Bothersome Acceptance

Carol Sue DePrato, 4½ months old
May 1947, South Bend, Indiana

That damn 1982 Jackson Browne song often returned to haunt me in the years that followed the release of the original birth certificate for my mother, Carol Sue Miller, in 1992.

"She's got to be somebody's baby;

She must be somebody's baby;

She's got to be somebody's baby..."

But nobody else in the family was terribly concerned with the findings on the birth certificate. My mother was disappointed. She wanted to finally have that sense of identity that comes with the tangible record of your introduction into the world. Something solid and official that finally tells you who you really are. And in her mind, the information she was presented with on her birth certificate was erroneous, so it sadly still clouded the events of her birth with deception and falsehoods.

As stated numerous times in this blog, everyone has a story to tell. And the unfortunate reality is that the storyteller is not a perpetual resource. Those who were present to witness the events of my mother's birth were now gone. "Mrs. Helen Miller," the informant and mother who provided the information on the birth certificate on 1 January 1947 was no longer living to question when these findings came to light. We were only left now with conjecture.

Helen had told my mother that the nurses and attendants were shocked at her level of composure and stoicism in the face of the pains of childbirth on that New Year's Eve evening in 1946. Helen felt that she had no right to indulge herself in the pity and concern of those assisting her when she was bringing a child into the world that she was not taking home with her. She had carried this precious living being inside her for nine months. This child represented the love she finally found in Frank Strukel and the courage she found to leave Eldon Miller. This child marked a tumultuous turning point in Helen's life, and in a week's time, she would have to say goodbye to this child. Forever.

Would a woman carrying this much guilt and sadness mixed with joy and hope for the future then divulge the story of this child's conception to Mary Bartholomew, the attendant that took the information for the birth certificate on the day following Carol's birth? 

Probably not. 

Would a woman who checked into the Goshen General Hospital as Mrs. Helen Miller on that winter night in 1946 while others were preparing to ring in a new year supply a name for the father of this child with a surname that did not match her own? 

Probably not. 

And although Indiana state law then (and now) legally recognizes a woman's current husband as the father of her child, regardless of the circumstances of the child's conception, was Mrs. Helen Miller ready to divulge to the hospital staff that she was divorced from Eldon Miller as of the month prior to this baby's birth? 

Probably not.

In July 1946, Eldon Miller claimed his wife was carrying a child that was not his own. In October 1946, Helen Miller placed an advertisement in the South Bend Tribune seeking a couple to adopt her unborn child. When Ray and Arreda (Dobyns) DePrato replied to that ad and met with Helen shortly thereafter, they also met Frank Louis Strukel, who admitted to being the father of the child. Frank Strukel signed away his paternal rights to this child in 1947 so that she could be formally adopted by the DePratos. From 1982 to her death in 1987, Helen Strukel often discussed the details surrounding her daughter's birth with no hesitation or doubt that her second husband, Frank Strukel, was the father.

This information was enough for my mother. It was enough information for the rest of the reunited family. And in a methodology lecture I have given to genealogists for years regarding evaluating evidence, I have use my mother's birth certificate as an example of evidence and legal documentation that can be proven to be incorrect by ancillary information. After all, the information provided by the welfare department report of 1947, an acceptance of paternity by Frank Strukel, a denial of paternity by Eldon Miller, as well as information provided by those interviewed who were alive at the time of the event, including the birth mother, should trump a single birth certificate whose information was collected during a time of intense emotional trauma, correct?

Not to a genealogist who doubts everything.

But even if I was 99.9% satisfied with the premise that Frank Louis Strukel was the father of Carol Sue Miller, what could I do in 1992 to put that bothersome 0.1% doubt to rest?

Nothing.

At least nothing in 1992.

"She's got to be somebody's baby;

She must be somebody's baby;

She's got to be somebody's baby..."