This is where my dad told me the story: the story of Myrtle Irish.

It would have been back in 1913.

It was more or less forgotten.

But not for my father.

It always seemed, when he would talk about it like he felt haunted by the memo Dad was up in the hallway lookin and he said that he looked up towards the road and and saw a lot of, commotion or people with lantern Mom.

And they were going towards the cemetery.

Him and grandpa went up to the c That's where they seemed to be h And they were exhuming Myrtle Irishs body.

My dad said she - Myrtle - was one of the nicest, most kind people you'd ever wann She had fallen in love with a yo and she got pregnant.

Hey, you better go home, son.

And so then dad said we kind of hung back so and watched them.

A girl that would have this type of problem would just they were frowned upon.

I first heard Myrtles story her in an old train depot in an eastern Iowa town.

Kay Miles, a local history buff, told me about Myrtle as we almost exactly 100 years after Myrtle died.

I knew eventually I would research her story more, but I stalled for three years.

Her story was full of the kind o we don't talk about today, or we don't talk about calmly.

But as one friend put it figuratively, I hope Myrtle's ghost was standing behi waiting.

I finally decided to acknowledge Myrtle.

Myrtle Irish's obituary, published in 1913, just a few months after she had turned 18, said Miss Myrtle was one of the most popular and loved young ladies of Hopkin She was always considerate of he and thoughtful for the happiness of others.

It went on to describe what a conscientious and talente she was, often among the first in her cla When she, as a 16 year old, enrolled at Lenox College, a local Civil War era private institution, she soon stood out for both her and musical talent.

Her father, Frank Irish senior, was an Illinois boy who ended up marrying an Iowa gi Ida Griffith.

They watched their talented daug become a young woman, but their lives would soon chang Good evening.

Just in time to help me prepare Mama, you know I'd do anything f but may I ask for a break?

I just walked all the way across and all the way home.

Wasn't your last class over an h The walk shouldn't take that lon even with tired feet.

I ran into a friend.

We talked longer than we meant t Well, young lady, let's see if you can with your mother in the kitchen.

I found older folks in Hopkinton who still remembered the decades-old rumors that they had been told by relat Boy, we haven't talked about Myr in quite a while.

But you all know the name, right Or you guys do but not everybody Oh, yes.

Here in town.

Yeah.

Our generation is pretty much -- we're few and far between.

But still, you say Myrtle Irish and a lot o Yeah.

Their mothers have talked about or they they know about it.

And the Irishes were very elite.

They were, they were the upper crust of the And, every time we went to the c which was probably twice a year, in Hopkinton, we would go by Myrtle Irishs gr And I would hear this story over and over and over.

Numerous newspaper articles never seemed to mention the would-be father.

By contrast, both Myrtle's name and the names of her parents were all over the state's newspapers for months following the events of May 1913 It was just, a bad situation.

They seemed to know who the fath and everything, but she didn't ever talk about that part of it.

I have heard the name, but there's no point in putting in the paper.

And that nobody would have been good enough for the Irish girl.

No, that was true.. Some Hopkinton residents, as word of our production spread seemed to move into protective m wanting to guard the reputation of the boys living descendants.

After notifying the town as a co that our crew would be filming in the local cemetery, I received the following email from the cemetery board.

It was the general consensus that this can of worms should not be opened.

In a small town like this, where everyone knows everyone through many generations, someone might be hurt.

There are still families with the same surname of the young men involved in the These are kind-hearted people who didn't want to immediately trust a journalist, but over time they began to unde this project and support it.

After finding and reading dozens of old articles about the Irish family, I finally found the would-be father mentioned briefly in one: a Des Moines Register and Leader from 1913.

The name listed was a Monticello Iowa boy, Harry Orcutt.

It was likely some time after My 1911 enrollment at Lenox College that Myrtle met Harry.

He grew up on a farm less than a dozen miles from Hopkinto and he also attended Lenox College.

It isn't hard to imagine their p crossing in their rural area of eastern Iowa.

Wow.

That was beautiful.

Thank you.

Are you, staying in town next week during the break?

Maybe.

Can I see you?

I'm sorry, I didn't know youd be in here.

No, it's all right.

It's okay.

I'm finished practicing.

I'll talk to you later.

By late 1912, she and Harry were Hey Josie, Marion.

Are you done with exams?

We got stuck with a late literature exam at 9 a.m.

tomorr Or, as they might have said, cou What has you so chipper?

Are you I am, I got done after class yesterday Why do I have the sneaking suspi that your happiness has somethin do with someone else?

Well, maybe.

Okay, talk.

He's just so sweet to me.

We were going home from school, he grabbed my hand and he started twirling me aroun Harry would later tell investiga that Myrtle got pregnant on December 29th, 1912.

A Sunday.

So prior to quickening, when the woman could feel movement, fetal movement, and, which could be the third or four or fifth month, it would vary depending on when somebody felt it.

And, prior to that, they really could understand it as their bodies not working quite right.

Eventually, Myrtle would have be to avoid the truth.

Enough studying.

Time for some fun.

To be or not to be.

That is the question.

Not now, Harry.

Is everything okay?

Myrtle.

What is it?

Myrtle?

Something's wrong, I can tell.

I cant talk to you right now.

Leave me alone.

Several newspaper articles implied that Harry and Myrtle had tried to make a plan, which suggests she must have told Harry at some point that winter or spr Hi.

Hi.

You've been avoiding me.

I think it's unfair you aren't explaining why.

Can we talk?

I don't know how to say it.

My cycle isn't normal.

What do you mean, exactly?

I think I'm pregnant.

She would have had a conversatio with her parents as well.

How long have you known?

And you?

It was only last week she knew for certain.

And the Orcutt boy?

