Marsha Pawluk had grit, plain and simple.

But her larger-than-life heart was also mined for its gold, over and over again.

Its gifts were given to hundreds of children over the decades, both in her daycare and in her foster care, say friends and family.

“Years later, foster children would come up to her and say, ‘We love you, Marsha,’ and give her a hug, “ recalled her daughter, Rebecca Finney, of Austin. “Her foster kids were fed, they were showered — and they felt loved. She was always on the front lines for them.”

Pawluk, 65, died suddenly on Saturday, Feb. 11. She had sheltered hundreds of lives during her lifetime, and praise for her willingness to fight for “her kids” was long and heartfelt.

“They were always ‘her kids’,” said Todd Schoonover, guardian ad litem f, who worked closely with Pawluk for many years. “I never knew anyone who would fight as hard for those kids. If she thought that someone wasn’t treating them right … she was like a bear.”

One of those former foster kids, Karissa Reimers, agreed.

“She was very compassionate, but she was tough — but she just wanted the best for her kids,” recalled Reimer.

Another foster child, Jenny Jorgensen, who is today herself a foster mother, agreed. She stayed with Pawluk’s mother and dad, Marcella “Archie” and Cletus Heimer, who operated as foster parents before Pawluk. Pawluk worked as a counselor at the Boys’ Ranch before taking over for her mom after Archie passed.

Jorgenson was 15 and had run away from home.

“I got caught and … I ended up with Archie. Marsha was always around and I would help Archie,” so she got to know Pawluk and they always kept in touch, Jorgensen said.

“She always helped me and believed in me,” she said. “I am sure some of her kids thought she was a pain in the butt — I would call it strict — but when they got older, they would thank her.”

After Jorgensen became a foster mother, she enlisted Pawluk’s advice more than a few times.

“I’d think, ‘How did she do this? How did she manage?’” she said. “But I learned every child is different. She made every one feel like they belonged. She had a trailer on the Mississippi, and when summer came, whoever was staying with her went, too.”

Schoonover also recalled that Pawluk would take kids to “the Mall of America in the winter, to water parks in the summer,” and on the weekends, to the Mississippi.

“She always was doing something for them,” he said.

Finney recalled all the kids coming home from school and “the first thing Mom would say was ‘Get that homework done.’ That was always first. But she was always planning something; kids went camping, she loved taking them to the movies; there were pool parties, cook-outs. She did everything and anything with the kids. She really, I guess, loved to be busy, to have a lot of people around her. Her family was the community. She was really, really passionate about their well-being.”

Finney admitted there were times she and her sister, Kellie, were “a little bit jealous at times … we wanted our mom to ourselves.”

But there was a good result: “We always had a lot of friends growing up,” she said with a chuckle.

Pawluk’s niece, Jenny Beckel, said she felt Pawluk was given some of the “toughest kids … but I think she wanted to make sure there was someone there, even for them. She had a heart of gold; she would help anyone.”

That willingness to take the hard cases also kept children out of group homes, said Schoonover.

“She did it all for the kids,” he said.

Pawluk’s influence continues to be felt, Finney said. Several family members are either daycare or foster care providers; Kellie is a pediatric nurse.

“She was larger than life,” Finney said. “And she never, ever made anyone feel like they didn’t belong. She made them, all of them, feel loved.”