Finding Peoples

A picture is worth a thousand words.  So, picture this:  A troubled, poverty-stricken, violence-laden marriage with five children and a sixth on the way. Not an ideal situation to bring a new-born baby into.  Add to that the information that the baby will be born sickly and will likely require significant medical attention. The parents think of a solution – adoption.  Now, this is in the late 1950s and Black families were not into the whole adoption thing!  In fact, formal adoption within Black families in the United States remains a rarity.  Instead, most Black families utilize what author Sojourner Ahebee calls, informal adoptions or fictive kinship.  Fictive kinship is when at least one individual who is unrelated to the birthchild by blood or marriage takes on the responsibility of raising/nurturing the child outside the formal adoption process. Fictive kinship personifies the African Proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”.  Slavery tore mothers from their babies and fathers from their families.  Hettie Williams writes that African American fictive kinship arose out of the chaos of enslavement.  According to Williams, the separation of blood kin from children and families made fictive kin a survival tool for Black families. My birth mother and father, Dorothy Jean Peoples and Charles Peoples, decided not to utilize fictive kinship options that were available to them.  My mom’s extended family would have taken in the baby she had in 1958.  My dad’s mother probably would have gladly raised that baby.  

It is reported that adoption can prevent a life cycle of poverty and even death by giving the mother and the child a new chance.  It is believed that adoption can be an empowering decision for the expectant mother who knows in her heart that adoption is the right choice for both her and her baby. Perhaps that is what convinced my mom to keep her pregnancy in 1958 a secret from her family and agree to give her newborn baby up for adoption.  For whatever reason, they decided to go against the norm for Black families in that era and give their sixth child up for adoption.  That decision impacted the trajectory of that baby’s life.

Charles and Dorothy Peoples knew the perfect couple to give their sixth child to– an older couple who have been unable to have a baby after 17 miscarriages. 

The formal adoption is arranged.  The baby is born, but the birth mother isn’t sure about the arrangement.  The couples agree that the newborn baby girl should live with the birth parents for a few months.  During that time, Dorothy called the baby Heretha.  Within three months, the birth parents realize they cannot afford to care for the Heretha – financially, mentally, or emotionally.  They proceed with the planned adoption.

This story is the about the outcome of that decision made by Charles and Dorothy Peoples.  This story is about the impact of their decision on the five children they had who lived with them.  This story is about the impact of their decision on their sixth child.

This is my story—the sixth child.  This is the story of my siblings.  This is our story:  Finding Peoples.