What does he have to say for him He wants to marry me, Papa.

He says he'll make things right.

Make it right?

How can he make this right?

Your entire life has been thrown off course.

All your academic work, your mus -- for nothing.

Frank.

Please, let's hear what they've It's obvious they haven't planne How could you do this to us?

You know how the townspeople wil Harry wants us to marry right aw We want your blessing and says he'll come by and ask.

You will not marry him.

He isn't right for you, Myrtle.

He is, Papa.

He's good and kind.

You deserve better.

Or you did before.

Frank.

I will take care of this.

Of course some were pretty heartless back You know it's not our problem.

It's your problem.

We're going to play the game my way, which is s And there's a lot of value on reputation, right?

I mean, yes, it was a disgrace.

Yes.

To the whole family.

If a girl had a child out of wed Of course, if you hurried up and got married and had it in seven months, that was okay.

But.

What am I going to do, Josie?

Couldn't you marry him?

He wants to.

But?

My parents won't allow it.

They already made that clear.

Oh, Myrt.

You'll convince them.

You'll think of something.

In early America, there were many pregnancies before marriage.

It was not all that atypical at The important thing was to get m preferably before the birth or soon thereafter.

And the community would watch out for that and make sure that it happened.

It increasingly became important for the middle class bourgeoisie to have that image of their daughters as asexual, as pure.

Frank Irish thought of a doctor who had once lived near them in the town of Greeley where Frank had worked as a barb Doctor E.E.

Birney, the son of a prominent frontier-era doct had since moved his practice more than a two-hour drive northwest to the town of Nora Springs, Iowa.

After the conversation with his Frank visited his friend to ask one that both would have known might be considered a crime.

Im doing well.

Good.

How's your family?

Well, that's.

That's why I'm here.

There's something I wanted to talk to you about.

O Okay.

Come on in.

Come on in.

On May 12th, 1913, the Irish family climbed onto a in Hopkinton.

Harry Orcutt, whose name I had now seen in at least two newspapers, did not know about the plans with the doctor.

Go on, Myrtle.

Others are waiting.

All aboard.

The train took Myrtle and her parents to the city of Cedar Rapids, where they spent a few hours waiting in a hotel.

Is everything all right, ma'am?

We're perfectly fine, thank you.

Very late that evening, they took another train north to North Springs, arriving aroun on Tuesday.

They walked to a hotel where they spent the remainder of the night.

Doctor Birney visited the sick g and her parents that morning.

That evening, she was moved to D Birney's home.

He performed an operation.

Good, good.

All right.

Keep breathing, keep breathing.

Excellent, excellent.

Relax.

It's good.

All right.

A reporter who wrote for the Charles City Daily Press in 1913 described how Myrtle's health deteriorated “The remainder of that week, the girl lay on her dying bed, suffering excruciating pain.” Mama?

Yes.

I'm here.

The parents were at her bedside.

It hurts so much.

Frank, do something.

What can I do, my darling girl?

Hovering in the shadows of death The mysterious attack upon the frail girl grew worse.

And on Sunday morning, the 18th of May, at 2:45 oclock the vital spark of life ebbed aw Myrtle was conscious to the end.

They carried Myrtle's body out the back door of the house And down a dark alley to an unde who would return her body for th Newspaper accounts say Frank Iri the doctor to lie on the death c listing the cause of death as ap Its just impossible to know how there were, or to find out how o Of course, theres all kinds of when its against the law.

And you are subject to potential Almost immediately, Myrtles par back home.

They were determined to keep the true cause of death a secret When the town of Hopkinton heard their beloved Myrtle had died of appendicitis, huge numbers showed up at her fu This pencil-scrawled note on the family's copy of her obituary mentions that 800 showed up, and $300 worth of flowers were sent.

I wonder about how and when Harr Did he blame himself?

Even though he didn't seem to kn about the plans for the operatio and had wanted to get married.

And if you end up being in a situation where your sweetheart has died, I mean, of course, this is incredibly painful and they might.

I don't know, they might be regarded with symp that they ended up in this awful They might be blamed as having seduced and abandoned Why didn't they marry her?

I think, you know, we can imagine the ways that they might be regarded.

Eventually word that an illegal may have been performed reached Sheriff H.D.

White of Floyd County, where Nora Springs, home of Dr.

Birney, is located.

Sheriff White consulted others in the county seat of Charles Ci countys coroner, Dr.

Walter H. Good morning, Sheriff.

You needed to see me?

Yes.

I want you to read a note that I received yesterday.

It involves one of your peers.

Makes some serious claims about the death of a young woman Is this legitimate?

You know how respected Doctor Bi This isn't going to make anybody We cannot just look the other way.

The men likely didn't know the families involved, but they would have known how scandalous this kind of case would be if they were to file charges.

They would have also known about passed in Iowa in the late 1800s, just decades after anythi related to abortion was placed in Iowa's and many other states criminal If any person with intent to pro the miscarriage of any pregnant willfully administer to her any drug or substance, whatever, or with such intent, use any instrument or other means, whatever, unless such miscarriage shall be necessary to save her l he shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding five years, and be fined in a sum not exceeding $1,000.

It was decided: they would first examine the evi On May 24th, six days after Myrtle's death, Floyd County Sheriff White, Coroner Seymour, County Attorney Moore and Chris Houser, an under climbed into a car and drove 100 miles southeast.

Their first stop was in Earlvill the town just 12 miles from Hopk where the Delaware County corone S..S. Douglas, lived.

One of the men would later tell a reporter that Doctor Douglas did not seem surprised by their arrival at his home tha Who is it?

Sheriff White.

Can I help you?

I'm Floyd County Sheriff White.

This is Floyd County Attorney.

Mr.

Moore.

