At 81, Jerry Tucker still dedicated to this Kentucky haven for needy children
With the assistance of a metal cane, Jerry Tucker, a man with a full head of gray hair and a likewise-colored bushy beard that has adorned his face for 40 years, walks in the bright sunlight across the rustic property filled with leafless trees.
He is not fazed at all by the cool weather. No coat was needed for him as another autumn ended in the rolling hills of Casey County. “I was born in Detroit,” he heartily says about the weather and his strength.
Tucker is at home among the various buildings at the end of a road off Fork Church Road. A sign welcomes visitors to the Galilean Home Ministries. Upon arrival, the place looks like a summer camp.
It’s where Tucker and his late wife, Sandy, started in 1974 a safe haven for abused and severely handicapped children from around the word with donations and not one penny in government funding.
The non-profit grew to other missions, including the Galilean Christian Academy, a private school on the property with about 130 students from pre-school to senior high; the popular Bread of Life Cafe and Gift Shop about seven miles away off South U.S. 127; and a thrift store about five miles farther north of the restaurant in downtown Liberty.
The total annual operating budget for the non-profit on about 25 acres is about $5 million. It has about 130 employees, with help from several Mennonite women in the area.
Over the decades, the Tuckers have served hundreds in what they felt was their duty as Christians. President George H.W. Bush nationally recognized their work in 1992 in his Points of Light program in spotlighting volunteers across the county. U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, has called the couple “an inspiration to us all.”
Some of the 30 full-time residents at the Galilean Home Ministries have grown up there. They range in age from 18 to 55. One of them, George, is eager to show guests his camouflaged wallet and get his picture taken. He is 51. His smile will warm your heart.
And then there’s Medina. She weaves gorgeous, intricate rugs though she is legally blind. It’s a skill she learned when she was 16. She’s now 36., and teaches others at the home how to interlace long threads passing in one direction with others at a right angle to them to form a thing of beauty.
The dorms where the residents live are near where Jerry and Sandy Tucker planned several years ago to build a fine log cabin, a place to grow old together, atop a steep hill at the end of a long, grassy lane.
Ovarian and colon cancer in June 2007 stole the love of Jerry Tucker’s life from him. His wife’s funeral was held in the school gym and she is buried in the small back yard of the log cabin that she never saw. He visits it some but can’t stay more than a few hours. He says he gets lonesome.
An apartment in the campus’ Main Hall where the couple lived now finds him residing there alone.
He eats when he wants to and stays up late working on mission business and writing the home’s monthly news letter to hundreds of supporters. Rarely does a news letter not mention Sandy.
Tucker signs his writings as “Papa Oso (Daddy Bear in Spanish),” a nickname some boys in Honduras gave him. Near the front door of his residence, a sign reads, “Don’t Wake the Bear.”
Though years have piled atop one another, Jerry Tucker remains a force in the home’s missions.
He is now in the winter of his life. He is 81.
He is familiar with questions about what will happen to Galilean Home Ministries when he is gone, though he doesn’t like to dwell on them.
Born to raise hell
On his right upper arm, Jerry Tucker has a tattoo. It reads, “Born to Raise Hell.”
It doesn’t fit with the image of this devoutly religious man who believes people are to love one another, that we are each other’s keeper.
“I got that in my wild years,” says Tucker with a laugh as he sits in a big chair in his residence that he calls his throne. Nearly every place you turn in the apartment is decorated with photos of Jerry and Sandy and children.
Jerry Tucker was born Oct. 2, 1940, in Detroit, Mich. His father, a factory worker, left his mother for another woman when Jerry was 12 with three younger brothers.
“I took my dad’s place in the family,” said Tucker. “Mom did her best, but it was hard for her.”
Jerry was raised in a Church of Christ, was a good student, fond of arithmetic but did not go to college. He got a job in construction and spent two years in the U.S. Army at Fort Campbell.
When he was 22, a friend urged him to meet a blonde woman four years younger than he who worked as a car hop at an A&W Root Beer Stand in Detroit. On her name tag was the word “Sandy.”
“I checked her out and Iiked what I saw,” Tucker said.
The next night they went to a drive-in movie.
“She was a Polish girl. I met her mother, who didn’t like me because I was not Catholic but she said she liked my shiny shoes. That’s why I still keep my boots shiny and I still love root beer,” he said.
The couple had planned a big Polish Catholic wedding but eloped on Jan. 21, 1963, three months after they had met.
Both wanted to have children but doctors told them they could not. They were childless for seven years until they adopted a 3 1/2-months-old boy, Jeremy, from a teen-age mother who didn’t want the child. They defied what the doctors said and had two daughters of their own — Becky and Jessica.
The couple adopted two Native American girls, then a family of four children and then another baby.
The Tuckers needed more room for their growing family. Jerry Tucker started looking around for property.
Kentucky Home
The Tuckers found their home in Kentucky’s rural Casey County.
But they did not initially settle there. They moved for a short time to Montana. They decided to return to Kentucky and joined a Mennonite church for about four years in which they lived without electricity and cars.
In a desire to adopt more children, they left the Mennonite church and became Bible-believing followers of Christ at a non-denominational church.
“Upon returning to Kentucky, everything started to snowball,” said Jerry Tucker. “We adopted more children., and we eventually began the Galilean Home.”
In her 1989 book, “Faith, Hope and Room for One More,” Sandy Tucker said, “I don’t think God gave me time to think about it. We took every child God sent us.”
Children came from far-off lands like Haiti, China, Afghanistan, Guatemala and Honduras. The couple traveled far and wide to gather the needy children.
Their mission was in full bloom.
‘Lil Lambs
At the Galilean Home for Children, there are dorms for boys and girls. A chapel is available for assembly. Sandy Tucker used to call the children at the home her “’Lil Lambs.”
Over the years, The Tuckers have cared for more than 2,000 children.
A special building on the property is the Blessing House. It is where eight people with varying degrees of special needs live. Some are completely bed-ridden and non-verbal. One prefers sleeping on the concrete floor .Some are able to be in wheelchairs. Some need other types of special supervision.
Another notable place on the property is the Angel House. It is where infants and toddlers are cared for while their mothers are in prison. The children are taken to the women’s prison once a week.
All the activity keeps Jerry Tucker going. “I’m not ready to retire,” he says.
But Jerry Tucker realizes that one day his earthly body will lie next to his dearest behind that log cabin.
The future of Galilean Home
The last words his wife spoke to Tucker as she lay dying at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Lexington, he said, were, “Dad, don’t quit. Don’t ever give up.”
He has followed her instructions as time marches on, even in old age with a shoulder that needs surgery and a bum knee.
Asked what will happen to the home when he is no longer around, he immediately says , “I knew that question would come up.”
He pauses and then says, “I have two daughters.”
He calls Becky “the big cheese. She is a clone of her mother and Jessica, the younger, is a clone of me. I like to think I’m the boss around here but Becky is the boss.”
The two daughters, who have eight children among them, plan to keep their parents’ work ongoing.
“I love it here,” said Jessica, who helps manage the restaurant. “My father has given all his life to this work. He is so compassionate. He can be a bit grouchy and is set in his ways. The best thing he ever did for us was to love our mother. She was one of my best friends. She really ran the show. I feel her spirit here and could never walk away from it.”
“Dad wants all of this to continue,” said Becky as she worked in the gift shop. “It’s a calling of mom and dad. We will make sure it continues and we believe that is what God wants us to do.”
This story was originally published December 30, 2021 at 2:20 PM.
