Why Would My Parents Adopt A Child?
Part 1
My parents, Carl and Cill, were married in June of 1951. They were 22 and 23 years old respectively.
My mom wrote in her memoir about life in the early fifties:
“In retrospect, I think our generation was not too different in attitudes from those of our grandparents. Of course we had more material conveniences, but robbery and over-drinking were common problems, while murder and drug use were not. The firm expectation for every girl was that she gets married and raise a family. If educated, she could be a nurse, teacher, secretary or librarian. Options for those with a high school education, or less, were waitress, salesclerk or housemaid. When a young woman married, she didn’t “work” after she became pregnant. Some school systems even fired female teachers as soon as they were married. Imagine a child being exposed to a pregnant woman! After producing babies, the woman was required to do the child-care, cleaning, cooking, gardening, as well as to be a nice, responsible member of the community. When Daddy, the Provider, got home after work, the house was supposed to be immaculate, the toddlers in pajamas happily awaiting story time. While Daddy was reading the story, mom was putting the finishing touches on a romantic candlelight dinner for two, ready just moments after the youngsters had gone sleepily off to bed. Look back at the ads for that era, women wearing neat house dresses and high heels were smilingly vacuuming before the Man walked in the door. Obviously, such high expectations were seldom perfectly fulfilled, but if you ask any woman who ran a household in that time frame in middle-class America, that was the very familiar standard.”
I’ll interject here to say that as far back as I can remember, my mother did not follow this protocol, nor did my father!
“In those days, young men courted and married young ladies in a fairly short period of time. World War II was influential in speeding up the process as couples married before the young solider got shipped overseas. Given this social climate, it is not surprising that Carl met my family in December of 1950, and we became engaged on Valentine’s Day 1951 at a party in our New York apartment (NB: that my mom shared with four other women). My parents came - they were unhappy - Carl was German and a Catholic. During and after the war, many Americans did not hold Germans in high regard, no matter how long they had been citizens of the United States. To a Protestant living in New England, being Catholic was far worse that being German. Growing up in Vermont, there was a marked division between Protestants and Catholics.”
“I stood firmly against my parents in my decision to marry Carl. Being German was a non-issue for me. Being Catholic, because of my background, was harder. Carl thought briefly that I would become Catholic, but I had zero intentions of that, but we loved each other very much and we figured we’d work it out.”
My dad was drafted to serve in the Korean War on February 27th, 1951, and my parents planned to marry in May or June, whenever dad could get a three-day pass. They were married on June 2nd in Vermont, where my mother was raised and her parents still lived. He returned home from the war to New York City in late February 1953, at which point my parents moved to Cambridge, MA so that my dad could return to his studies at Harvard.
“Carl and I had never practiced birth control. We wanted children and figured whenever they came along, it was fine. However, my cycles were very irregular, and I wasn’t getting pregnant, so we went to a clinic in Boston. We had tests, and I was put on a hormone regimen. Finally, in the spring of 1955, I became pregnant. We were both overjoyed and my morning sickness was more of an afternoon sickness when I felt queasy after a long day of teaching and the drive home."
"In mid-August, Carl had two weeks of Army camp at Camp Drum in northern NY State, and I went to Montpelier, Vermont for my sister’s wedding. A little while after the wedding, for no known reason, I started to lose the baby. My parents took me straight to the hospital. Nowadays (in 2007 when this memoir was written) they probably would have given a woman shots to stop the contractions, but those were not available then. In the early hours of the morning, I was wheeled to the delivery room, fully conscious and totally heartbroken. I knew it was way too early, and the baby had no chance.”
“Now comes the believe it or not part. I was not drugged. I was on the delivery table about to lose the child I wanted so much, when I distinctly heard a voice say, “You will have your Katie and your Bill, but this baby’s name is John.” Then I heard the doctor say, very sadly, “a perfect baby boy”. He asked me if I wanted him to baptize the baby, and I said I did.”
“According to Vermont State law, John was big enough to be considered a stillborn child, and as such required burial. My parents were wonderful. They arranged for a cemetery plot and small gravestone in Woodsville, NH (NB: where my mother’s father was born and raised). I certainly wasn’t up to any planning then and Carl wasn’t there. I had told Mom and Dad about John’s name. They asked if John had a middle name, and I responded that he wasn’t given one. My father really got it; Mom was more skeptical, but she did not forget the incident, for some years later when she was helping me after Sally’s birth, she said rather acidly, “The voice never told you about Sam and Sally!” Carl finally arrived, and once he was there, he fully realized the impact of our loss.”
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