Doctor Douglas, we have a warrant here for the e of the body of the young girl named Irish.

And we need you to go with us to witness this ev Is this necessary?

Oh, it's very necessary.

You need to tell your wife where you're going.

It's awfully late, gentlemen.

I don't care.

This is your job.

I don't think this investigation is necessary.

This is your duty.

You need to come with us, right Let's get going.

We need a witness.

You are the witness.

No, no, I'm not going.

A newspaper reporter working the story later explained how their efforts would be thwarted even after finding Doctor Rogers another physician who had agreed to travel to Hopkinton to serve as a witne The 12 mile ride to Hopkinton brought them to the destination It was about this time Doctor Rogers received an urgent call from home, saying his wife was seriously ill.

The four men, after eventually finding a Hopkinton doctor who would allow an autopsy to be performed in his office, moved on to the c passing beneath a second story w from which a young boy watched.

That boy would one day retell th to his teenage daughter.

A gentle reminder to be a good g The Green Recorder newspaper implied that others may have also noticed their arri The citizens of Hopkinton were i and rightly.

The girl was one of the most respected of the community.

Upon arriving at Myrtle's grave, they again found their attempt to obtain evidence of an illegal surgery delayed.

They found the remains in an almost impenetrable bed of but completing their work, they returned to the doctor's of with the body, and the autopsy w The results vindicated the Floyd County officers.

Myrtle had died of septicemia and hemorrhages.

In other words, a bacterial infection of the bloodstream and loss of b She had been five months into her pregnancy.

Three days after exhuming her bo Sheriff White and County Attorney Moore would return with McCoy, a prosecutor from the city of Waterloo who had experience prosecuting a similar case.

They found Frank and Ida Irish at a relative's house, where McCoy questioned Frank Irish, who initially stuck to their planned story.

Then Mr.

McCoy told him he knew that he was telling an u and that they were trying to do justice only and asked him to remember what he owed his daughter.

The man broke down and told such a revolting tale as has seldom been unearthed, and of more sensational interest than any case of recent years.

He and his wife had stood by and witnessed the operation.

And that he had burned the fetus in the cookstove.

Doctor Birney was indicted on criminal charges.

Within a week, authorities would be searching for Doctor Birney, who had since left his home in Nora Springs.

A month would pass before he would turn himself in, knowing he was wanted on charges of murd by reason of performing a criminal operation.

Five months later, he would face a jury in Charles Doctor Seymour, would you please tell the jury what you did that day in Delawar We first stopped in Earlville at the home of my counterpart, the Delaware County coroner.

And what did you accomplish ther Very little.

He was unwilling to work with us in our investigation.

Why?

Well, he wanted to protect.

Objection.

Conjecture.

He has no idea what motivated.

Sustained.

I'll move on.

What did you do that day in Hopk We exhumed the body of Miss Iris And what did you find?

We found evidence that she had died of internal in caused by a surgery that was performed to restore he What evidence specifically?

She had a puncture wound that caused internal bleeding.

No further questions.

Mr.

Irish, did officials, acting under the granted them by the law, offer you immunity from prosecut Were you promised that if you told the entire story, you might avoid prosecution in t You are under oath.

Yes.

And all you had to do was testify against the good doc who came to your aid when you brought him a young woman who was not well.

Objection, your honor, he's leading the witness.

Question withdrawn.

Ida Irish, according to newspape accounts, was a nervous wreck as the stand.

Was Miss Myrtle a good student while she attended Lenox College Yes.

She was.

She.

She would have graduated in June Were there any other activities that she participated in while attending there?

She was in the orchestra.

She was on the debate team.

Mrs.

Irish, I know this is difficult.

Could you please explain what happened the day that you t to Nora Springs?

It.

I'm sorry, Mrs.

Irish, would you please speak up She was well.

She was well, except for her con She was otherwise a healthy youn She was.

Then would you please tell us what happened in Nora Springs when you went to visit Doctor Bi Your honor, I'd like to request a recess, please.

Granted.

We'll take 15 minutes.

Before the trial was over, Doctor Birney would take the sta in his own defense.

And Mr.

Irish came to you, begging you to help him with his daughter, who was not doing well.

That's right.

And why did you help him?

It's my job.

I took a vow to help those who are not well.

And you are also serving a friend, correct?

Objection, your honor, he's leading the witness.

Withdrawn.

Now, when Miss Irish arrived at your doorstep, how would you describe her condi She clearly was not well.

She showed distress and discomfo And what did you do?

I attempted to relieve her sympt as her parents requested by perf the surgery.

I could not save her.

No further questions.

Doctor, did you sign the death certifica Yes.

It says that the cause of death is appendicitis.

Yes.

But this is not correct.

No, it is not correct.

Could you please tell the jury why you signed off on that?

Her parents were devastated.

They begged me to list the cause of death as appendicitis on the death cer to avoid the shame and other consequences which would otherwise follow.

I was sympathetic, and although perhaps I should no I complied with the request that they made of me as a person No further questions, Your Honor.

In the matter of the state versu Birney, jurors who believe the defendant to be not guilty should signify by raising your right hand.

And guilty?

In the end, Doctor Birney would be acquitted The town held a reception to celebrate wi I imagined when I started this that those most closely involved might have left something behind Could one of them have left a journal that I might track down a centur Or shared insights with their children or grandchil This was my next step: to find a living descendant of the Irishes, of Harry Orcutt and of Doctor Bi but none of it played out as I expected.

Especially when it came to Myrtle's closest living relative, a niece I found in Indiana.

A few months earlier, I had shattered decades worth of family secrets when I called her on the phone.

I had asked if she'd talk about her aunt's d and when she agreed, asked her to share what she knew She began explaining that her aunt had died of append It had never crossed my mind that she might not know any of t I've just told you.

