‘Gertie’s Babies,’ Sold at Birth, Use DNA to Unlock Secret Past

[jakeXT]

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Sue Docken’s start in life, in 1951, with a no-questions-asked cash adoption at the hands of a midwife, had strong elements of the crime scene that it was.

Her adoptive father was told to stay in the car and keep the motor running. His wife went into a nondescript office building in Butte, Mont., where she met with the midwife, Gertrude Pitkanen, and was handed the hours-old infant and the afterbirth, offered a peek through a curtain at the young mother lying in a bed, and told to leave. The afterbirth was thrown out the window on the drive home, Ms. Docken was later told by her adoptive parents, who paid $500 for her that day.

Ms. Docken is one of about two dozen people, mostly in the West, belonging to a self-styled club whose members call themselves “Gertie’s Babies.” (More are believed to be out there, unknown perhaps even to themselves.) Their lives are diverse, connected only by a common thread, Ms. Pitkanen. Sometimes known more grandly as Gertrude Pitkanen Van Orden, she delivered and sold babies, performed abortions — and mostly evaded legal consequence — in Butte from the 1920s through the 1950s. The secrets she left have fueled a search for origins and answers, in some cases lasting decades.

Now, some of the back stories of the Gertie’s Babies have started to come to light through DNA-matching research sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.com, to which people can send a cheek swab in hopes of finding a match with relatives who have also submitted a DNA sample. Tales have emerged of desperation, betrayal and secrets taken to the grave, but also of joy and newfound connection, like Heather Livergood’s.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/us/gerties-babies-sold-at-birth-use-dna-to-unlock-secret-past.html

[KoKo]

1. Before "The Pill" and legalized Abortions this went on all over the USA...

There were Gerties in little towns and cities across the country who would "take care of" an unwanted pregnancy for those who could scrape up the money. Most who could get the money were the wealthy whose children made a "mistake." The people who did the abortions and adoptions were a mixed bag. Many were people who actually cared about those who came to them. Others were in it for the money.

There were legitimate "Homes" who took in girls who "had a problem" and the parents would say their daughter was visiting a relative or on a trip to Europe or some concocted story. Those adoptions were legal and identities were protected.

It's in our recent history. Kids today would be horrified because they can't imagine. But, think of the abortions that are going on today in states where Abortion Clinics are shut down and people aren't able to travel to a place where it is legal. I imagine there are still people who can take care of it somewhere in the "Underground Places" that spring up when something is frowned upon or declared illegal. But, what do those who have to "carry to term" (lack of ability to obtain an abortion, not realizing they are pregnant until to late to qualify or too ashamed to to even search out alternatives) if they can't or don't want to keep the child? If it is from incest, a mistaken passionate encounter or rape? There's an "Underground" if one is wealthy enough....but, not much if one isn't.

I worry with the RW taking control in so many states that this will be the New Normal.

[misterhighwasted]

2. Agree KoKo. Two girls from my Junior & Senior year in high school. One day they were absent,

and didn't return until the following year. No one talked about it and my mom only whispered, "she's expecting".

1969/70. They were sent the Home for Unwed Mothers, one 300 miles away and the other 700 miles from their small communities.

Neither chose adoption. Their babies were raised with in the family until graduation and they moved on, Both married the dad's within a year of graduation and remain together today.

That was a best case scenario. Unfortunate that they were shamed into going "away" to live with strangers through the course of that first pregnancy, 16/17 yrs old and without the support of family & friends.
Things were so messed up then and there were many who did settle for adoption within the Homes for Unwed Mothers. Many such places were run by churches.

There was no birth control, no abortion facilities, and no acceptance of unprotected sex in a group of society coming of age. There was, as I recall, no talk of such a thing either. Whispers & leaning of such things were often learned from someone's older sibling and passed along at slumber parties.

There are true stories through the years of the horrors of treating "unwanted" pregnancies and kitchen table abortions. There are despicable stories my mom told later in life, of Priests & the young girls they drove across the State line, to the convents, to become the one girl in the family to "give their life to God." A few she knew were molested before they made it to the convent.
If pregnancy resulted, well the convent either ended the pregnancy or arranged payment from the adopting parents.

The movie Philomena is familiar to many from those years, before women resisted and the archaic laws were changed.
Equal Rights and Respect for individuals to peacefully carry out their lives with dignity and reason, is indeed about to be reversed, with the power & control of the RW

Appreciate your Post. Much is at stake in 2016.

There is, and I agree with you, a fear that all the progress in education & acceptance and available options women & men have fought hard for will be sent backwards by the RW control.

[pnwmom]

4. Today it is easy to find legitimate agencies anywhere, if adoption is the birth mother's true choice

Other birth mothers, if they want open adoptions, answer ads placed by adoption lawyers.

[misterhighwasted]

3. Thanks for opening up this dialogue jakeXT

I am sure this subject is on the list of RW hit jobs.
Shaming someone into submission is the way RW moves their base & sets policies.