KTVI
A Missouri woman has discovered her daughter, who she was told died in childbirth almost fifty years ago, is actually alive.
In 1965, Zella Jackson Price gave birth at the Homer G. Phillips Hospital, a blacks-only hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Her daughter was born two months premature, and she was told that her daughter had died. Price never saw the body, and the hospital never produced a death or birth certificate.
In truth, her daughter Melanie was put in a foster home, and Melanie was told that her mother willingly gave her up for adoption. The details of who was involved and how many other children were kidnapped is uncertain, but other mothers have come forward with similar stories from Homer G. Phillips Hospital in the 1950s and 1960s:
Otha Mae Brand, 63, of St. Louis, was 15 when she gave birth to a girl in the spring of 1967. The child was two months’ premature and was hospitalized for 10 days while Brand was sent home.
She got a call from a nurse who informed her of her daughter’s death.
“I had no reason not to believe them,” Brand said. “I got that phone call and that was the last I heard.”
Now, she wonders.
“I told my children, ‘It’s a possibility your sister may be living,'” she said.
Albert Watkins, Price’s attorney, is asking for city and state officials to investigate into these cases. Hopefully more of these mothers will be reunited with their children and the people responsible live out the rest of their cursed, miserable lives behind bars. Kidnapping a child and telling the mother that their baby died has got to be one of the worst things a person could possibly do. It is horrifying, and as happy as Price is to be reunited with her daughter, she will never get those years back:
“For me not to be able to love on this child like I did with the others, I’m going through a lot of emotions,” said Price. “But I’m so blessed to know that she is alive.”
Source: MSN