She agreed to a visit even after I told Myrtle's tale, which might have otherwise faded away inside yellowing century-old newspapers This is Marnee Hi.

Her father, Frank Irish Jr., was born in 1916, three years after Myrtle died.

I did know that my dad had a sister who had died, and I didn't know much else abou So when I got a little older, yo they said it was appendicitis.

When you called me that night, you had, you know, you introduced yourself.

You asked me if I knew Myrtle and all of that.

But then when you told me what the story of it, I had never heard that ever befo Marnee and her older sister spent their earliest years in Ho but the family moved to Des Moin when Marnie was three.

Still, she spent many summer weeks in the town visiting her grandparents or family friends.

It always just felt like home.

I think it was just being with t My grandfather would say, Marnee come here.

Shh.

Don't tell anybody and he'd hand me a nickel.

He'd pull out of his pocket and he'd put it in my poc or my hand, and he'd say, don't tell anybody.

Just run on downstairs and get you ice cream.

I would get to sleep in bed with and they didn't have TVs or anyt like that.

So we would listen to the radio.

They were just really loving to It was the feeling of it all, I Marnee's parents are both now go and she's unsure whether they knew the truth about Myrtle's death.

She suspects her mother, who gre the area, must have known.

But did her father or did the townspeople avoid discussing a painful truth aroun as they had done throughout Marnee's many visits?

Did they try to protect Marnee and her parents, just as the generation before had tried to protect her grandparents from prosecution?

In the end, neither Doctor Birney nor Harry's descendants would be giving me any additional information.

Doctor Birney and his wife raised one child, a they had adopted, but he died before they did.

They left no other direct descen As for Harry, he was married two after Myrtle's death in 1915.

He and his wife had three sons.

She died when their boys were still child the youngest just seven.

The boys and their father moved to rural Troy Mills, 35 miles from Hopkinton, to live near his late wife's par Harry died in 1964.

His boys are also now gone.

I found some of his grandchildre but no one I contacted wanted to So many things went wrong for Myrtle and But where did it first go astray You could say the problem began with love or lust, depending on your point of view and your degree of cynicism.

But what then?

Do you know how the townspeople will talk?

Did pride get in the way?

Is it what I have come to think of as the weight o But how does the shame become so that it can push a family this far down a road?

I don't know, it just causes so much heartache That's all.

More than two dozen stories of other unintended pregnancies in our nation's past have been brought to me or revealed themselves in old do as I reported and filmed Uninten So I'm not yet done exploring what happened in our nation's pa when reproductive cells met, joined, and began to divide.

Too many other men and women are now standing behind me waiting for their story to be told.

Enough studying.

Time for some fun.

When you saw this scene from chapter one, you were just getting to know Myrtle and Harry, the couple whose unintended preg in 1913 unleashed events that threw them into newspaper h I don't want to talk right now.

Leave me alone.

It would have been easy to miss the other person in this The librarian might have simply into the background.

After we had finished filming th this part-time actress and part-time teacher, Karen George, pulled me aside.

She told me enough about her own family's experience with an unintended pregnancy, that I knew her mother's story would become the next chapter in Unintended.

A few months later, I would visit Karen and her mother, Marilyn Lloyd, in Marilyn's home.

Others, and they would unravel the tale of how they had gradually pulled away the cloak of secrecy that had lo the truth.

I think I corresponded with them Marilyn's story began in Kansas City, Missouri.

Long ago.

Nine decades have passed since a young woman, who would give birth to a baby g others would name Marilyn, climbed these stairs to a secretive mansion perched a one of the city's hills.

I was 5 or 6 years old, and we were washing dishes at the kitchen sink, and you said, you know, my real mother didn't And you said I was born at a pla where people, you know, took their babies to be put up for adoption.

I remember as a little girl asking you all kinds of question and I remember feeling so sad inside about that.

I felt that you had a sadness when you would talk about it.

I must have, because I know I had it in me that if any of my kids got in tr I was going to be there for them And if they had children, if they couldn't take care of th I would.

I wouldn't give a grandchild awa Thousands did, however, and hundreds of babies were adopted in Kansas City by c such as this pair, who took their baby home in 1949 from the same secretive mansion where Marilyn had been born much The house, known as The Willows, was just one of the Kansas City area's half dozen such homes, where pregnant, unmarried women, facing the risk of being ostraci might see a pregnancy through in Kansas author Kellee Parr's grandmother was among these wome Kansas City was called the adoption hub of A and that was primarily because there were so many girls that were coming to Kansas City because of the laws in Missouri.

They kept it very closed so that the original birth certificates weren't available.

It kept the privacy for families coming to adopt.

And because of the central locat the railroads could all come from all parts of the United States to Kansas C It just became a very easy situa for those homes.

Women came to The Willows from all over the country.

In 1924, for example, women from 24 states would be pa Their families would even often shun them, and there would just be the sham that they would have by being pregnant in those days.

And so it was just a whole different at that that society had towards th And a lot of times the girls would end up in, just terribly poor situations.

Sometimes the girls would be just sort of shipped off to go visit family, and then they would have their b and the rest of the family would never know, or the people in their city or their town where they came from, never knew that they were pregna Even married women, unable to face the financial or emotional toll of another child, would take drastic measures.

One pioneer doctor, Dr.

H. Neal, who began practicing medicine in Sibley, Iowa in 1875, wrote this for a book about the area's I was called to see a woman during a storm and arrived about midnight.

I found the patient very ill with the distinct odor of sepsis I at once asked the husband what he had been doing.

He repli she would not have any more children.

Upon my asking, by what means she had attempted to procure the abortion, he produced the remains of an old pitchfork, one of the tines of which had been broken.

