It was a story that straddled the line between kidnapping and an adoption gone wrong. A headline in the Redwood City Tribune on Aug. 29, 1945, told the tale: “Foster Mother Refuses to Part with Child Despite Order.” It was a complex story.
Ida Meri and her husband Theodore lived on Kains Avenue in San Bruno. They began fostering a baby boy five days after an unwed mother, Helen Rossing of Millbrae, had given birth at Mills Memorial Hospital on Sept. 9, 1944. Almost a year later, Ida and Theodore filed papers to legally adopt the baby, whom they named Roger, and were stunned to find that Helen suddenly wanted her baby back. Ida told a newspaper: “We feel he’s our own baby now. He won’t go with anyone else and cries when we are away. I can’t give him up now.” Helen countered with a demand to have the baby, whom she called Howard, released to her. To make things more confusing, Judge Rudolph A. Rapsey petitioned to have the baby declared a ward of the juvenile court – but he quickly withdrew this action as the custody battle escalated.
The courts felt that a court hearing was the only way to settle the situation. Helen prepared for the hearing by retaining a lawyer and getting her paperwork together. Ida prepared by disappearing with the baby. The Times reported in early September 1945 that Helen and her lawyer were prepared to pursue kidnapping charges against Ida if she did not surrender the baby. It was an aggressive move, but Ida did not come out of hiding. Due to a technicality (he wasn’t specifically named in a contempt of court order), Theodore could not be formally questioned about Ida’s whereabouts. Helen’s lawyer vowed to pursue all available legal actions from the San Mateo District Attorney’s office, the county grand jury or the United States District Attorney, no matter where Ida was, whether in California or out of state. When informally asked, Theodore would cagily state that Ida and the baby “might be on vacation, or maybe on their way to Chicago.” He would later admit that his wife was in San Francisco.
Eventually, Ida called The Times and promised to appear in court with the baby. She refused to tell the newspaper her current whereabouts. She stated: “I won’t give up the baby. I love him as my own son. Mr. Meri and I will resort to all legal means to keep the child. Miss Rossing never showed any interest in her son until we went to court in an attempt to make adoption of the boy legal.”
The court date happened, and Ida showed up as promised. The result was reported in The Times as Helen winning a “dramatic courtroom victory.” It was a tough case. The judge stated that it was a “difficult and unpleasant decision” and “(King) Solomon himself couldn’t straighten this thing out.”
And the victory certainly was dramatic. Right after the verdict was announced, Ida attacked Helen in court, “clutching (Helen) about the neck, and she pulled (Helen) to the floor as she repeatedly struck at her with a heavy purse.” It took five sheriff deputies to pull Ida away, and in that scuffle, she struck a deputy sheriff in the eye and kicked another officer.
There was one final chapter of the story. In mid-October 1945, Ida and Theodore sued Helen in civil court for $27,323 (more than $450,000 in today’s money) for “deprivation of the love and affection formed between the child and themselves…” and for the money spent on the baby’s expenses for the year that the boy was in their custody.
But the newspapers had apparently tired of the story, and I couldn’t find a report of the result of that civil case.
