Black mothers wonder whether their lost babies are still alive

ST. LOUIS -- Eighteen black women who were told decades ago their babies had died soon after birth at a St. Louis hospital wonder whether the infants were taken away by hospital officials to be raised by other families.

The suspicions arose from the story of Zella Jackson Price, who said she was 26 in 1965 when she gave birth at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis. Hours later, she was told her daughter had died, but she never saw a body or a death certificate.

No one is sure who was responsible, but Price's daughter ended up in foster care, only to resurface almost 50 years later. Melanie Gilmore, who lives in Eugene, Oregon, has said her foster parents always told her she was given up by her birth mother.

Price's attorney, Albert Watkins, is asking city and state officials to investigate. Watkins said he suspects the hospital coordinated a scheme "to steal newborns of color for marketing in private adoption transactions." In a letter to Watkins, the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services called the allegations "troubling" and said it would like to help him track down relevant documents it might have, such as birth or death certificates.

Gilmore's children recently tracked down her birth mother to mark their mother's 50th birthday. The search led them to the 76-year-old Price, who lives in suburban St. Louis.

In March, an online video caused a sensation when it showed the moment Gilmore, who is deaf, learned through lip reading and sign language her birth mother had been found.

The two women reunited in April. DNA confirmed they are mother and daughter.

"She looked like me," said Price, a gospel singer who has five other children. "She was so excited and full of joy. It was just beautiful. I'll never forget that," she said of the reunion.

After the reunion, Watkins started getting calls from other women who wondered whether their babies, whom they were told had died, might have been taken from them.

Their stories, he said, are strikingly similar: Most of the births were in the mid-1950s to mid-1960s at Homer G. Phillips. All of the mothers were black and poor, mostly ages 15 to 20.

In each case, a nurse -- not a doctor -- told the mother her child had died, a breach of normal protocol. No death certificates were issued, and none of the mothers was allowed to see their deceased infants, Watkins said.

"These are moms," he said. "They are mothers at the end of their lives seeking answers to a lifelong hole in their heart."

He plans to file a lawsuit seeking birth and death records. None of the women is seeking money, he said.

Watkins believes the infants were stolen and put up for adoption in an era when there were few adoption agencies catering to black couples.

Homer G. Phillips Hospital opened in 1937 as a blacks-only hospital when St. Louis was segregated. The hospital closed in 1979.

Price said she gave birth to a baby girl born two months' premature Nov. 25, 1965. The baby weighed just over 2 pounds but Price was able to hold the crying child after birth.

A nurse took the baby away and came back an hour later. The girl was struggling to live, Price was told. She might not make it. Shortly thereafter, the nurse came back. The baby, she said, was dead.

Price recovered in the hospital for two more days, in a ward surrounded by happy mothers.

"It was depressing to see when they rolled the babies in and they were taking them to their mothers, but I didn't have my baby," she recalled.

Gussie Parker, 82, of St. Louis, heard Price's story and was shocked by the similarities with her own life. Parker gave birth to a premature girl on Nov. 5, 1953.

Initially, she said, the child seemed fine. A short time later, a nurse told her that her daughter had died.

"I never did see the baby or get a death certificate," said Parker, who has another daughter, Diane, who works for The Associated Press in New York. "When you're young and someone comes and tells you that your baby's dead, in those days you accepted it."

Otha Mae Brand, 63, of St. Louis, said she 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.

Retired physician Mary Tillman was an intern and did a residency at Homer G. Phillips in the 1960s. Calls to her home on Friday rang unanswered, but she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the hospital had protocols and record-keeping to track mothers and daughters. She never had any suspicions of wrongdoing, but said it should have been doctors, not nurses, who broke the news of death to mothers.

Price, who has five other children, said she's saddened by the lost years that she could have spent with her daughter.

"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," Price said. "But I'm so blessed to know that she is alive."