With this, she had evidently pierced the womb in her mad attempt.

You know, in those days there was some options for abortion, but it really was not acceptable And I know that there were a lot when they would try to have self abortions, or there were a few doctors who did provide abortions, but that really wasn't a very viable option.

While many larger metropolitan areas at the time had at least one quasi secret home where unmarried pregnant women c The Willows was described as the high-end option in Kansas Known as the Ritz Carlton, of such homes.

The Willows was started by my grandparents, and, my grandmother had a friend whose daughter became pregnant, unmarried, and she was going to send her aw somewhere to stay with relatives And my grandmother said, no, no, don't do that.

Let her come and stay with us, and we'll take care of her, and we'll find someone to take h and so she did.

And that's how it all got started in 1905.

My grandmother was a very loving caring person.

Truly kind.

So it was it was a perfect fit f And my grandfather then came, jumped in and said, let's do this together They saw a need.

And obviously there was.

And it happened to be that they were already in Kansas where people were coming anyway.

I think that the girls left in a better state of mind than when they came in.

I think they felt better about themselve That was just the way my family and were able to teach them and be around them and and help them grow as people out of this exper In other homes for unwed mothers around the country, the occupants were sometimes shamed by those runnin or working at the facility.

But some former residents of The Willows said that while strict, the Haworths helped the women regain their self-respect.

Carol Price's own birth mother, she never met, came here, which is how she ended up being by the second generation of Hawo This was just everybody makes mi Things happen to people that you sometimes don't have any control over.

And you go through it.

You get over it and you move on with your new li And remember it happened because you don't learn if you don't remember.

And, I think that really helped most of the girls, from what I'v from things that they've written In the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, most of these institutions, including the Willows and the Kansas City location of the widely known Flo Crittendon Homes, typically didn't welcome black w In 1925, Kansas City resident Elizabeth Bruce Krogman opened the Florence Home for Colored Girls.

Yes, miss.

You were expecting me?

Yes we were.

Come on in.

I'm Lucy.

I'm Lydia.

As with many lower income white families, black families facing economic struggles had bigger concerns than societal reaction to a child outside of marriage.

As African Americans escaped the binds of slavery, some climbed out of poverty into the middle class.

Now, having a pregnant, unmarrie woman in the family became more of an issue.

I'll show you where you'll be staying first.

Are there many other girls here?

You'll meet the rest of the girl They're in the kitchen working r Come.

Here you are.

Go ahead and get settled.

But be in the kitchen in 15 minu ready to work.

We all pull our weight around he I'll go over the rules with you Yes, ma'am.

In one sense, the woman who gave birth to Mari was more fortunate than many.

She lived in a nice home and was likely treated relativel But her baby, Marilyn, who spent the early part of her childhood in the western Iowa town of Coon Rapids, would never feel close to her adoptive parents, Ethel and Chester Palmer.

She considered hers a good childhood overall, but always felt something was mi I don't want to say that the folks weren't good to me or anything like that I suspected when I was in first grade, I told this friend of mine going to school, I said, I can't believe I'm their daughter because I'm so different.

We're so different from each oth And no one had ever told me I was adopted.

As a young girl, she began noticing how other mot interacted differently with their children.

An overnight stay with a friend left her yearning for something she couldn't yet define.

When we got ready to go to bed that night?

Can't you wait a little more, right, Marilyn?

Yes, please.

That's enough story for tonight, Goodnight, sweetie.

Love you so much, sweetie.

Love you too, Mama.

You alright, Marilyn?

Is there anything I can do for y Thank you.

All right, girls, lay down.

And I witnessed this little girl giving her a hug and a kiss and putting her to bed.

And I was five, and tears came to my eyes.

I couldn't understand it.

I'd never seen it before.

It wasn't until she was almost in middle school that her parents decided to tell Marilyn that she'd been And finally, when I was 11 years old, they told me that we were going to take a vacation and go to Missouri and go to Kansas City and up through there.

They pulled up in the traffic in Kansas City, Missouri, in front of the courthouse.

And mom turned around to me in the backseat and said, Marily Marilyn.

Yes, Dad?

We need to talk to you about som This building is where we came when you were just a baby.

We filled out some papers to show that we were going to be your parents.

You see, we adopted you.

What?

You heard your mother, Mar This doesn't change anything.

What's adopted?

We became your parents when you were just weeks old.

We just wanted to show you this Why haven't you ever told me thi We wanted to wait until you were old enough.

Let's go.

I remember crying for 2 or 3 day It was a shock.

And then she was so emotional.

She was crying and sobbing.

It was such a big thing with her And it it terrified me.

The Palmers trip to Kansas City Missouri, took place in 1941.

World War II was underway, and within five “Americans are remembering” Pearl Harbor would be bombed - “with vengeance in their heart And factories working on defense related products were directed t only U.S.

citizens.

But at the time, nearly one third of Americans couldn't prove when and where they were born.

A campaign began to get Americans to obtain proof of their birth details.

Marilyn wondered if her mother would have ever to she was adopted if they hadn't needed to get Mar birth certificate during that Kansas City trip.

But she had such a phobia about she didn't want me ever to know.

And this hush hush thing, it was like it was something to be ashamed of.

Ethel, her adoptive mother, had two sisters.

One of them, Viola, had stayed with the Palmers the first year after Marilyn's a Watching the baby while Ethel worked as a cashier and Chester worked at a creamery Marilyn's aunts were among the f who would talk with her about her adoption.

One of the few details Marilyn knew early on was that she was born at a place called The Willows.

Viola had gone with Ethel and Ch when they first went to The Willows to meet Marilyn when she was just six weeks old.

I guess I was so white looking and peaked and mom was a person that she fainted easily.

