by Helen Doss
I gave Gregory his bath, and put him into his high chair in his bathrobe. Laura tied on his bib. The children gathered around the table and bowed their heads to sing grace. In their sweet, treble voices they sang:
Morning is here,
The board is spread,
Thanks be to God
Who gives us bread. AMEN.
“Why do we sing thank you for bread, when we’re going to eat oatmeal?” Timmy asked. “Why don’t we sing, ‘Thanks be to God, who gives us oatmeal?’”
While Carl helped the children with their breakfast, I finished the sandwiches and packed them in the lunch boxes, along with a cookie and a raw carrot. When breakfast was over, the children scrambled for coats and sweaters, while Carl and I flanked the back door. Armed with a washcloth, Carl checked for clean faces and ears, while I held a comb and checked hair partings and cowlicks. Each child grabbed his lunch box on the way out.
When the stampede had left to race noisily down the drive to the school-bus stop in front, Dorothy laughed. “Look what we did, Mama! We forgot, and packed a lunch box for me and Richard, too.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I told her. “We’ll take them along. You might get hungry over at Ukiah.”
I washed the cereal off Gregory’s face and dressed him in the same little white Sunday suit that Donny had worn when we took him to see the judge, ten years before. While I was putting on Greg’s white socks and shoes, I heard Richard and Dorothy talking in the kitchen, where they were stacking the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.
“I sure like it better here than any place I ever been,” Richard said. “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
“Me, neither,” Dorothy said. “When I was up at the orphanage last Christmas, I saw that Life magazine with all the pictures in it. And I said to myself, gosh, I wished I lived in that family. I never dreamed I’d really get to, and now my wish is come true, and my name is going to be Dorothy Doss forever and ever.”
Our friend Mrs. Pickles was visiting us, and offered to baby-sit with Alex and Timmy while we were at court, and to welcome home the other children when school was out.
“I’ve stopped trying to question your sanity, Carl,” she said. “I’ll admit I don’t understand what you’re doing, but I guess the good Lord does.”
We took the short-cut road, nineteen miles over the mountains, to the county seat at Ukiah. On the way over, Greg bounced between the laps of Dorothy and Richard in the back seat, knocking with his small fist on the windows and the rattling ash tray. When Dorothy and Richard started singing, Greg joined them with his wordless da-da-da, sung in perfect pitch.
“I think he’s happy he’s going to be adopted today,” Richard said.
At the Mendocino County Courthouse, we waited on the second floor. Gregory toddled up and down the corridor, rapping experimentally on the marble walls, the doors, the brass doorknobs. At each varying sound he chuckled delightedly, a big grin across his brown face.
Then it was time for our appointment.
Our lawyer joined us, and we filed into the judge’s chambers. The lawyer did the introductions, and we shook hands all around. The clerk of the court came in and asked us to raise our right hands and solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, which we did. We answered the familiar questions and signed the familiar-looking papers, while I thought: I, Helen, do take thee Richard, Dorothy, and Gregory, to be my lawfully adopted children, for better or for worse . . . in sickness or in health . . . till death do us part. . . .
Less than half an hour later we were outside again, going down the courthouse steps. Dorothy and Richard were ahead, Gregory between them, his chubby arms held out so they could hold his hands.
Carl asked me softly, “Well, do you have what you wanted out of life, now?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you?”
Carl looked ahead at his three newest children, and on his face was the look of a proud father, a happy man.
“I sure do,” he said.
Epilogue
I NEVER EXPECTED to write this book. When I began The Family Nobody Wanted, I had already written many stories for magazines. Still, I never thought of writing a story about my family.
But when our family was half-finished, the Reader’s Digest published an article: “Why You Can’t Adopt a Child.” I quickly fired back an article about the six delightful children my minister-husband and I already had adopted. I added that we hoped to adopt at least two more. The story, “Our International Family,” was published in the Reader’s Digest in August 1949.
That article intrigued Life magazine. They sent their West Coast editor and a renowned child photographer to cover our family. By then we had adopted nine children. For several days, Life became part of our family, photographing me, Carl, and the children in many places and poses.
One night, after a well-photographed day at the beach, I tucked my children into their beds.
“What do you do after your kids are asleep?” the editor asked me.
“I usually go to my typewriter,” I said. “I’m writing a book.”
“About your wonderful family?” the photographer asked.
“Oh, no,” I told them. “I’ve started a novel. About King David, and his many wives.”
We kidded around a little, and then the photographer motioned to my typewriter, which sat in the corner. “Let me take your picture there,” he said.
When the Life article came out on November 12, 1951, the typing picture was cut. But Life did say that I was writing a book about my family. Immediately our phone started ringing; publishers were asking to see my book. The new editor-in-chief of Little, Brown and Company even came to Boonville to see me.
“I wasn’t serious, and there isn’t any book about my family,” I explained. “I was just kidding with the Life people.”
“But you should do it,” the Little, Brown editor told me. “Why not just start writing it, and send me each chapter as you finish?”
