In the olden days, newspapers used to print births. Go to the public

library and view the relevant newspapers.

The person wanting to know would be a niece of this baby;

the baby's mother is this woman's paternal grandmother.

I saw the hospital bill, with the dates the mother was there, with her name as "patient", & one of the charges is for "care of baby".

I feelvery sure it wasn't in the newspaper;

not only did hospitals have a great deal of discretion in that kind of thing, but the mother's older sister paid the bill, & she & the doctor seem to have made the "arrangements", whatever they were.

This family, even in this day & age, let alone in 1946, is very DNA-proud, trace roots back to American Revolution blah blah blah;

they're very much a cut above & wouldn't tolerate a relative bringing scandal into the family even today, so I'm sure that what the lady told her niece was accurate.

Had the rest of the family found out about it, she would have been shunned.

This child, assuming that it survived, may not even know it was adopted.

It was a dark time for unmarried mothers;

the niece said that her grandmother, this child's mother, once told her that she thought the doctor "did something" so that she couldn't have more children.

She was married two more times & never had other children although "we never did anything to prevent it."

very sad.

I wish she had been able to find the child herself, but her family was too important to her.

The niece feels like the baby was a preemie but she can't remember why; something her grandmother said. Maybe it was tiny?

This niece & I are the only ones who know or care...unless the "child" wants to find birth family, so I'll try roots.web (thanks for the tip) & see if I can find some of those sites where adoptees look for family.

Niece understands that perhaps the baby died, or doesn't know he/she's adopted, or doesn't care, but niece & I were both close to her grandmother & would like to offer to share her with her only surviving child (niece's father passed away early in life).

Thanks to both of you! & if anyone has more ideas, please post 'em here!

Thanks!

"DNA proud" ? What in the heck does that mean?

Your description of this woman's social history isn't typical of the times.

Some states have established registries for adoptees and birth family members. Texas is also home of the infamous Edna Gladney Home (baby sellers). Before you try these routes, try to find a search and support group in Texas. You don't want to close any doors that are still 'ajar'.

I *think* the National Adoption Registry still exists; did up to the 1990's. Don't get mixed up in the National Committee for Adoption -- self-serving group of attorneys who make their living providing babies. Closed adoptions are their bread and butter. (Sealed records are their friend. Safe birth control is their enemy.)

All individuals have the right to make themselves known to others and ask if they want continued contact. Adults separated by adoption are no different than any other citizens and don't want any 'special' protection.

"Texas is also home of the infamous Edna Gladney Home (baby sellers)."

I must have missed a chapter somewhere. Have known of people who adopted through Edna Gladney, and they certainly did not buy a baby. Have also known of girls who went there to have their babies, and they did not sell them. Just curious about the story I must have missed.

sorry, "DNA proud" is my own little term for the kind of attitude that being able to trace ancestors who were among the first Europeans (Mayflower etc), or who achieved something, or who were famous means that you are a cut above the rest of us.

& I don't know that her "social history" was or was not typical of the time. Who cares?

It wasn't a synopsis of the mores of the forties; it was her experience.

hounds, I too knew a woman who had her baby at Gladney & she loved the place.

.

The Edna Gladney Home is well known in Adoption Reunion and Reform circles as one of the worst cases of adoption scandal in this country. Here is one little link to get you started, but google Gladney home scandal and you can fill your days reading about it.

Gladney

As for your friend searching for her relative, there are FREE "search angels" in every state helping locate lost family members.

Here is one place to start going about locating an angel:

Search Angels by state

There are numerous adoption reunion registries available. I checked a few but found no one with that birthday spread who is looking. But there are many more registries and a search angel should be able to find out if the baby survived (please don't call her or him an "it" people) and was adopted. If through Gladney, it may be more of a problem, but always worth trying.

Good luck to your friend!

Edna Gladney was just one of many entrepreneurs operating throughout the US, beginning in the early part of the twentieth century.

The Cradle was a similar operation near Chicago. They were 'alternatives' to state and religious charities, an option for people who often failed to meet social workers' qualifications -- too old, unstable, dubious histories, etc. An adequate financial situation was qualification enough at these alternative operations. They even created an aura of being superior. *Their* babies were 'special'. (They did attract people who would pay more.)

Gladney and Cradle still exist, but they had to change after the advent of birth control -- and subsequent difficulty in finding the desired product: Healthy white babies. A greater social acceptance of white pregnancy outside of marriage also limited supply. (Am I shocking you? You didn't know about the business side of adoption, with Demand, Supply, and Profit?)

There are no Payments. Goodness, that would be *illegal* -- even given the remote chance it became known under the sealed records system. Instead, there were and are upfront and lifelong contributions to these 'charities'. Supporters also housed pregnant girls -- cutting down on Overhead. Pregnant girls worked as nannies and maids. (In the late 1960's a friend of mine was on her hands and knees scrubbing her benefactor's kitchen floor when she went into labor.)

There were simpler, cruder operations in less affluent areas: "Baby Farms", where pregnant women were 'sheltered'. When they gave birth they were presented with bills for room, board, delivery, and nursery care. If a woman had had financial support, she wouldn't have been there in the first place, so... she signed the surrender and the baby was actually *sold* -- no pretense of 'a charity'. Should the infant be un-marketable (not white, infirm, whatever) , it was sent to the state home. Local judges facilitated these adoptions. (The legal system has long opposed unsealing adoption records.)

I don't know if it still exists, but Easter House in Chicago was still using this bait and take as recently as 1990. They found frightened pregnant girls through ads in newspapers and at schools. Respondents were brought to Chicago and isolated in small apartments, escorted to clinics, their hospital bills paid. Once a healthy infant was born and the agency had the surrender, the girl got a bus ticket home.

Today families are more likely to view the unplanned child for who it IS, a member of the family. "Shame" no longer has the same unworthy power to break a family apart. And...childless people can now have a child made-to-order in a petri dish -- as though sperm and ova were merely 'donor products', not resulting in their sons and daughters.