Here she is.

The little girl born late last m May I?

Of course.

What is that smell?

That's just the infant formula that we give her.

It's awful.

It just hasn't settled well with Well, has she any other illnesses or signs of deficiencies?

No.

Mrs.

Palmer.

She has lost some weight recentl but is otherwise healthy.

What is her name?

We call her Arlene.

You could, of course, change it if you were to adopt her.

Oh, she's vomited.

I'm feeling ... Oh.

Is she all right?

Can I help?

She'll be fine.

She's just a little sensitive.

I look so sickly, she didn't even want to take me Tell us more about the baby.

The mother was 18 years old.

Of Scotch, Irish and French extr The father was listed as 19.

Listed as American.

Both were Protestant.

I'm convinced.

Ethel?

Chester, let's go.

She's not the right baby for us.

No, Ethel.

But you see she's not a healthy She isn't even keeping formula d Ethel, we are taking this baby home with us today.

End of discussion.

I guess she'll do.

There was a point where you asked your mom: why did you adopt me?

Why did you want to have a littl And you told me that Grandma's response was: so that I could have someone that would take care of me when I got old.

In my old age, and that she wasn't kidding.

And she - what did she live to b A hundred and what?

And I did.

I mean, but imagine telling a kid, well, we wanted to adopt somebody, a child, so we'd have somebody take care in our old age.

It was never about the child.

And that was the mindset then.

The secrecy surrounding adoption would begin to fall away in subsequent decades.

Author and journalist Mary Kay S researched the emotional toll on unwed mothers during this period as part of a Mary Kay was born to such a woman in 1943 -- 13 years after Marilyn Palmer was born -- and given up for adoption.

Her adoptive parents never hid t from her.

I never really looked at being adopted as a burden.

It was just what I was.

It was the first story in my bab It was very open.

It wasn't a secret, but back in the 40s and 50s, people didn't talk about very much of anything If it was personal, they just didn't talk about it.

Ever.

My birth mother was white and Catholic and unmarried and so she never saw me because when you were in that si they took the baby away from you When the baby was born, maybe you got to hold the baby, maybe you didn't.

And even in the late 50s and late 60s, they were still having, you know, going to the home for unwed mothers and all the shame of it and all.

In Iowa in the 1940s, Marilyn's adoptive mother was making sure Marilyn wouldn't become one of those women.

By the time Marilyn Palmer was 1 Ethel was already giving her frightening messages about the consequences of not being a good girl.

She said, I'm going to tell you what my mother told me that, if you get in trouble with a boy, I'll commit suicide.

And I didn't even know what getting in trouble was, you know, at that time.

But she was already warning me that she would commit suicide.

As she grew into adulthood, Marilyn wanted to find out who her birth parents were.

But Missouri law at the time kept such records sealed, and The Willows had long since c Decades later, Marilyn's daughter Karen would resume the search.

So luckily, in 2011, the courts in Missouri opened up the adoption records.

And if you were inclined to hire a searcher, they would hand you the files if you could prove that both parents were deceased.

So we ended up hiring a searcher and it took her about six months She gave us a package with the n and the package came the week of Christmas.

I remember, and we we opened it and sure enough, there was the n Velda Imogene Johnson.

83 years after her birth, Marily finally knew the identity of the whose absence had always haunted And while they knew Velda Imogene was no longer Marilyn's daughter Karen soon di that the woman had had another d Karen eventually found a Kansas phone number that she suspected belonged to this long lost aunt Carolyn, her mother's only So, I called Carolyn and introduced myself and tried not to sound like a crazy person on the phone.

I told her that I was looking fo my mom's birth family, and, we had a name: Velda Imogen Johnson was on her birth certifi And when I said that, I heard this, like, little gasp on the phone, like, just, you know, I'm sure because her mother did not go by she went by Imogene.

So not many people would know that that was her, you know, fir I got a phone call.

I was in my kitchen, and and, this lady said I'm looking for someone that kno Imogene Johnson.

And I said, that's my mother.

And she said, are you sitting do And I said yes.

And then she proceeded to tell m that her name was Karen, and she was the daughter of Mari that was born to Imogene Johnson in Kansas City, Missouri, as a at The Willows Maternity Ho And, so that was it was quite a surpr Carolyn knew one family member who might know if it was true that Imogene had given birth onc Her own aunt, Dana.

She was my mother's youngest and only surviving sister.

And I knew she would know if it was the truth or not.

And she said, sure it was.

And that, that the three younger three younger siblings didn't learn of it until they were all adults.

They didn't know it at the time.

But Aunt Dana learned of it from which would have been Imogene's younger sister.

They shared a bedroom together.

And Colleen remembers the day that Imogene came home from school and told her parents that she was expecting.

What?

What did you say?

Don't make me say it again, dad.

You're pregnant.

But are you sure?

That Weston boy, he didn't force himself on you, did he, Im No, Mom, it's nothing like that.

Cliff would never.

Haven't we taught you better?

Now, Clarence, wait!

No child of mine is going to bring shame upo this house.

You need to leave, Imogene.

Get out!

I will.

I'll figure it out myself.

Imogene, wait!

Imogene.

You don't need to leave.

That's not what dad just said.

M What's wrong?

Oh.

It's okay, Dana, go inside and I'll be right ther You let me handle dad.

I can't go back.

Do you know you can't do this alone, sweetie.

We'll figure this out together.

The father's name wasn't on the birth certificate.

His identity may have never been if it weren't for Imogenes sister overhearing his name the day Imogene told her parents of the pregnancy.

The young man had grown up in Os the same small north central Missouri town as Imogene His name?

Cliff Weston.

Imogene and Cliff were both basketball players for their local high school.

