IN 1979, A GRIEVING WIDOWER FOUGHT TO KEEP NINE ABANDONED SISTERS
TOGETHER—46 YEARS LATER, THE TOWN LEARNED WHAT HIS FAMILY BECAME
PART 1
In the autumn of 1979, Thomas Whitaker walked into St. Catherine’s
Children’s Home because his truck had died in a thunderstorm.
He was thirty-five.
A widower.
And, by his own admission, not looking for another reason to keep
living.
His wife, Evelyn, had died seven months earlier after a long illness.
Their farmhouse outside Bellwood, Ohio, had become painfully quiet.
Friends told him to sell it.
Move.
Remarry someday.
Start over.
Thomas ignored them.
Every evening, he ate alone at the kitchen table.
Evelyn’s final words followed him through the empty rooms.
“Don’t let love die with me. Give it somewhere to go.”
Thomas did not know what that meant.
Not until the storm.
He entered St. Catherine’s to use the telephone.
Before reaching the office, he heard babies crying.
Many babies.
He followed the sound down the hallway.
Then stopped.
Nine cribs stood inside the nursery.
Nine infant girls.
PART 2
The girls were Black.
Thomas was white.
In 1979, in their small town, people would make that fact far more
important than Thomas believed it should be.
But that night he noticed something else first.
The babies were together.
A social worker named Margaret Ellis explained that the girls were
sisters.
Not nine newborns of exactly the same age, as later town legends would
claim.
They ranged from infancy to just under three years old.
Their mother had died.
Their father could not be located.
Extended family had been unable to take all of them safely.
The children had arrived through emergency placement.
“What happens now?” Thomas asked.
Margaret sighed.
“We try to find relatives or foster placements.”
“Together?”
“If possible.”
“And if it isn’t possible?”
Margaret looked toward the cribs.
Thomas understood.
They could be separated.
One little girl reached through the crib rails.
Thomas offered his finger.
She held on.
PART 3
“What would it take to keep all nine together?”
Margaret looked at him.
“What?”
“If somebody wanted to foster them together.”
“Mr. Whitaker, that is not a decision someone makes during a
thunderstorm.”
“I’m asking what it takes.”
“Training. Approval. Home study. Financial review. Court oversight.
Space. Support. And a great deal more than good intentions.”
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“Tell me where to start.”
Margaret stared at him.
“You came in to use a telephone.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re asking about nine children.”
“I know.”
“You’re a single man.”
“I know.”
She leaned forward.
“Do you understand how difficult this would be?”
Thomas looked toward the nursery.
“No.”
That answer surprised her.
Then he added:
“But I can learn.”
PART 4
Thomas did not walk out with nine babies that night.
The story Bellwood later told made it sound that way.
Reality was slower.
Better.
Harder.
There were social workers.
Judges.
Background checks.
Home inspections.
Questions about income.
Questions about race.
Questions about his grief.
Questions about whether a recently widowed man was trying to fill an
emotional void with children.
Margaret asked him directly.
“Are you doing this because you miss Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised her.
Then Thomas said:
“But missing Evelyn isn’t a qualification to raise children. If I’m not
suitable, tell me.”
Margaret studied him.
“What makes you think you are suitable?”
“I don’t know that I am.”
“Then why keep trying?”
“Because if the question is whether I’m willing to learn what they need,
the answer is yes.”
PART 5
The girls had names.
Thomas learned them carefully.
Denise, nearly three.
Angela, two.
Monica, twenty months.
Patrice, eighteen months.
Lorraine, fifteen months.
Jacqueline, one year.
Renee, ten months.
Cynthia, seven months.
And baby Naomi, only four months old.
They were not identical bundles waiting for a rescuer.
They were nine people.
Denise hated peas.
Angela screamed whenever anyone tried to wash her hair.
Monica laughed at sneezes.
Patrice climbed everything.
Lorraine would not sleep without holding fabric.
Jacqueline loved music.
Renee stared suspiciously at strangers.
Cynthia wanted to be carried constantly.
Naomi could sleep through almost anything.
Thomas wrote everything down.
Margaret found notebooks in his kitchen.
Nine names.
Nine columns.
Nine sets of instructions.
PART 6
The first major obstacle was his house.
It had only three bedrooms.
Thomas renovated.
Friends helped.
His brother-in-law built bunk beds.
A church donated mattresses.
A Black barber named Samuel Brooks, whom Thomas barely knew, appeared
one Saturday with lumber and two cousins.
Thomas said:
“I can pay you.”
Samuel answered:
“Probably. But you need the money more than I do.”
That was the beginning of another friendship.
Samuel also gave Thomas advice nobody else had considered.
“If you’re serious about raising Black daughters, loving them isn’t
enough.”
Thomas listened.
“They need people around them who know things you don’t.”
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