Cris wrote:
Hi, I am an adoptee who was born in Allen County. I am in the process of
searching for my birth family. I have petitioned the court to open the
files and it was granted. So now it is just a matter of time until the
confidential intermediary collects all of my data and pursues the contact
with them.
But here is the delema we are facing. Dr. Lydia Shapiro filled out all of
the paper work for the birth certificates and represented the birth mothers
in the adoptions. So the validity of the information is very questionable.
It is probably all false to protect the identity of the birth mother and
fathers. I am trying to find out anything that I can about this doctor.
She was last listed in the city directory in 1970 and she died in
California on 11-26-83. If anyone knows of any birth mothers who came in
contact with her, I would appreciate it if you would forward my message on
to them. Maybe they could shed some light on what was happening at this
clinic, which was her home. My adopted parents stated that they were
literally push out the back door and into a dark alley when they went to
her clinic to pick me up. They both felt that something was not quite right.
I was kept in a home somewhere in Fort Wayne until my adopted parents
picked me up. So there were more people involved in her baby business than
just her.
Here is what information I have obtained mainly from my final adoption decree.
Female Adoptee
DOB: 01/16/53
Place of Birth: Fort Wayne, Indiana
Delivering Doctor: Dr Lydia Shapiro, 1526 E. Wayne St., Fort Wayne, In.
Date of Adoption: 06/54 in Huntington County
Cause #486 in Huntington Juvenile Court
Birth Mother: Agnes Jeffers born in Missouri, was 28 years old at the
time of my birth
Birth Father: Stanley Smith, USA, was 36 years old at the time of my birth
This is about all that I have, sure wish it sounded familiar to someone,
somewhere........
Cris
Dear Cris:
Part of your story is familiar to me in this regard- something not quite
right in Allen County, Indiana circa 1950-1970, and lot of fishy stuff
in the present.
Due to the smallness of 1954 Allen Co. and Ft. Wayne, and due to the
state and county jurisdictional nature of your case, if anything
underhanded were going on in adoptions there's a possibility, and I mean
possiblity, people involved in my case were part of an overall scheme
involving funneling of funds into the hands of an elect group and
so-designated ruling class in Allen.
In 1995 I got my grandfather's estate (he died in 1966) opened in Allen
County due to the disappearance of his parents' large realty trust in
Allen sometime between 1950 and 1960. In the course of researching Allen
Court and County Records I have found gross irregularities in estates of
incompetents with no heirs and estates similar to my grandfather's, of
people alone in the world with no one to check on them. He had lost
contact with his daughters, his only family after the death of his
mother in 1960, for 26 years after they were abducted by their mother in
1940.
I have a great deal of documentation pointing to a deeply hidden slush
fund, stemming from the days of the Great Depression in Ft. Wayne, which
operates in favor of certain political and other careers.
For a recent example, when my grandfather's widow died in 1982, his
attorney ( a specialist in federal income tax, though grandfather's
funeral records say it was paid for by the Township Trustree) told the
funeral director, who remembers quite clearly, he was attorney for her
estate though there was no appointment, probate or Will of record.
The attorney arranged a bank draft to pay for her funeral and later
deposited the Social Security Death Benefit into his Trust Account.
There are no probate records for my grandfather's widow, my grandather,
and other "all alone" individuals whose properties disappear into The
Charitable Foundations of Allen County.
These are my thoughts about your case and questions you could pursue:
1. 1526 E Wayne Street is not far from the downtown area where all the
Ft. Wayne action is centered. My grandfather lived on E Wayne
1961-1966.
2. Until you were adopted, someone or some account received funds for
your care from the state or county. This does not been Lydia Shapiro was
in the baby business exactly. How did she get in the middle- was she a
social service worker?
3. Did your parents make a payment to Lydia Shapiro for services- in
what form? Who recommended her to them? It doesn't seem likely that a
name like Agnes Jeffers is made up, though Smith is a little generic. It
would take a lot of imagination to constantly think up new and unique
names like Agnes Jeffers for Birth Certificates. Have you explored
Missouri genealogy for Agnes Jeffers as you can zero in on her date of
birth by knowing her age in 1953? If Lydia was falsifying Certificates
she had to repeatedly get it past someone in the Clerk of the Court's
office. Do you have any names of judges ?
4. Where in California did Dr. Lydia die? (coincidentally, some of my
story ends up in California too) Have you pulled a copy of the Estate of
Lydia Shapiro? Who was her estate attorney, where did she own property?
5. Did your a-parents have an attorney for the adoption proceedings?
Who? Who was the judge in the adoption case?
I will comb through my files now with an eye out. Do you have any other
info like hospital, any other names or places.
Sincerely,
Leigh in Ft. Lauderdale
12/17/53 Ft. Laud.