This photo is the only one the family has of the two togeth After the teenagers got pregnant Imogene's father, hoping to avoid facing the gossi that would ruin his 17-year-old daughter's reputation, moved his family nearly 100 miles to Excelsior Springs, Missouri.

The move put them closer to The where they would send Imogene.

You know we won't be allowed to You won't?

At all?

Sorry, sweetie.

But they will treat you well her And we can write - as often as y I can't be certain that Cliff ever tried to see Imo after her family's departure.

But if he had, The Willows would almost certainly have turned him away.

Well, thanks for coming.

May I see Imogene while I'm here I'm sorry, but we do not encourage nor allow visits from young men.

But if I could just have a few minutes to... I apologize, but it is a strict We find it's better to make a clean break.

I've come all this way.

I don't understand how a few minutes conversation would hurt.

We could talk outside, if you pr And it's just not allowed.

Good day.

The Willows promised their famil that the girls would get a secon So besides turning away young me they also made plans from the st for the babies to be adopted.

If a woman second-guessed her decision, her hesitations were typically brushed aside.

Adoption plans would proceed, and the young women would be prepared to return to their previous live keeping their pregnancy secret f but the closest family members.

Imogene would eventually marry another man.

As far as her daughter from her Carolyn knew, Imogene never spoke of her earlier pregnancy.

I had no indication from my mom that anything like that would was had happened, you know?

And I felt so bad for my mother because I thought, well, she she carried this whole secret all these years.

Very few people I learned later that some relati I'm not sure my dad knew.

My aunt told me once that mother tried to tell my dad and he said, I don't need to know anything that happened before we met.

So I don't know that she was eve to share that with him.

Marilyn and her daughter Karen t to Missouri to meet their newly discovered r It was as close as Marilyn would get to connecti with the mother she'd longed for I was real happy about it, because I didn't think there was I would ever find where I came f I think by that time in my life I had been through so much.

When you get as old as I am, I m not too much surprises you.

I knew there had to be a story o I was put out for adoption, you But it was.

That was just a different times.

While Marilyn is happy to know h half sister, she wonders how her life might h if they had been raised together We're strangers to each other and we're sisters.

But the sad part about it is we don't have any history.

She was raised down there.

I was raised up here, you know, miles apart.

We don't have any history togeth Yet both Marilyn and her daughter Karen understand the nation's hi well enough to know what the young couple faced back then This left only Cliff's story inc I wanted to know more about him and what he went through during all of this.

But there was little to be had.

Neither I nor Marilyn's family found any indication Cliff and Imogene were ever together again.

I had hoped, as with other stori in this series, that I might find a descendant who could help.

Cliff, like Imogene had eventually married.

But he and his wife did not have any children.

Still, I traveled to the Osgood where Cliff spent much of his li I found little more than his gra tucked away in a hard to find ce in the hills outside of town.

The perspective of the would be father had again el Just as in our first episode, I would never know.

Cliff's point of view.

I would, however, discover while researching another unintended pregnancy, a letter written by a young man to his girlfriend as they tried to keep their secr I followed this trail, digging in deeper and discoverin in this case, someone would go t This is Tom Stone and his wife, Maude was Toms great aunt.

Tom lives in southern Iowa, not far from the rural Decatur C Maude was raised.

As we grew up, we did not know a about Maude Stone.

She was not part of the family a It wasnt until Tom was searchin the obituary of his grandfather, or R.B.

Stone, that he ran acros mentioned not only his grandfath but an unfamiliar name: Maude St I wondered, who in the world is Maude Stone?

Well, there happened to be a lot of other things that you could read.

And then I then it became evident to me that she was Rue Bertrams siste and that's how that was the first I ever knew of Maude Stone.

I'm going to say I was 55 years when when that occurred.

Part of the my just disbelief, it was that we knew about R.B.s older brother George, who was ki when he was 16.

He was in a horse race and a tree limb was too low And we'd always heard that story so we knew.

But we never had heard about Mau Maude was the youngest of six ch in a successful Decatur County, Iowa farm family.

Although her father died in 1885 when Maude was just five years o Maude's mother, Margaret, managed to continue running the large farm, which included nearly a thousand acres by that time.

Her mother was extremely busy trying to run a farm with just the help of sons and some other people.

But she was she was preoccupied with providing for the family.

Maude grew up without a father.

Maude goes to high school, graduates from high school, and suddenly she has this period of time with nothing to do, so to speak.

She's just nothing to do and she's looking for attention.

And she found it in this Ira Ham By early 1900, Maude, then 20, and Ira Hammond a 19-year-old farm boy from the area, began seeing one The relationship continued through that year.

By late that year, however, Maude began to suspect she might be pregnant.

Maude?

What are you doing here?

We need to talk.

Is everything okay?

I can't stop thinking about it.

What's wrong?

I'm just going to say it.

I'm pregnant.

I'm just going to leave.

Are you sure?

I took the medicines that are supposed to work, but my body hasn't returned to norma I don't know what we're going to We can get married.

Maude.

I can take care of us.

All of us.

We're too young.

We're too young.

More than a year later, when all was discussed in a courtroom, it would be implied fairly or un that it may have been their seco facing such a pregnancy.

Her brother Rue, Tom Stone's gra would be called to the stand to testify that his sister had once left for a week, coming back looking shaken and tired.

A medicine bottle that Ira would he had brought to her was found among Maude's poss It was presented as evidence, but it remained unclear what the nearly empty bottle had contained.

So there is a long history of, of women using various means to get their menses back.

That's what it was really called in, in early America and up thro you know, all the 1800s So early on, there's domestic guidebooks that have recipes of what you wo to make a tea or something to bring your menses back.

They might have things in their or very common plants that could be used that were very well known.

