Suemma Coleman Home for Unwed Mothers

Stumbled on 2 stories about this place today. Had not heard of this place – Suemma Coleman – before. One was from a woman who gave birth at the age of 14, 52 years ago. It was 1971 in Indiana USA. She wrote it on the 50th year after she relinquished her baby in order to share her experiences at a Facebook page called Adoption Sucks.

She writes – I’d spent the previous 6 weeks living among hostile strangers, a captive who was caught and shamed the one time I tried to escape. The home was run by a shriveled old matriarch, religious zealots/social workers and filled with self-loathing young pregnant women. There was no privacy. There was no freedom. There was an 8 foot chain-link fence around the top of the building to prevent us from throwing ourselves from the 3 story height, as others had done in the past. There was bland, starchy food served at a single huge table and forced servitude cleaning in the kitchen. There was a single pay telephone in a hallway shared by all the dorms.

My heart goes out to the young me who was sent by ambulance alone during the night to the county hospital. There I was drugged, strapped down and delivered of my precious baby boy. During his birth I was overcome with a feeling of power and overwhelming love I never dreamed possible; I never experienced it again with my subsequent children. Then they whisked him away. I was sent to the post-delivery room where a nurse viciously kneaded my abdomen to expel the placenta, while telling me I deserved the pain.

I never expected to see him again. But the orderlies on duty that night didn’t want to bother with these pariah babies so he was brought to me to feed and change. I remembered thinking I had no idea how. They’d given me a drug to dry up my milk and another caused a splitting headache when I sat up. But all that mattered was that he was miraculously in my arms. He was perfect and beautiful. Everyone commented that his long, black eye lashes gave the impression of a baby girl but his long fingers and toes predicted the 6’3″ man he grew to be. He would briefly visit me one or two more times that night before we were separated for good.

I have a memory of watching my parents standing in the hospital corridor, far away, saying hello and goodbye to their first-born grandchild in the nursery. They were crying. I felt no sympathy for them, knowing the price we were all going to pay because of their decision. My heart had already turned to stone and against them. I spent another 10 days or so for observation and recovery in the Home. Then, I was sent home with my parents, who promptly took me to get a puppy. At 14 days of age, my baby was sent to live with strangers who would be his adoptive parents. I never saw my son again.

I found another story about this home on WordPress at this LINK>JUST SOME INTERESTING HISTORY STUFF. She writes – Today was just a rough kind of day. A fellow Coleman adoptee had emailed that she finally got in contact with her natural mother. I met this gal through one of the many Indiana adoptee groups on the internet. We have kept in touch for last two years. She knew my horror story with St. Elizabeth’s/Coleman and their confidential intermediary, Katrina Carlisle. I had advised her not to use this individual. She had gone with Omni Trace which ended up ripping her off. She emailed me about a month ago about LINK>Kinsolving Investigations. I said that this company was great as long as you can afford them. I unfortunately can’t at this time. Well they found for her. Katrina had told her not to search without her assistance. Katrina did everything she could to discourage this friend from searching period. Well she recently contacted her natural mother. Low and behold, all of the information that Katrina gave her was a lie. Not surprising really. Katrina had lied to me about the law, about who I could and could not use as a CI, and other bits and pieces of my own information. I worry daily what my own natural mother has been told by this woman. I worry whether or not she was even contacted. I worry about whether or not that she took my money and fed me a line of bullshit. I worry that she tried to get more money from my natural mother. I worry that because she could not get the information that my mother wanted about me, she assumed my mother refused contact. All of these are very real worries. I have heard them from all over the country.

This was written in 2008 and she adds – “Indiana enacts a law that makes it the most restrictive state in the nation in regard to keeping adoption records confidential.” She goes on to lay out a review of history re: adoption in Indiana and St. Elizabeth/Coleman specifically, and their part in it. It begins with – 1894 The Suemma Coleman Home is founded for “erring girls and women who had been living lives of shame and had no homes.” (Today, it operates as Coleman Adoption Services.) There is more there at the link.

No point in posting all this – except – yeah, it was pretty much the same everywhere. My dad’s mom gave birth to him at the Door of Hope Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers in Ocean Beach, California back in the mid-1930s.

It’s A Matter Of Responsibility

Artist Delphine Boel

One of my guilty pleasures in life is not an obsessive but a casual interest in royalty. So I could say that this blog is simply for fun. The artist looks like a “fun” person to me but it is about a lot more than fun. It is about how men so often plant their seeds wherever they wish to and don’t take any responsibility for it.

I’ll never know entirely what transpired between my dad’s parents. His father was a married man and unless he was simply hiding the truth that he fathered a son, he never knew about it. I give him the benefit of the doubt regarding that because my grandmother was a very self-sufficient woman and it is likely she just handled her pregnancy very quietly, turning to the Salvation Army’s home for unwed mothers in San Diego (actually Ocean Beach) California.

