Friday, March 27
Wednesday, March 25
Busted not for selling babies, but for the abortion clinic
From 1951 to 1965 Dr. Thomas Jugarthy Hicks began to quietly offer babies for adoption from his Hicks Community Clinic in McCaysville, GA. Quietly, because the clinic he’d been running since the mid-1940s was not a licensed adoption agency. Hicks cared for the mundane health issues of local farmers and townspeople in the front of the clinic, while performing abortions, which were illegal during that period, in the back rooms.
Law or no law, he advertised his abortion services on phone booths, bus stations and bridges. Women came by bus, car and train to pay $100 to "fix their problem." A small airstrip was built in nearby Ducktown so the prominent could fly their daughters in from Atlanta and Chattanooga for an abortion.
His black market baby-selling ring, which may have ‘moved’ as many as 200 babies with no questions asked, relied on young, poor women from North Georgia and Eastern Tennessee. They’d come to him for an abortion, and he persuaded some to carry the babies to full term. The women would reside in the clinic for a few months, or the good doctor would provide a room for them at his farm, or in the New York Hotel in adjoing Copperhill, TN, or in his apartments in the telephone company building.
Hicks knew he could count on word of mouth to bring in the baby buyers. The Fannin County Courthouse records list 49 babies, for example, who went to Summit County in Ohio. All the fathers who bought them worked in the Akron tire companies, except for a Cuyahoga Falls doctor who bought two babies. All the sales were arranged by a West Akron Goodrich employee who bought four babies for herself. All of them paid up to $1,000 for a baby no one could trace back to its mother.
Hicks made sure the birth certificates listed the people adopting as birth parents. The doctor kept no known records of the birth mothers, who discreetly vanished.
Thomas Hicks was no stranger to shady dealings. After getting his medical degree from Emory University in Atlanta in 1917, he moved to Copperhill, TN, but lost his medical license and served time in federal prison for selling narcotic pain killers to a veteran working undercover for the FBI.
While incarcerated, he studied a lung disease that kept copper miners from living past the age of 40.
Once out, he was hired by the Tennessee Copper Co. to treat miners. The only problem was, he filed more claims than there were miners with the disease.
After he was fired from that job, he opened up the Hicks Community Clinic in McCaysville.
Once a baby was available, Hicks wasted neither time nor words with his prospective buyers. "You have 24 hours to come or I call the next person on the list," he's reported to have said to more than one client.
Hicks warned his baby buyers not to be picky. If you told Hicks you only wanted a boy or you wanted a girl, you could forget about getting a baby.
It may never be known how many illegal adoptions were conducted by Dr. Hicks, who was stripped of his medical license in 1964, but never jailed. He was, after all, a member of the Copperhill Kiwanis and the Adams Bible Class of the First Baptist Church (to which he donated a Wurlitzer organ). He was known to give free medicine to the very poorest in town. He made house calls to those who couldn't otherwise get to his clinic.
Dr. Thomas Hicks' abortion clinic was an open secret tolerated by a town that appreciated the bulk of his medical contributions. "He didn't perform any services that anyone didn't request,'' noted local resident Marlene Matham Hardiman, who once rented an apartment from Hicks.
The court papers disbarring him made no mention of the black-market babies. The abortion charges against him were dropped, and he continued practicing for a time thereafter.
Thomas Hicks died of leukemia in 1972 at age 83. His lawyer, nurses, wife and son are dead. His only living relative, a daughter, lives in seclusion in North Carolina.
sources:www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20124848,00.html
freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~msroots/BMA/HICKS4.htm
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE1DE103EF930A1575BC0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
immigrantships.net/adoption/hicksbabies.html
chronicle.augusta.com/stories/012098/met_LG0411-9.001.shtml
http://hillbillysavants.blogspot.com/
Originally blogged at Appalachian History
Sunday, March 22
Look who just walked in...
Have you ever met 'these guys'...chances are, you have. I love Andy Samburg's humor...
Friday, March 20
Popcorn Remembered
photo credit {suckerpunchpictures.com}"Popcorn’s death, on March 16, was the final act of a defiant individualist. Of course, like the man himself, it was more complicated than that." -gourmet.com
Read More:
Thursday, March 19
"Size 14 women 'happiest with life and looks'"
"Happiness, it seems, comes with curves, for a new poll has found that size 14 women are the happiest with their life and looks."Story from msn/lifestyle...
