For Adoptive Parents, Home Is Where the Horde Is

The sprawling home in Fife, Wash., where Father Jack Branche reared many of the 35 children he has cared for will continue to be a full house even after Branche moves east. Robert and Linda Cornyn and their 28 kids will be moving in. Branche, a Catholic priest who began taking in homeless and ill Indian children in Peru and is currently rearing nine children, is selling the house to the Pierce County Development Authority. Children of both families mingled during a ceremony at the home in which the Cornyns were given what William Nishimura of the Department of Housing and Urban Development said is the largest federal housing voucher in the country. The five-year, renewable voucher, worth about $900 a month, enables the Cornyns to move from a five-bedroom, two-bathroom house in nearby Tacoma. Their new home will have 15 bedrooms, once additions are completed, and “seven bathrooms--hallelujah,” said Robert Cornyn. The Cornyns, who have three biological children, began adopting children about nine years ago when Cornyn was stationed with the Army in Korea. He is now an administrative technician at Ft. Lewis. “People ask how I can divide my love among so many children. You don’t divide it, it multiplies,” Linda Cornyn said.

--If Walter Hudson of East Meadow, N. Y., ever decides to throw his weight around, look out. The Long Island man weighs at least 1,000 pounds and may be the heaviest man alive. Hudson, who three weeks ago got stuck in his bedroom doorway and needed the help of emergency workers to break free, was weighed on a special scale with the help of three weightlifters recruited at a nearby gym. They pulled the 42-year-old man up from his bed and maneuvered him until he was able to step on the scale’s platform, Hudson said. The scale evened off at 1,000 pounds--the largest weight it was designed to handle--and then its spring snapped. The 1987 Guinness Book of World Records awards the title of the heaviest living man to T. J. Albert Jackson, whose weight varies between 872 and 891 pounds. “ . . . I know I’m over 1,000 pounds. I think I’m over 1,100, almost 1,200 pounds,” said Hudson, who is trying to lose weight. His long-range goal is to carry 190 pounds on his 6-foot-2-inch frame. He is on a diet prescribed by diet adviser Dick Gregory, who purchased the special scales. “Last week, my neck was a 24 (inches around),” Hudson said. “But now, it’s down to a 22. My leg was 55 or 56 inches, and it’s now down to 51. So, it seems to be working.”

--Another weight conscious person is Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who says he has shed 85 pounds and plans to lose even more. “I have a couple of roles that I would like to do,” Pavarotti said after rehearsing with the Pittsburgh, Pa., Opera. One of those desired parts is the title role in “Werther,” by Jules Massenet. But Werther is “a man who is dying for love,” the singer said, and it’s difficult to imagine “a chubby guy like me dying for love, so I have to lose.” Pavarotti said he has been eating more nutritiously and avoiding fatty foods and alcohol. He refused to disclose his weight but said he wanted to lose 25 more pounds.