Chet and Connie Cale, Great Bend, will insist that the door to their home at 1620 Park Ave. is always open. These days, however, those that do come to visit will have to excuse the mess — their spacious Victorian residence is getting an interior facelift.

“We’re painting, Connie said. “We kind of have things stacked up all over, but there are sort of trafficways set up to walk around.

“We’ve talked about downsizing, but we can’t seem to do it,” she noted. “We’ve talked to our kids and they know they can have anything that they want, but they all have their own homes now and they might not have the room.”

After all, Connie said, the home built in 1886 has a history, sheltering the families living there over time. That includes Chet and Connie and their five children. “It’s a part of the family,” she said. “Houses need love, sometimes, too.”

Family is a big word for the Cale clan. Connie is in her third year as supervisor for the Kansas Children’s Service League’s Great Bend office, where creating, repairing and restoring healthy parent-child relationships is part of the organization’s mission statement. Connie is well-suited to the job on many levels and for many reasons.

The boy next to next door

Connie’s family moved to Great Bend when she was in third grade in the 1960s. By the time she graduated from Great Bend High School in 1972, the feminist movement was gaining traction. For Connie, however, her career aspirations didn’t include school beyond a GBHS diploma.

“At that time, what I wanted to do was be a wife and a mother. I never really thought about going to college, although most of my friends were going,” she said.

She was married shortly after graduation. It lasted four years. “It was always important to me to finish high school, but I wanted to be a mom and a wife.” The marriage ended amicably, she said.

But in the background, there was another man in her life. “Chet lived in our neighborhood; he was about three houses down,” she said. For Chet, Connie was always the one; but for Connie, it took awhile.

“I’m two years older than he is, and the rule then for girls was you didn’t ever date anyone younger than you were,” she said. “We grew up together, we went to the lake with everybody else, and we did a lot together as friends.”

Chet then saw his chance, she said. “He probably will tell you that I was always the one for him,” she said. “It’s been 45 years (of marriage) and we have five kids.” Three live in Great Bend and two reside in Wichita. There’s also five grandkids, two in town and three in Wichita.

“We’ve always been about family,” she said. “Family always comes first. We have a wonderful time. We laugh every day, I think that’s the key to living and making a life together. He truly is my best friend.”

A growing family

Their children quickly followed. But there was another opportunity for the growing family, she said.

“A social worker friend of mine said to me that we needed to become foster parents,” she recalled. “We looked at each other and said, ‘OK.’ I got out of the shower one night and Chet told me that Paula would be bringing over a baby. We had our own babies, but around 1980 we became involved in the foster care program. 

“I couldn’t tell you how many,” she said. “They would be newborns, or a little older. I would always ask Paula if the baby would have a home, and she would say yes, we’re just working on the paperwork. We would have them sometimes just overnight, to maybe a week or so. 

“We continued to have kids as we were doing foster care, and we had one boy who was about 3 years old. We just took care of them while adoption papers were being prepared. It was such a joy to be able to give adoptive parents that couldn’t have children of their own a baby,” she said.

They also helped teenage mothers in need of assistance.

“We then took in several teenage mothers that were pregnant and still deciding what they wanted to do,” she said. “They would come and stay with us, so that meant we got to know their families.”

There were several different scenarios. The Cales continued to serve as active foster parents until around 1997, when Connie was on the cusp of another life change.

Back to school

While at home, Connie went back to school, with a focus on elementary education. She earned a degree from Sterling College in elementary ed, with an endorsement in special education. 

She taught preschool for a while and was in the Great Bend USD 428 for three years. “I didn’t like the politics much, but I loved the kids,” she said.

So many of the kids she taught had challenges at home, she said.

“They were supposed to get to school and leave all of that behind and sit down and learn,” she said. “I was thinking that I wanted to do more for those kids.”

At the same time, the state of Kansas privatized foster care. She was approached and accepted a position with the local organization.

“I learned valuable lessons while I was teaching,” she said. “But I felt like I could teach better outside the classroom.” She expanded her education role to include whole families. 

“I believe in families,” she said. “People really want to be good parents; they want to provide for their children. But sometimes they simply just don’t know how.

“It might be their history, something they never got to learn. But with support, they can learn to be good parents and take care of their families.”

While she was working with child welfare, she took time out to spend a year in Oklahoma in their state system as she was helping her own mother and father.

She then returned to St. Francis in Great Bend, working in family support. “I wore many hats there,” she said. 

Move to KCSL

While her job was rewarding, it didn’t leave much room for her own family. In addition to her their children, the Cales also took care of Chet’s mother for five years and Connie’s sister for several months during her cancer struggle.

“At home, that’s always kind of been the name of our game,” she said. “We’ve had people in that came to stay for a little while. But we never had much ‘just us’ time.

“We’ve always had an open door policy, so that was always fine.”

She became KCSL supervisor in January of 2020. Her focus is on prevention.

“I’m back in prevention, and it’s so exciting,” she said. “We want to prevent kids from being removed from their home. It’s been wonderful; I have an awesome team.”

So now, it’s the house’s turn.

“We love our big old house, and we’re working on the dining room,” she said. “We bought our house because we loved to think about the history behind it, all of the people who have lived here. I’ve always wanted a house that’s big enough for everybody.” 

There’s room for a lot of stuff that includes Chet’s art pieces, she said. “It’s kind of fun being the wife of a famous local artist,” she confided.

Community Connections is a regular feature of the Great Bend Tribune, showcasing people who live in the Golden Belt. We welcome readers to submit names of individuals who are active in the community that they would like to see featured in a future story. Send suggestions to news@gbtribune.com and explain their “community connections.”