Los Angeles herald., 1910-09-27
RETURN WHITING
BABY TO MOTHER.
Court Decides That Foster Par
ents Must Give Up Z
Months-0Id Boy
MRS. WRITINGS SAD STORY
Woman Asserts She Stole to Pro-
vide for the Child When
She Found Him
MRS. WRITINGS SAD STORY

An infant boy, months old, and
his mother, his Would-be foster mother,
their husbands and their friends all
shed bitter tears yesterday before
Judge Wilbur of the superior court,
who was asked to decide who should
have the custody of the child.
1t was a pitiful story told by the
real mother of the child, Mrs. Helen
Whiting, who recently was placed on
probation by Police Judge Williams
after she had admitted her guilt in
shoplifting from a department store,
where she was employed, and tearfully
declared she stole only to provide for
the baby, who was taken from her
soon after it's birth, and for whDm she
and it's father searched for months.
She asserted that while she was un-
der the influence of chloroform, short
ly after the infants birth, her parents,
Mr.. and Mrs. j. S. Enlove, gave her a
| paper to sign, only for her to learn
later that she thus had given up all
right to the baby. She declared her
parents would not tell her where the
baby was taken, and that she and her
husband, the father of the child, Homer
Whiting, searched for months before
they could locate 1t.
Finally they ascertained, she stated,
that the child had been given by her
parents into the keeping of home
| finding society for children, and that
| that institution had placed it with
childless couple, with the privilege Of
| adopting it at the end of a year.
STEALS FOR BABY
Thinking that work would steady her
| mind, Mrs. Whiting sought 1t, but all
| the time her thoughts were on the
baby she could not locate. She began
stealing little articles appropriate for
! a baby's wear, and in time was caught
and arrested. She was quick to con-
fess her wrong to Mrs. Aletha Gilbert,
police matron, who told her story to
the police judge, who in turn gave her
! probation.
The Women's auxiliary No 81, of the
Order of Railway Conductors, heard
of the plight of the girl-mother. for
| she is only IS years old, and Mrs. f.
A. Parr, chairman, and Mrs. G. H.
Hollis and Mrs. Ruby CARRIER were
| named as committee to aid her. Act
| ing under Mrs. Gilbert's direction. they
| traced the child to the Los Angeles
| Hone-Finding Society for Children,
they asserted, and finally they found 1t
had been given, with the prospect of
| adoptfon. to Mr.. and Mrs. Henry Win
| nenberg of Pasadena.
The foster-parents had become very
| fond of it, as had Mrs. Elizabeth Grin
nell, a writer of the Crown city, who
| had QtrecLeu LQS WlHn6lUSlBS " III
and they naturally objected to giving
| 1t up.
So the case went to court, where at
first everybody was hostile, and where
| everybody wept when the young moth
er, who never had seen her child,
clasped the fat. blue-eyed infant in her
arms and cooed and cried over it.
After that 1t was fairly easy for
settlement.
The foster-parents admitted the real
parents prior right to the child and
sadly said they would give the BABY
hack They also presented the young
mother with a Testament, which is to
be the property of the baby when he
is old enough to read. They want to
have a little say in the control of the
| infant for the next week, and Will
help Mrs. Whiting to learn how to care
| for It. At the end of the week the
actual parents will have the baby ex-
| clusively.