1950 No Longer an Orphan

This is the story I was told all of my life. My father, known as Joe to everyone though it wasn't his name, owned a service station and garage on St Charles Avenue. He was really successful and very proud of his business. Joe was what we now call a "cajun", having come from Mansura, Louisiana to New Orleans after he graduated from high school when he was 16. Joe had an uncanny knack for numbers- faster than an adding machine for sure. His first job was being the conductor for the St Charles Avenue street car. He fell in love with the city of New Orleans. And who didn't back then? He lived in an apartment with a cousin, who, according to Joe, smoked weed and did nothing and went home after a year due to homesickness. When Joe went into engine repair, he found a second love. And combining the two, he opened his own business and had 6 employees. People loved and trusted him. At Christmas, he received lavish gifts from the people who patronized his business. They would get their cars picked up and delivered washed, cleaned and repaired. Doctors, lawyers, financiers all used the Gulf Service garage. Joe started a savings and loan company and put himself on their board of directors. He had everything except the one thing he really wanted- children. His wife, Evelyn, was barren. There was no other word. Her ovaries were removed at the age of 20 due to a "mass"- probably a cyst of some sort. It destroyed her reproductive life. Due to poor birth control for the rest of the population, there was no shortage of white infants up for adoption in the 1940s to the 1960s. First, Joe and Evelyn got a tiny, sick, impetigo covered baby named Stephen from the Protestant Home in New Orleans. Evelyn didn't want a sickly child, but the folks at the Protestant Home, once they found out Evelyn was a nurse, begged Evelyn to take the infant and save his life. They were ill quipped at the Home to care for this frail life and they told Evelyn and Joe that they were this baby's only chance. In 1947, they took Stephen and made him well- but it was arduous and expensive and time consuming. Evelyn never did describe it as a labor of love. She felt guilt the rest of her life that Stephen had learning disabilities and temper issues. So, in May of 1950, when an administrator from the Volunteers of America while picking up his car from Joe, overheard Joe say he wished he had a daughter to add to the family-well, it was just what the administrator needed to hear. He told Joe about this baby girl, all ready almost 6 months old, who stayed in the nursery at the VOA. He described her as adorable- and told Joe- take a break, come with me and see this little girl. Which Joe did. The child he saw (of course it was me) he described as fair with rosy cheeks and bright, shiny light hazel eyes who laughed and smiled at everyone. Joe said that when he said hello and smiled at me, I reached up with my arms and then laid my head on his shoulder. He was sunk. He said he wanted me, but he had to call Evelyn. Evelyn did not share his enthusiasm. She described herself as tired, tired of taking care of a sick child, tired of the work and tired of not having time to continue to pursue her career as a nurse anesthetist. In fairness, she enjoyed her work. In fact, she had been a single woman and a working woman until her 30s. Now to have to take care of kids- kids that really weren't hers- well, she was not happy. But my father begged her- and he brought her to see me. Since I was small, but very healthy at that point, and obviously smart, she relented. Though years later, when I asked her why she was always so unhappy with me and so, well, mean, she would reply "I never wanted to have a second child. Stephen was enough. But your father just wouldn't leave it alone". (Don't feel sorry, here- at least I didn't go to an orphanage!) At six months of age, within a week of potentially being transferred to St Elizabeth's or some other orphanage, Joe and Evelyn went to the office of the lawyer downtown who handled adoptions. They signed the papers, and I became Lynn, and my life was now theirs to do with as they pleased. It is telling that adoption papers were then filed in the notarial archives of the City of New Orleans- under chattel. I had been transferred in the same fashion as a car, or boat, or, in the not so distant past- a slave. Property. The thing about adoption is that it is based in fraud. The belief that any child can be your child because of a piece of paper. While it is certainly true that biological children can be hated and abused and used by a parent, there is something about DNA that will make other relatives stand up and take care of the child. But in adoption, that child belongs to no one. Some adoptions are wonderful. But I have to say that the vast majority of adoptees that I dealt with in my life are not happy about their adoption and not happy about the loss of a birth mother. Though it is wise to never go there if you are adopted- because it happened the way it did and you cannot change it.  But we can deal with that later. Right now, the happy part of the story is that a baby didn't go to an orphanage and a man who wanted a daughter, got one.