70. Mother And Daughter United After Search Of 28 Years-Mrs. Charles Hale (Gladys Allen), Abbie Harvey.

Winchester Journal, 1939.


  A twenty-eight year search ended Sunday when Mrs. Charles Hale, who lives three miles east of Winchester, found her mother. The two had been separated since Mrs. Hale, then Gladys Allen, was four years old and was taken to an institution in Indianapolis to stay during the time her mother was in the hospital.
  After her dismissal from the hospital, it is reported, the mother went to the home to take her daughter again, only to be told that without knowing it she had signed away all right to the child.
  Shortly afterward, in 1911, the daughter was taken by Abbie Harvey of Winchester, now custodian at Fountain Park cemetery, and Mrs. Harvey, who had written to the home concerning adopting a child. In 1912 she was legally adopted by them.
  During the years since that time, the daughter, with only vague recollections of her mother, has waited for some clue as to how to find her. Last week she stumbled upon what seemed to be possibly the beginning of an answer. In a borrowed Indianapolis paper she found the death notice of the wife of a man with her brother's name, and she noticed that the age of the wife corresponded with the age which she knew to be her brother's.
  Feeling that at last she might have hit upon definite evidence, Mrs. Hale went to Indianapolis, and found the address which had been mentioned in the newspaper account. A man and woman were sitting on the porch and she asked for Mrs. Reed, which she knew to be her mother's name. The man smiled at her strangely and took her into the house, where he called, "Pauline". Pauline, Mrs. Hale knew, was her mother's name.
  Mrs. Reed came out of the kitchen, spoke her daughter's name and immediately fainted. When she recovered she and her daughter talked, and the mother was surprised to discover that she had five granddaughters, including a pair of twins.
  The man on the porch, Mrs. Hale learned, was her step-father, who had recognized her, when she came, from a picture of her taken on her fourth birthday.