100 children, tells PEOPLE.
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