KALAMAZOO, MI - Eileen Mulder was a mother to seven children during her 50-year marriage.

But when her husband Martin died in 2007, it had been about 10 years since the last of them had grown up and moved out.

That left the six-bedroom house they called home since 1972 pretty lonely.

So about five years ago, she became a mother all over again, providing a home for international students who are attending Western Michigan University.

"She is wonderful," says Mohammed Alashwan, an 18-year-old mechanical engineering student from Jubial, Saudia Arabia. "She cares for me and my friends here."

"We call her 'Mom,'" Chen Zhao said with a smile.

He is a 26-year-old computer science major from Beijing, China, who, like Alashwan and others, knew very little English when he arrived and was looking for an in-home living situation.

"It's a good way to learn the language and the culture," said Zhao, who has been with Mulder for about a year.

Alashwan joined Mulder this past fall. Mulder has shared her home with 15 students from Japan, China, Germany, Saudi Arabia and South Korean. They have stayed for as short a time as four months and as long as two years, but can arrange to stay for as long as they are in school.

The three students currently in Mulder's charge are the latest that she had mothered and mentored as a host for Lodge & Learn LLC, an independent, Kalamazoo-based, home-stay matching program.

The students say it has been good to have her as a mother-figure.

"She is like my mother," Alashwan said. "I have been able to tell her problems."



She has introduced them to all sorts of celebrations, including Halloween and Christmas done American-style, and for some, going to church on Sunday. They have introduced her to parts of their culture, including sake, the rice wine (which Mulder said an older student bought and she was willing to try only once) and hookah-pipe smoking (which she said she allowed an older student to do in their garage with his friends).

She said they convinced her to try it, which she did only once, making sure they were smoking flavored tobacco and nothing else. She said she was blessed to have them share their Muslim faith and other parts of their cultures.

"She goes above and beyond," Barbara Wagar-Curley, coordinator of Lodge & Learn, says of the care and mothering Mulder, now 78, provides to the students who share her home.

"I get so many host moms call and say, 'He's not eating dinner,' (or mention some other problem)," Wagar-Curley said. "I say, 'Call Eileen.' She knows how to go with the flow. She's like the glue here. You can't just teach that. That just comes with experience as a mom."

Many students are away from home for the first time and a mother-figure helps, Mulders' students said.

Zhao and Alashwan are two of Mulder's three current international "children."

There are four if you count Zeyad Alshrari, a Saudi Arabian student who returned to his homeland a few weeks ago to recuperate from a torn ACL ligament.

"She helped him skoosh up the stairs and took him to surgery," Zhao said, sounding as if Alshrari got more attention from "mom" than him. He had fun Tuesday trying to push the buttons that all children try to find when they want more attention from their mothers.

Mulder takes it as a compliment.

"I want them to feel like home, that they are being taken care of, even though they are away from home," Mulder said, explaining why she got involved. "Through that, my heart got bigger and bigger because these guys gave it back to me. They appreciate it. Kids love you as mom but they need someone."

She said, "When they come here, their parents appreciate that they are in a home - being taken care of."

Of the students with whom she has shared her home, she said, "I have not had a bad one at all."

All but three of her students have been young men, enrolled in programs that pay for their room and board. Mulder cooks, cleans and looks after them, but Wagar-Curley said a lot of what Mulder does is voluntary.

Mulder said her students have always been very polite and they take turns cooking foods they like. The students from Saudi Arabia cook dishes from their homeland. Zhao is proud of the Chinese food he cooks.

"But none of them clean up afterwards," Mulder said, grimacing like any mom. And she is working on make sure the two youngest, both age 18, are taking responsibility for doing their own laundry. They claim they have. But like an older brother, Zhao begs to differ.

"When it comes to chores and schoolwork, She's just like my mom," said Yasir Almohsen, an 18-year-old computer information systems student from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

"She drives us to school, gets us groceries," Almohsen said. "It's easier than living in an apartment."

They also play well with Mulder's natural children. Almohsen and Alashwan saw snow for the first time this past winter and snowmobiled on Sugarloaf Lake with Mulder's son Dennis. Alashwan also went on his first cross-country trek in the U.S., joining her recently on a visit to see her daughter and grandchildren in West Virginia.

"He loved it," said Eileen Mulder. She said her family in Virginia loved him.

"They are the most respectful kids," said Mulder, whose husband founded Mulder Glass and Glazing Inc. in 1963 and Mulder Waterproofing and Sealants Inc. in 1995 before selling those businessed to their sons and retiring in 2001.

Mulder said she was sullen after the death of her husband and was connected to the home-stay program by a good friend.

"She called and said they had seen a notification for host parents/host moms for foreign students that were going to Western Michigan University and that's what lead me to Barb and Barb got me started with my first one."

"You have to never stop being a mom," Eileen Mulder said, explaining how she has managed to accommodate young people from so many places as well as her children as they were growing up.

Until retiring in 2001, she worked for 11 years as a paraprofessional, helping teachers work with special needs children in the Mattawan Consolidated Schools. She said she used what she learned growing up in a family with three siblings (including a brother who was autistic) to help in that job. And those listening and interpretive skills have come in handy in working with international students.

Mulder speaks via Skype every Monday morning with Jiro Kosika, the first international student who shared her home. He is now a teacher in Osaka, Japan, and has married and had three children. The last child, a girl, was born two years ago was named Ai, which is pronounced "I" and is short for Eileen.

Mulder was honored again that way last month by another former student from Japan. He also named his newborn daughter Ai.

What's her advice for young mothers?

"No matter how many children you have, love them unconditionally and show them that the big wide world out there is not as scary as what they think. Teach them the ways that they should learn at home. When they learn at home, they'll take it with them when they leave home."

She said she doesn't think as many young mothers teach their children to be respectful. She said she thinks they are reluctant to discipline their children out of fear about what others will think or that they are breaking some sort of law. She said in other cases, working mothers are so busy, they become tired and it's easy to let things slide with their children.

"You have to be a mom all times but remember you can't always be their friend,: she said, "because when you're their friend, you treat them different than when you're a mom. Being a friend is OK but not when you're a mom. I don't think that goes together."

Why?

"Because pretty soon, you get too adapted to what they want and pretty soon you just let them do what they want. But if you're a mom, you're a mom. You're going to be more strict."

What does she want for Mother's Day?

"Flowers, hugs," she said. "I always was treated wonderfully by my children and I still am. And it's fun being mom to so many."



Mulder's natural children are:

* Dennis, 58, owns and operates (along with his wife Laurie) Mulder Glass at 4244 Ravine Road in Kalamazoo;

* Scott, 57, owns and operates (along with his wife Sandy) Mulder Waterproofing & Sealants Inc. at 3420 Ravine Road (Mulder's Landscape Supplies Inc., which is also on Ravine Road, is run by a cousin, Art Mulder);

* Ronald, 54, works for a glass company in Traverse City;

* Randy (Ronald's twin), 54, works for Mulder Glass in Kalamazoo;

* Julie Lucas, 52, is a stay-at-home mother in Grafton, W.Va.;

* Michelle Taylor, 48, is a paraprofessional in the Mattawan Consolidated Schools. She convinced her mother to join her in that work years ago;

* Daniel, 44, works as an events coordinator in Savannah, Ga.

Eileen Mulder also has two foster children that she treats as her own: Tami Koenig, 40, who is a teacher in the Byron Center Public Schools in the Grand Rapids area; and Becky Leep, 38, of Plainwell, who is a medical coding specialist in Kalamazoo.



Mulder also has 23 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.

Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive Business writer Al Jones may be contacted at ajones5@mlive.com. Follow me on Twitter at ajones5_al