Children are happy gifts
Some expectations about adoption, nearly a hundred years ago.
The Mansfield Shield
December 24, 1915
Seventy-seven once childless homes in state are happy today. - Some homes saddened because baby for adoption was not forthcoming.
By Associated Press.
Columbus, O., Dec. 24 - Sunny-faced children were the Christmas gifts which brought joy today to 77 homes in Ohio that would have been childless except for adoption during the past year of thee small ward of the board of state charities.
A score of other homes were saddened by news that their greatest wish - a baby for adoption by Christmas time - could not be granted, because there are "not enough babies to go 'round."
"Families will have to begin their Christmas shopping earlier next year if they want real live babies for gifts." said C.V. Williams, director of the children's welfare bureau of the board of state charities.
Here are typical extracts from letters on file at the board's office:
"My husband and I are very anxious for a baby to adopt before Christmas this year."
"It will be a dead Christmas at our house if we can't find a child who can be ours for all time."
"The little boy we took to raise is looking forward anxiously to his first Christmas with us, but we are expecting more pleasure from our first Christmas with him."
A Columbus family chose to adopt a four-year-old boy a week ago rather than receive money for taking care of him until next spring, because they wanted him to be "theirs only" for the the Christmas stocking celebration. They already had one child or their own.
The board has found homes for 77 children in the past year, and now has about 25 others for whom it wants to find permanent homes. Comparatively little of this kind of work is done by the state board, however. Most children are place in homes by the management of the institutions of which they are wards.
The state board has refused babies to a number of families who wanted them by Christmas, either because the child's or the prospective parents' records had not been investigated thoroughly.
It was estimated today that 10,000 children, fatherless and motherless are in county, church or fraternal homes within Ohio and will be dependent on these institutions for holiday entertainment.