But there were also, you know, medicines that came to in the 19th century with the spread of the printing press and manufacturing, there are medicines advertised in the newspapers.

And that said, you know: Your menses are late?

Buy this.

Or when they started to regulate you know, you can't sell these because they're poisonous, it's: absolutely, this works abs Don't take it if you are with child, you know, or if your menses are late, don't take it.

And so they would have things like that in the ad, which of course anyone who was looking for it understood quite well.

Oh, this is what I need.

The medicine gone.

Maude, wrote Ira in a letter tha just the same.

Not a bit of change in any way.

The January 1901 letter, which survived as a transcript in court documen said she'd tell her mother she was visiting friends in a to in the same direction as Lamoni, where she knew of a doctor who might help.

She was heading for this buildin the upper floors of which were h to the small medical facility of Doctor James W Croff His sanitarium, where patients with long-term illnesses were cared for, was successful enough that he had begun construction on a new hospital.

Miss Stone?

Doctor Crofford.

How are you tod Doctor Crofford, who had a wife and three daughters from an earl marriage, was known for pushing legal limi He had twice served time in state institution Ira Hammond had already visited Doctor Crofford a few weeks prior to Maude Stone's trip to s Most of the time women made these decisions themselves.

Maybe they figured out where to by asking a friend, but their husbands knew, and didn't object.

Where men are deeply involved is when it's an unmarried couple who've determined, for whatever reason, that they need to end the pregna And then men are very involved.

If you want to proceed, we can.

Ok.

Most people do not have private If they have a private doctor, that doctor might help them out.

They help out a friend, They help out the women who they babies for.

This is just one piece of a prac they might not do it themselves, but they might know another doctor who did and say, go see this doctor.

In fact, here's a note.

Go, go to that doctor and so that doctor, those doctor kind of become specialists.

Within a day, Ira would arrive i as well, checking on Maude at Doctor Crofford's office.

He spent the night in a livery s telling the worker the hotel would likely be closed when he returned late.

But perhaps he simply sought pri Ira returned home after checking the following morning.

Six days later, he received a note from the doct saying he needed to return immed Within hours of arriving, Doctor sent Ira to deliver an urgent message to Maude's mother, Margaret.

Ira was to tell Margaret that Maude had become sick while and that Margaret should come immediately, Ira, why are you here?

Mrs.

Stone., it's Maude.

Maude?

What's wrong?

You need to come to Lamoni with me right now Whats wrong?

Why?

This is a letter from Doctor Cro Doctor.

Where's Maude?

She's here.

Wheres my daughter?

She's at the end of the hallway in the other room down there.

Take me to her.

I did everything I don't understand.

She's at the end of.... Take me to her, take me to her n But Margaret would arrive too la Maude.

No no no no.

No no.

No.

The first person I talked to about it was my was my And we decided then that we needed to tell our daugh because every family has their little things they'd like to forget about, things they'd like to overlook.

But they're just part of who we And its just better if you know it up front.

Instead of being blindsided by things that you don't know, have a clue that exist.

Within a year of Maude's death, Doctor Crofford would be convicted of second degree murder, and while an appeal earned him a new trial, the doctor would be convicted a second time and sent to Iowa's state penitentiary in Fort Madis where he would spend nearly a dozen years.

Like the doctor, Maudes boyfriend, Ira Hammond, was also in the aftermath of her death in He was charged as an accomplice to second-degree murder.

It wasnt uncommon for those who of a then-illegal abortion to be alongside those who performed th The sweetheart of the dead girl, would be arrested, questioned and sometimes prosecuted.

Whether those prosecutions succe or fail, somebody whose name ends up in t who's arrested and sits in jail those actions are punishment and tell everybody else when it gets into the newspaper and gets around the neighborhood what will happen to you and just how dangerous it is.

The jury in Ira Hammond's trial not to convict him.

Perhaps convinced by his attorne who claimed that Ira Hammond was simply putty in the hands of Maude Stone, who had money and the mental capacity to lead and control the boy.

We don't know, of course, if this was purely courtroom str or an accurate portrayal.

As with the doctor's family, I struggled to find descendants of the young man.

But buried in court documents was a reprint of a let It was Ira's own words from more than a century earlier.

The letter, exhibit F, had been written two weeks before Maude's death.

It outlined Iras plans for a future togethe she would no longer have to take dangerous medicines If we get married this spring, we won't have to do that way any we will, Darling.

But, Maude, I think more of your name than I the child.

I wouldn't have you ruined by having a chil we're married or anything.

You know as well as I do what people would say, don't you He wrote about his plans for a m that would never materialize.

Once again, it was difficult to find descend But as I was about to give up, I found a new descendant of Ira The Greeley, Colorado man and I were able to talk via vide My name is Andrew Burnett.

Ira Hammond is my twice great grandfather.

He provided me the first photo I'd seen of Ira, this one showing him as a middle aged man.

I never heard of it.

And it kind of took me a little bit by surprise.

I spoke with my dad.

He didn't have any idea, but som people don't learn the dirty laundry of their famil I think there's a tendency in our generation, you know, we look at the Laura I Wilder idealized version of what life on the prairie was You know, everybody was admirabl Nobody had premarital sex, you know, things just weren't discussed that were indelicate.

I think we need to realize that reality wasn't all white dr parasols and men in suits.

After researching three couples stories, talking to the descendants of the women and others, and finally having found a descendant of one of the young who would talk, I was ready to let Maude's grand nephew, Tom a farmer from a remote area of southern Iowa, share a final never Norma and I have tried to to our daughters that there's no mistake that can't be forgiven.

And you need to learn from them.

The only mistakes thats a bad mistake is one you can't learn from.

So we just need to realize this go on with our lives.