22.Year Old Baby Found Lying In Mud On Union Street

Winchester Journal Herald, February, 1957. By Jerry Davis.

  Parents of a crippled, one-year old baby boy found Wednesday morning lying in a muddy, but partly-frozen front yard at 521 Short Street, were in the Randolph county jail awaiting a 4 p.m. hearing in city court before Judge Ralph West.,
  The mother and father of the youngster, Anthony, are Ervin, 50 years old and Joyce X, 22.
They were arrested Thursday at 10 a.m. by Winchester police on a warrant charging them with "cruelty and neglect of children."
  The baby boy was discovered about 10 o'clock Wednesday morning by a neighbor, who related that she had seen a bundle lying near the porch of the X's four-room house. However, she had thought it to be an older brother that was playing around the house.
  The neighbor woman watched for the return of Mrs. X, whom she had seen earlier leave the house and go to McCoy's grocery.
 " Mrs. X returned with some groceries," the neighbor continued, "and went into the house, only to come back out again and leave once more." Apparently the mother ignored her nearly frozen child lying in the mud and filth.
  The neighbor woman then went to the front yard and picked up the trembling child and called the police.
  Officer Robert Wagner arrived and took the baby into the house. The mother arrived a short time later as did Chief of Police Jim O'Dell and this reporter.
  Other women and a high school boy in the neighborhood told this reporter that Mrs. X frequently left the children alone in the house while she was gone for several hours. No one knew exactly where the 22 year-old mother of three went.
  The X's have three boys. Anthony, the baby, is slightly over one tear old. Ivan, two years old, was in the house when the officers arrived. Larry, five years old, is a kindergarten pupil. Ervin, the father, is employed at the Anchor Hocking Glass factory.
  Neighbors said the X's had lived in the frame dwelling for about three years. Police officers have been called to the residence before and last spring a detail of volunteer workers went into the rubble to scrub the floors and restore some semblance of order to the virtual "pig pen."
  The neighbor woman who found the baby boy said she thought he had been lying in the mud for at least 30 minutes.
  There was no heat in the house. The local gas company had been forced to turn off their services earlier this week because of non-payment of bills. The house is located directly north across Short Street from the Union Mission, a haven for the destitute.
  The four rooms were a mass of filth and rubble. Only in a few areas could you see the linoleum floor covering for the disorder of thrown clothes, food, baby diapers and other unpleasant things that go with little children.