100 year-old 'Aunt Aggie', who raised 40 foster children, facing foreclosure

[Subdivisions]

Let the bankers come with their foreclosure notices. Invite the building inspectors, too. At 100 years old, Agnes Albinger has lived on her 70-acre patch of farmland longer than most of those people have been alive.

She has seen two world wars come and go, survived the Depression — in part by subsisting on minnow stew — and raised 40 foster children. Now, she has become a rallying point in this rural community as she fights to keep her Monee farm.

"I'll never leave," she said one recent morning, as she stood with a walker on her sagging front porch, looking out over the fields she tended for most of her life. "I'd like to stay here until I die. This is my home. This was my land. I owned everything once. I worked awful hard on this place to make it what it was."

As Albinger faces foreclosure on the property where she has lived since 1949, a coalition of friends and strangers has mobilized to help the woman everyone calls "Aunt Aggie." They have set up a , Web site, saveagnesfarm.com, and volunteered to help with cleaning and repairs. On a recent Saturday, nearly 100 people showed up to clear brush and haul away rusting farm equipment.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/ct-news-agnes-farm-20100427,0,2328355.story

[kgnu_fan]

1. What happened to America, going crazy? Keep her in her home!!!

[Travis_0004]

2. I have to wonder why she took out the loans

Did her niece have her best interest at heart when she took out the loans? Certainly you don't just sign new mortgage papers without reading what you are signing. I would be interested in more details about what exactly happened, but the fact is she owes 700,000 in loans, and the bank has a right to get their property if the loans are defaulted on, assuming there was no foul play on the banks part when the loans are offered.

[Bobbieo]

3. Are the 40 foster children helping out? Sure hope so!!!!

[LeftyMom]

5. They're likely not in a position to.

The poverty rate for aged out foster kids is appallingly high.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. How can you live in a house for 60 years and still be making payments?

That's nuts.

[Travis_0004]

6. She took out a 100,000 loan in 2000.