The theatre lights dim and the camera's peek in a frosted hospital window pane to a delivery room, the hustle and bustle inside is muted. A doctor and nurses are going back and forth between the bassinet's and the mother, giving birth to twin girls, three minutes apart. They are tiny and placed in incubator's. One will be going home, the other will have to wait a few weeks. The scene fades, the stage is set, it's January the fourteenth in Cleveland, the soap opera begins,,,
~~~

Two years later, two bedraggled children sit. One in a little wooden chair with a leg over the chair arm, thumb in her mouth, the other hand twirling her dark hair around her finger, looking lost and forsaken. They are sitting in a children's service testing area waiting to be placed in their foster home with loving caring foster parents. They too know loss as their baby daughter died at 6 months old from complications at birth. These little girls don't know that though and through the process of adoption they will not know until years later as adults with children of their own. Their names and their lives will be changed and altered forever. The conscience mind will not remember, but like the old time show "The Twilight Zone", what lies just beneath the norm? The subconscious can remember what the conscience does not or screens out. Adoption's are closed legal proceedings in the 1950's. There is no gathering of medical history, family relationships, or even nationality. Adoption agencies , to make adoptions more acceptable, will tell prospective parents that children are the nationalities they themselves are.

Springtime 1958, Cleveland Zoo and the Penguin cage.

The pitter patter of twin Mary Janes. A mommy and daddy sitting on a park bench by the penguin cages. It's our girls coming, I just know it is says the mommy. And she is right!
They have been anxious, waiting, now totally delighted to finally see "their" little girls.
They were given a choice by the agency. Since they were older adopting parents at 37 and 40 they were offered older children, not newborns. There was a little boy, I believe 18 months old and then there was my sister and I, already 3 and much harder to place. In addition, our natural mother wanted us to be raised by a Catholic family. That meant our "new mommy -to-be " would have to convert and remarry our "new daddy-to-be". Probably not what our natural mother had in mind, but it satisfied the requirement. A convert to a religion to satisfy a qualification is not a true convert. Being the older children and girls, we were very fortunate that "Daddy" was a bargain hunter. Discussing it with "Mommy", "Daddy" felt girls would stay closer to home as they grew up and out of the house and hey, two girls for the price of one. That was Dad. He loved children and girls were his favorite.
His favorite story of when we all met was about me of course. I'm the twin that talked and talked and well, I did. I even told people what my sister said. We had twin talk. Dad said my first question was, "What kind of car do you drive?" "Is it new?" He grinned, he had a new car every year, so he laughed answering Yes to my question. He must have liked it because he drove it for the next 10 years.

Summer, 1959
Visitations between the adoptive parents home and returning to the foster parents went very well. All the authorities agreed with our placement and the official documents were drawn up. We all went to court. I remember the high judges bench and the judge bending over to speak to my sister and me and the presidential portrait that hung huge on the wall behind the judge.

Then we settled into a routine at home. Mom and Dad had to finish paying for us, so Mom took a job in the evenings at the American Greetings factory. We quickly settled into a routine with plenty of love to go around. We knew our prayers, had our stories read, rocked in the rocking chair and even at the age of 4 we slept in cribs. They were 7 year cribs back then. I remember when we got our individual twin beds. Never knew that meant they were single wide mattresses, thought it was because we were twins.

But little things in our daily routine brought about some concerns. I was afraid to be alone with my dad. I can't imagine it myself, but I've been told I wouldn't go near him and it grieved him so. Here I was, this bubbly blond little blue-eyed girl that he loved so. It took some time but he won me over completely. I followed him everywhere. If he was out working in the garage, there I was. He had taught me the name of every tool and I was his tool girl when ever he worked on the car. I came to love baseball listening to the Indians games with Dad as we tinkered in the garage. When he mowed the lawn, I was right behind him with my toy mower. And when he parked the car in the garage, I lined my tricycle up with the car in front of the snow plow blade.
Then there was my sister. She seemed to prefer staying in the house and "hoping" Mommy. she would sing, "I'm hoping Mommy" as she helped make beds or dust or whatever Mom was doing. She didn't talk very plain , even at 4, I was asked to say what she said. I only assume it was what they call twin talk that only she and I understood. I gave the correct answers because she was always happy and smiled. At least most of the time. At night it was a different story, she would wake up from a bad dream. Mom would come in and rock her and sing "Alice Blue Gown" , that was her favorite. Then Christmas that year as Dad strung the lights and Mom put up our aluminum tree with pink balls and the magic color wheel, Sis wanted to go get the baby. Mom played along as she thought it was a baby doll, but that wasn't the case. She pulled Mom to the front closet and got their coats out. When Mom explained there wasn't a baby to go get , Sis just cried and cried. Mom actually called the adoption agency and found out there had been a baby involved in our household. Talk about being blindsided.

1960
January 14

It's snowing! Mom is upset. She has planned a children's birthday party for us and she had hoped it wouldn't snow. She is fussing that she doesn't want them coming to the front door and tracking snow through her house and getting the carpet wet. It made me feel bad that she was upset, but once everyone was in the house and in the recreation room in the basement it all seemed forgotten. Our cake was beautiful and we had fun.

Mom and Dad decide to foster another child. We call her Debbie. She is such a little darling.
Our family takes a trip to Arkansas. It's great. Our cousin has a little girl her age. Her name is LeeAnn. Mom has such a big family. Having Debbie is a delight. We are in Kindergarten. We started in Jaunary, then in September, after our vaction to Arkansas, we return to school for the second half of Kindergarten. Sadly we go to school one morning and when we come home Debbie has been taken to her new adoptive home. We have had her for 11 months. Mom sent her a baby doll for her on her first birthday and we were fortunate the agency allowed us to have pictures of her opening the doll. Her new parents named her Sandy, but she will always be my little Debbie to me. It was such a short hello and a forever good-bye.
Why do there have to be good-byes?
For Christmas this year, Mom and Dad bought us 26" bicycles! They left us clue notes we had to seek out that led a trail to our breezeway and there they were. It was exciting. There are these things called training wheels on them and I sat on my bike with my feet on the pedals. They barely touch but Dad says by spring it will be no problem. I'll be 6 then.