It’s not “All pile into the car, kids”, but “All pile in to the bus”. The family 15-seater that is. 

Pat Howard’s family is as diverse as it is unique: she has adopted 15 of her 16 children from nine countries including Australia. 

Mrs Howard became a spearhead figure in establishing inter-country adoption in Australia but she said it didn’t start that way for her, she just wanted a family. 

In the 1960s Mrs Howard gave birth to her only biological child, but was unable to have any more children. 

Coming from a family of six herself, Mrs Howard said she has always loved children. Adoption seemed the obvious next step for her and her husband; giving a home to children who needed one. 

So began a long and difficult journey for the Howards, battling governments and courts to establish pathways for intercountry adoption.

“It took us seven years, it took me battling with authorities, I’d get one side of the country right and then the other side it was difficult,” Mrs Howard said. 

“We were refused on three different occasions for overseas adoptions and we went before the courts and had it appealed.

“I think it was just because we were the first of everything and you know what the government’s like when they don’t have everything in place and they're not particularly interested in doing it because it’s extra work for them so it's just something that gets left ofn the back burners.”

But Mrs Howard isn’t one to be easily put off. 

“They didnt know me very well, I pushed and pushed and pushed, I’m sure they wished I’d go away,” she laughs. 

“But sometimes you’ve got to do it.”

The Howard’s first overseas child came from Vietnam around the time of the Vietnam war. 

Mrs Howard was actively involved in the war and was meant to travel to the country to help with children displaced and orphaned, but then the war ended. 

“I said, ‘I don’t know what will be expected of me’ and they said, ‘Just to hold the babies, they’re lacking human contact and they’re dying from that and we dont have the time’,” she said. 

“Our child came on the Angel of Mercy [plane] and he was one of the seven dying babies that came out of a home that 10 per cent ever came out of – it was for dying babies.”

Of the seven babies “that came in the GI shoeboxes”, Mrs Howard’s son was one of only four who lived. 

The battles Mrs Howard undertook to establish inter-country adoption recently earned her a place in the Tasmanian Honor Roll of Women. 

“[It was] very humbling, you dont go into these things for recognition, it's humbling and it's nice to receive but it's certainly not about that, it’s about the kids and making sure they’re alright,” Mrs Howard said. 

Mrs Howard said the community around them were generally very supportive and accepting of their large and unique family. 

Only occasionally would she come across criticism. 

“I had a lady, one day I was crossing the road near Myers … and I had the kids with me and she bailed me up in the middle of the road and said, ‘You need to pay attention to your own country, you've adopted all these kids and what's wrong with our aboriginal kids?’,” Mrs Howard said.

“And I said, ‘We are not allowed to adopt aboriginal children, it’s legally not allowed’, she said, ‘You’d tell me anything’ and then she went off.

“I thought oh you're so ignorant you dont know what youre talking about.”

Mrs Howard said she had to just let those kind of encounters go. 

“It’s just ignorance, they don't know any better. It hasn't happened very often only a couple of times most people are absolutely wonderful.”

Surrounded now by portraits of her family in a suburban lounge room in Newnham, Mrs Howard remembers life raising 16 children, many of who came with issues from their background and history. 

“We’ve had our issues along the way, I don’t deny that at all, you can't survive some of the issues they have without scars and things ,” she said. 

“It’s hard sometimes and you've got to get through the bumps, but you do and you'd think I’m telling fibs but they didn't argue, they didn’t fight they just got on.

“They all had stories to tell and it was no good one whinging and saying ‘Poor me, look at me, oh this has happened to me’ because the guy that they were talking to, or the girl, had the same sort of stories so they just got on with it.”