The Modern Day Mary Poppins

At any one time, Dolores Amerman has about six children, not hers, zipping merrily through her house like a mini-cyclone.

Amerman runs a state-certified daycare from her Horsham home, and has cared for children at this location for 41 years. She is by one account the modern day Mary Poppins. To her charges she is Mum-Mum, the sprightly woman who helps each child be the best that he or she can be.

“I love what I’m doing,” said Amerman on a sunny day, as five 5-year-olds and three 2-year-olds on her back porch played on a plastic gym set with her golden retriever Songlynn.

That morning they had cut and colored paper snowflakes, which was followed by the more academic circle time reserved daily for math, reading and time-telling.

“It’s what my calling is, to be with children, and what happier thing could you do than to work with children?” Amerman asked, surrounded by toddlers trying on the older children's shoes.

Amerman, who has lived with her husband Oakley "Sonny" Amerman in their house for 42 years, has six children of her own, 16 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She grew up in Glenside, graduating from Lansdale Catholic High School in Lansdale  which at the time, was a little four-classroom schoolhouse.

She has been caring for children since she was 15 years old and the work finds her through word of mouth. She is proud that she has never had to advertise.

She recently received a wedding invitation from one of her former charges and it is not uncommon for her to have cared for a child and then much later, the now-adult’s own child.

“I met her and I knew right away that she would be the one to watch my daughter,” said Beth Cowden, whose four children, including her now-16-year-old daughter Jillian and 5-year-old son Brett, have been under Amerman's care. 

“She actually taught my son [Brett] more than what the pre-school has taught him, which is great,” Cowden said. 

And, Amerman has learned a few things over the years.

She knows to keep the crayons up high on a shelf. She now knows that children notice when other children’s bangs need trimming, and that they do not hesitate to wield scissors to "help" their friends.

“Well,” the affected mother had said, amused, “it’s only hair, and if their father had cut their hair when I’d been asking him to cut their hair, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Athletic children have, in the past, scaled the roof of her large dollhouse, and those of an artistic nature blessed her walls with their talent. The stories that she has to tell are those of happy children who learn to read, tie their shoes, and share and teach each other.

Amerman’s husband, formerly a construction overseer with the archdiocese of Philadelphia, is proud of her work and pitches in when he is home. When they are not at a Phillies games or watching a play they, the Amermans are both active with the Nativity of Our Lord church in Warminster and have volunteered at the Ward 14 polls on elections nights for the past 30 years.

According to her husband, for their church they visit hospital patients, recently at Abington Memorial Hospital, where they saw a friend’s daughter in the maternity ward.

“So we’re talking to her and we’re leaving, and a nurse said ‘Would you mind seeing some other girls?’ We saw six more altogether. We were there for four hours,” he said cheerfully.

Dolores Amerman enjoys helping others and has no plans to retire.

“I guess we’re all called to do something in life, and I’ve found what I was called to do," she said. "The children all seem to be happy to be here, and that’s the most important thing."