Thursday, March 5
Relovolutionary Road
This past weekend, at long last, I saw Revolutionary Road. I had so anticipated the film's arrival in a local market. When I initially saw the trailer at the end of last year, I thought, "this is definitely a film to see with your significant other...especially if you are thinking of making a life with this partner." Now that I've seen it, I'm glad that I could experience the film without my significant other, at least for the 1st viewing.
A painfully accurate critique of monogamy and the pursuit of the "American Dream," the film impressed me with its honesty and humanity. Kate Winslet portrays a young woman who becomes a wife, while still wondering what lies for her marriage beyond the conventions of a 1950's family. The children are conspicuously absent from most scenes, allowing the viewer to build empathy and understanding for the plight of a young married couple who have exchanged their love of adventure and sponteigity for persistant predictability. This attention does not diminish the perception of Winslet as a loving mother to her children, but instead reminds us that women {and men}, mothers {and dads} have souls that need to be fed and dreams that need to be realized. Rather than growing complacent and decieving themselves into believing this is is what they wanted out of life, [awakened by Winslet] the two renew their committment to "really living" and not just going through the motions.
Tragic comedy is introduced by their landlord's brilliant son, who has been "institutionalized" due to a mental illness. The director's inclusion and treatment of this character added great dimension to the narrative. I enjoyed the irony that when he visits the "Wheeler's of Revolutionary Road," they find themselves strolling through the forest and discover that among all of their acquaintances in their suburban neighborhood, he, the "insane" professor that fell from grace, is the only one who seems to understand their disatisfaction with their current lifestyle.
Ultimately, I felt challenged by this film. Challenged to follow my intuition, my passion, my dreams, even if it means stepping boldly outside the lines of convention. I don't feel that it was a negative critique of the social conventions of marriage and all that the notion of the "American Dream" entails, instead I read the film to suggest that while that life is fulfilling for some people, it can be damaging for others. Conformity for conformity's sake is called sharply into question. I left the film with a familiar quote ringing in my head, "Ask yourself what it is that makes you come alive, and do it. The world needs people who have come alive."
Tuesday, January 20
Nanna's precious little helper, baking Christmas cookies!
Made with love!
"Hey, hey, Mr. Policeman..."
Friday, December 19
Monday, December 15
Signs of the times...and times gone by
"Ebenezer Scrooge: Christmas is a very busy time for us, Mr. Cratchit. People preparing feasts, giving parties, spending the mortgage money on frivolities. One might say that December is the foreclosure season. Harvest time for the money-lenders."
The Muppets Christmas Carol
The Muppets Christmas Carol
Thursday, December 11
'A Luxuriously Bumpy Ride'
Seeing Australia was one of the most satisfying movie-going experiences I've had in quite some time...probably in the past three years at least. The word 'epic' comes to mind as you watch the long shots of cattle driven by the "rover" (Jackman). Some actors are hard to shake apart from the selves we know them as in tabloid trash and previous roles they've played, but Kidman and Jackman did not disappoint. In other, very non-technical terms; I bought it, I bought into the life I saw presented on the screen. For almost the 3hr. duration, i was somewhere else, absorbed in the suspension of disbelief. Not only the stunning visual composition a la Luhrman, and the acting, but the narrative and the issues it takes to task were beautifully treated and challenged in all of their complexity...racism, imperialism, assimilation, gender roles, and war...yes, it's a very full film, but not over ambitious.
Then there is the whole intertextuality woven with the Wizard of Oz...so powerful and moving.
My favorite quote... "i sing you to me"...just watch and you'll see.
Click here for a review from Variety...then go see it for yourself!
Tuesday, August 19
Working girl blues. I've got them.
Looking forward to an upcoming vacation...no where exotic...just away. Maybe Winston, VA, or the quiet of my own backyard.
Delaney starts school next Monday, pre-K, that is. I'm nervous for her. Beginnings can be scary...but I have a feeling she will be just fine. This weekend I made her a felt jewelry/accessories set as a "going to school" present. Pretty neat that she will be attending in the same building i went to for kindergarten. Wonder if it smells the same? Wonder if she'll cry on her 1st day into her fingerpaint cherry trees? And if she does, she'll be just fine.
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