It was a writer’s dream, having editors begging for my first book—even before I wrote it. I hunted for scraps of paper, still tucked in pockets and drawers all over the house, on which I’d recorded anecdotes and children’s conversations. During our marriage, Carl was often away. When he came back, I liked to regale him with happenings he had missed. How lucky I was to have all those jottings!
Eventually the book was finished. Soon after sending it to the publisher, I finished another big project—my college degree. In June 1954, I received my B.A. from the University of Redlands, with Carl and our twelve children sitting proudly in the first row.
The day after my graduation, my editor wrote that The Family Nobody Wanted was going to press, and would be out in the fall. He also reported that McCall’s had bought first serial rights and was condensing my book for publication. It would appear in their September and October issues, and they were sending out a photographer so family photos could be included in the magazine.
That fall my book arrived, with family photos on the cover. I was uneasy with the title, since I certainly wanted each of our children. My editor explained that my title, All God’s Children, couldn’t be used, as another book was out with that title and orders could be confused.
Soon after The Family Nobody Wanted was published, Playhouse 90 did a CBS movie on our family. It was shot live, and no recording was made. Carl and I were played by Lew Ayres and Nanette Fabray, while our children were played mostly by youngsters from the movie The King and I. We visited a rehearsal on the set. The movie children kept running among our children to match up. “Where is the real Elaine? I’m the movie Elaine,” one would say. And, “Where is the real Teddy?”
On February 19, 1975, our family was again featured on TV. “The Family Nobody Wanted” had an entirely different script as an ABC “Movie of the Week.” Shirley Jones played me; we chatted about our children while we were on the set. James Olson, who played Carl, phoned his father in Hebron, Illinois. “I’m playing Carl Doss
, a Methodist minister who once preached in Hebron,” the actor told his father. “Did you know him?”
“That crazy guy?” his father shouted. “The one who adopted all those kids?”
My readers probably would like to know much more about “all those kids” and their lives. This would take another book, but I won’t write it. I always have wanted my children to live out the rest of their lives in private, if they wished.
But I can tell you a few things about my children. Don, when he finished high school, was class valedictorian, receiving a string of honors and offers of college scholarships. He is a self-taught computer wizard, with large corporations vying for his services.
When Richard finished his stint in the navy, he became a genius with machines. He also went into farming in Idaho and raised his family there.
Tim had just finished high school, and Ted was in the middle of college, when the Vietnam War broke out. Both volunteered for the army, and soon they were shipped to the war zone. They slogged through swamps and jungles. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when at last they came back, intact. Each son finished college under the G.I. Bill. Ted learned computers, and the big oil company he worked for sent him to Bangkok, to Jakarta, and back to the states. Tim and his wife have worked in the real estate and housing field.
Diane, like two of her brothers, also went into the computer field. She is funny and outgoing. Dorothy raised her children and also worked in retail; now she does fascinating crafts. Diane has taught Dorothy to surf the Web, and also to email her children and her siblings.
Elaine was a valuable helper for her father in his last years, and now helps her husband. Like her sisters, she is a doting grandmother. For Elaine, a trip to Japan yielded a full-size samurai suit encased in glass, perhaps a relic of one of her ancestors.
After Susie’s children were grown, she went back to college and was graduated with honors. She has become an excellent artist, using her photography skills to create her own line of gorgeous greeting cards.
Laura, who trained as a beautician, changed the spelling of her name to Lora. I have popped in for a visit, unannounced, any time of day, and her house always is as beautifully groomed as she is. She spends many hours keeping up with her children and grandchildren, yet still finds time to manage the apartment complex where she and her Ecuadoran husband live.
Rita warms my heart whenever I think of the work she does, caring for elderly and incapacitated ladies. Carl always said, “Rita is the hub of the wheel, and our other children are the spokes. She is connected to everyone, knows what’s going on, and is always ready to help.”
Alex had a career in the U.S. Air Force. During his last five years, when stationed in Korea, he fell in love with and married a lovely Korean girl. So, his family is completely Asian.
And as for my youngest, Greg, one episode from his life stands out for me. Every year people from all over come to Laguna Beach, California, to attend its Arts Festival. At the festival, a series of living tableaus is produced. Each one is an amazingly accurate recreation of a famous painting. I was so proud of my grown-up Greg in End of the Trail. Like the Indian he was, he sat perfectly still on his horse, and the audience was spellbound.
But there is sad news as well. Carl died after a painful bout with cancer. Still, he lived long enough to know most of his grandchildren. I also lost my two beloved Indian sons. Richard, already a grandfather, died of cancer. Gregory died after a tragic mugging.
In my sunset years, I live with my present husband, Roger Reed. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and retired as a lieutenant colonel. We share a love of books and classical music. It pleases me that he enjoys get-togethers with my children as much as I do.
I am proud of my accomplishments as a writer. In addition to The Family Nobody Wanted, I have written a handbook on adoption, a complete book of Bible stories, and many children’s books. All are now out of print.
But the greatest joy of my whole life has been as the mother of my twelve adopted children. I love each one of my children, as well as their spouses, and my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And I hope my readers will realize how blessed I have been to be part of “the family nobody wanted.”
Yuba City, California
January 2001
HELEN DOSS REED