And I won’t judge King Albert II of Belgium either. Maybe he knew and hid it and maybe he didn’t but he does know now. DNA has been a miracle at revealing familial identities for children conceived out of wedlock and adoptees alike.

Delphine’s mother, Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, said she and Albert II had been involved in an 18-year-long affair before he was crowned king. The Belgian aristocrat also claimed the royal had been a presence during Ms Boël’s childhood. Speculation surrounding an illegitimate child of King Albert II sparked in 1999 after the publication of an unauthorized biography of the monarch’s wife, Queen Paola. This sensational claim prompted a royal scandal and growing gossip surrounding the court.

Ms Boël first publicly spoke out and claimed she was the love child of King Albert II in 2005. She could not open court proceedings until 2013, after he abdicated in favor of his firstborn, King Philippe, and lost his immunity to prosecution. Despite the launch of the legal case against him, the former king initially resisted court orders to undergo DNA testing. He only caved in when told he faced fines of £4,500 (€5,000) for every day he would push back the test.

After he “learnt the results of the DNA tests”, Albert II acknowledged Ms Boël as his fourth child. King Albert’s lawyer issued a statement on January 27 reading: “Scientific conclusions indicate that he is the biological father of Mrs Delphine Boel. King Albert has decided to put an end to this painful procedure in good conscience.”

The love child’s lawyer described this royal admission as a “relief”. He continued: “Her life has been a long nightmare because of this quest for identity. She wants to have exactly the same privileges, titles and capacities as her brothers and her sister.” Reports suggest a victory of Ms Boël in court could see her children become eligible for a royal title – much like the other grandchildren of King Albert II in the line of succession to the throne. But the former monarch’s lawyer says the court has no power to hand out titles and only a royal decree would make Ms Boël a princess.

Andy Hardy’s Dilemma

Andy Hardy’s Dilemma was a 1940 short from the Community Chest (precursor to the United Way) in which Andy and his father explore the idea of charitable giving.

In the film, the narrator specifically discussed a Salvation Army Home for Women, stating that the hospital:
“. . . is happy to indulge any mother who wishes to be known by her first name only and once baby and mother are both healthy, the organization will find the mother a job where she can keep her infant nearby with the belief that with her own child growing up beside her, a girl isn’t going to make the same mistake again . . . A fundamental principle here is that, after the baby is born and started in life, and after the mother is well and normal, every effort is made to find work so she can keep her baby. You see, this magnificent principle of tolerance and understanding is based on her own child growing up beside her. She is unlikely to make the same mistake again . . . and oh, I didn’t say anything about the babies’ fathers, did I? And no, I’m not going to.”

The plot is that Andy wants to buy a new car. So he goes into the judge’s home office where his father is about to write a $200 check to charity. Andy drives four cars with his dad as the passenger. They make four stops, one with each of the cars – the last stop is at a “woman’s home”.

Mickey Rooney made a whole series of Andy Hardy romantic movies, some with Judy Garland.

I was attracted to this quote because my dad was born in a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers called Door of Hope in Ocean Beach California in 1935. My grandmother left there some weeks later with her son. She then applied for employment with the Salvation Army and was transferred to El Paso Texas, where eventually my dad was adopted by my Granny primarily (she went through one husband and then ended up with my Granddaddy).

A persistent and determined woman, my Granny never abandoned her adopted sons, even during her most difficult times as a single mother between marriages.

The Grandparent Factor

A topic not always discussed in adoption issue considerations is the lack of support from potential grandparents when a woman finds herself pregnant. They are often key to why an adoption is taking place.

Regardless of the age of the mother, the grandparents often play a huge role in a decision to surrender the child. My own mother, an adoptee herself, encouraged my sister to surrender her daughter.

Where is the family that could have stepped in ? Who else is giving up this child ? In reality, every one related to a child given up for adoption has lost an opportunity to have a relationship with that child. I lost the opportunity to have relationships with all 4 of my original grandparents and many aunts and uncles.

“I don’t want this child – get rid of it !!”, could be what my maternal grandmother’s own father said to her as he sent my married grandmother far away to have my mom. I doubt he intended for my grandmother to bring her back to Memphis Tennessee.

My paternal grandmother left the Door of Hope, a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers in Ocean Beach California to go to her cousin’s home for support. Obviously, that support was not forthcoming because my grandmother went back to the Salvation Army seeking employment, was accepted and transferred to El Paso Texas – which is how my dad ended up there and could be adopted. Being in El Paso was crucial to his meeting my mom and to my conception and birth.

In my family’s case, both of my original grandmothers had lost her own mothers at young ages. The lack of a nurturing, supportive older female probably played a huge role in their losing their first born children. It appears that they didn’t have support from their fathers either.