The name has changed, but the idea’s the same—a column dedicated to illuminating the lives of badass girls of all ages who exhibit exceptional badassery in the field of human-beingness. Formerly called The XX Factor, and back after a hiatus … welcome to The Girl Club.
This story has everything, including romance and a plot twist at the end of the third act. Without further ado, meet badass extraordinaire, Silvia Yeron-Signoret.
She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the mid-1950s; Silvia’s taxi-driver father moved the family to New Jersey when Silvia was 10. Mom and Dad eventually found their own space in the garment industry in Culver City, Calif. It was a family of seven, and the kids worked there when they weren’t going to school.
Silvia was 18 when she stupidly (her word, not mine) married a boy she met in high school. They tried, but it was never going to work. Silvia divorced, mingled and eventually fell for another fellow. They married, bought a house in Woodland Hills, and had two beautiful children, Michelle and Joshua. That marriage was great … until it wasn’t.
Now a single mom, Silvia opened a lucrative mortgage-loan company. Although she’s not much of a drinker, she purchased a “party house” in Palm Springs for getaways, and in my mind’s eye, I can see her in a sarong by the pool, mocktail in hand, laughing as she tells a story, then suddenly busting a move when her song comes on. She is the party.
That home is where I am now, seated next to Silvia; her husband, Tony Signoret, the Palm Springs Unified School District’s assistant superintendent of human resources, is across from us. They are such a good-looking couple; they could play themselves in a movie.
They met at her kid’s soccer game. Tony was an elementary school teacher, and Silvia had been elected to be a coach, “because I was from Argentina,” she tells me, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I was a soccer fan, but I didn’t know anything about coaching.”
They began dating, and one night on the dance floor, Tony took her hand in his and pressed it to his heart. It was beating so fast that Silvia thought it might burst from his chest. He pulled her closer, his lips to her ear: “This is what you do to me.”
Silvia absolutely fell for teach—but she had zero intentions of marrying again. Nope, no way. Tony had other plans. “One day,” he said, “I will ask you to marry me, and you won’t be able to say no.”
For three years, they shared their lives, lived under the same roof, and did all the stuff except the ring thing. Once, after dinner and before dancing, Tony said he’d forgotten something at home. When they entered, their family and friends were waiting. Tony dropped to one knee.
“That was 24 years ago,” Silvia says, smiling at Tony. “I’ve never been happier.”
They wanted kids, but that didn’t work out biologically, and Silvia had more love to share, so she looked into becoming a CASA—an acronym for court appointed special advocate. Silvia compares it to a big-brother/big-sister program. They bonded with a 10-year old boy named Rudy, and even after all these years, Silvia can’t tell that story without getting emotional. Tony takes the lead.
Rudy was a cheerful boy who had zero reasons to be cheerful. For more than a year, they took him everywhere they went, but when they tried to adopt him, CASA said no, you can’t adopt your CASA child. No good reason was given—just like the rule that you can’t bring them to your home. They fought for him, but Rudy ended up in a group home, and then another, and then it was like he disappeared.
“We were preparing his birthday party when they cut us off,” Silvia says. He was just gone.
In 2001, Silvia founded For the Children, nonprofit focused on housing and happiness for forgotten kids. She mentions so many names of so many kids they’ve helped that I can’t keep track. She describes a well-organized and creative beehive of advocates working tirelessly to find single-family homes that would love and care for these children.
“We’d get calls at one, two, three o’clock in the morning,” she tells me. “They’d drop off a baby or have me go to the (newborn intensive care unit) and pick up a baby. Or they needed something to feed and clothe these kids.”
Only able to foster and adopt so many herself, Silvia canvased, worked every available angle, and found loving homes for otherwise unwanted children. It was a difficult decision to shut down the foundation, but after 17 years, Silvia realized she needed to give more attention to the seven kids she and Tony adopted.
“I’m still in touch with a lot of the families,” she says. “We’ve done a few picnics—like reunions. And these kids are coming up to me, ‘Hi, how are you?’ And I’m like, ‘Who are you?’ I mean, these are men. It’s hard to recognize some of them all grown up.”
At 67, Silvia’s done adopting. At least she thought she was. There has been a tiny baby in a bouncy with us the entire time we’ve chatted. He is their daughter’s sister’s kid, her fourth; the other three were lost to the system. This time, she gave the baby to Silvia while she got clean. He weighed in at 4 1/2 pounds when he went home with the Signorets. He wasn’t much bigger than that when his mom gave up on being sober.
Will they adopt him? There are grown family members who have already fallen for this kid, but until something is decided, he’s going with all of their other kids to visit Tony’s family in Mexico City, just like they do every Christmas.
As for Rudy?
“We found him when he was 14,” Silvia says. “We went to the group home for his birthday. He used to love to draw in color, so we brought him a lot of art supplies. But Rudy had already gotten in so much trouble doing drugs, he didn’t want to know anything.”
He was 18 when he was sentenced to 19 years in prison. I did not ask why.
The Girl Club: Meet Silvia Yeron-Signoret, a Badass Woman Who’s Long Been Dedicated to Finding Housing and Happiness for Forgotten Kids is a story from Coachella Valley Independent, the Coachella Valley’s alternative news source.