Evening star., 1948-06-13

"Pdtrick Calls Me Mother" 10
Patrick Barley, 3, Az
AS Hero of Mothers S !
By Mary McGrory
Patrick Barley, 8, prefers planes
to press clippings, but he'd better
learn to read soon if he ever hopes
to catch up on all that's been writ
ten about him in his short life.
The handsome little French war
orphan first made news when at
the age of 9 months he was
registered at Paris hotel as "a
small businessman. His arrival
here in April, 1916. with his foster
mother, Miss Ann Bal:ey of George
town, was nationally noted. Now
he's giving interviews again, this
time as the hero of a book, Patrick
Calls Me Mother" which was writ
ten by Miss Barley and published
by Harper's last week.
In the two years since his spec
tacular entry, blond, blue-eyed Pat
rick has quietly become a typical
air minded American small boy,
with'a taste for bubble gum. He has
also acquired little sister named
Andree.
Not related to Patrick, Andree,
who is also war orphan, had to
be left behind in France, in the care
of a friend, when Miss Barley flew
home with her newly chosen son.
Not until last spring did the imnli-
grafton quota permit the dark-eyed
little girl to enter the country. Pat
rick's reaction to the frail new
arrival was the typically resentful
one of an only and attention-crav-
ing child. Now, however, he conde-
scends to lord it over her in tradl-
tional American big brother style.
"A Little French"
So badly undernourished that she
had a "hang-dog look" when she
first came, Andree is now at 2la an
animated but still rather wistful
child. Old world little type that she
is, Andree, in spite OF her mothers
efforts to the contrary, is Patrick's
, self -effacing henchman.
French adoption officials made one
request of her when they gave Miss
Barley legal custody Of the children
(whom she has since adopted in this
country. They asked that the little
immigrants be allowed ito remain
Il little French" Although they do not
speak their native language, their
mother says their Gallo origins are
quite evident in their volatile, In
tense temperaments. When they are
a little older she plans to have them
both learn French.
AS the two bright-eyed children
played busily in the living room OF
their home at 1245 Thirty y-fourth
street NV, Miss Barley, a free
lance writer who is reserved,
humorous young woman in her late
3Os, philosophical about her role as
spinster- mother She finds it en-
tirely satisfying and worth all the
initial misgivings and mishaps in
volved. The curtailment of her per-
sonal freedom she never thinks about
because looking back, she explained,
"the children seem inevitable"
No Doubts About Children.
Maybe you have doubts about a
marriage after a while" she said,
"but never about children"
No hard-pressed heroine OF the
soap-box operas she once wrote ever
went through more trials than Miss
Barley in her attempts to become a
mother. AS she tells it in her book,
the story began with two endings:
The folding Of her wartime job and
the glimmering of her wartime ro-
nance. Right after the farewell in
tervieW with her f1ance. she went to
Georgetown party, where she met
Dutch government official, who de-
scribed knowingly the plight Of Meth
erlands orphans. Then and there,
with promise of his help, and assur-
ance that her unmarried state would
not be held against her in Holland,
she decided to act on her longtime
desire to have a family, husband or
no.
A sympathetic friend on Chicago
newspaper got some foreign cor
respondents credential for her and
Miss Barley went to cold joyless
Paris in the fall of 1945.
Finally, after winter OF illness
and disappointments, Miss Barley
met 9-month-old Patrick, then
known as Germain Michel, at a
French private adoption society
She took one look at those blue eyes
and that dazzling smile and knew
that he was the one she had been
looking for.
i On the morning that Patrick was
to be delivered to her in Paris, she
tried to break it to the desk clerk OF
the hotel, an establishment exclu-
siyely for business people, that she
was expecting a baby in her room
that afternoon.
But, mademoiselle," said the
flarassed room clerk, "if he could
arrive at hospital.
"He is coming on the Lyon ex-
press, so naturally he will arrive al
the Care de Lyon"
This" Miss Barley reports, "sent
my sparring partner reeling. Il dc
not understand about this baby. He
81 born? Already? He is related
to you?"
/ "He is 9 months old. My son"
4 Utterly demoralized, the room
clerk was finally prevailed upon to
register the new guest as small
businessman"
/ A flicker or two Of the small
businessman's miraculous eyelashes
and the guests and staff, to man.
were his slaves. Busy American