LOST BABY TRACED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20656, 30 August 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

LOST BABY TRACED.

SEARCH FOR TEN YEARS

BIRTHMARK ON SHOULDER. A romance a3 strange as fiction, involving a woman's world-wide search for a baby she abandoned ten years ago when she was penniless and seriously ill, has just had a happy ending in Birmingham. Uer long quest camo to an end when sho discovered her child, which had been adopted by a family named Taylor.

Behind this remarkable renuion lies a pathetic tlorv which was disclosed by the mother. Her namo is Millicent Stanford, who went with her parents to live in America 15 years ago. There she subsequently married a man who afterward deserted her, leaving her with a son eighteen months old.

" Left stranded and penniless," she said, " I felt seriously ill with hardship and worry. At my wits' end to know what to do, and practically in a delirium, 1 went out one night and deposited my child on a doorstep with a message pinned to him explaining the circumstances."

On tho way home Mrs. Stanford collapsed in the street and was removed to hospital. When sho recovered she attempted to trace her child, but without success. She obtained a position as secretary. But sho never gavo up hope of finding her child. Five years ago Mrs. Stanford learned her husband had died. Her employer, a wealthy business man, then asked her to marry him. " 1 wouldn't do so at first," she said, " because 1 was so unhappy about niv child. Mr. Stanford, however, promised to do all in his power to find him, and so we were married and began our search together." Somo time ago as the result of her advertisements and inquiries, Mrs. Stanford learned from the Taylor family in Birmingham that ten years ago, when the late Mrs. Taylor was living with her son in America, they had found a baby on the doorstep in exactly similar circumstances to those Mrs. Stanford described.

And there was a peculiar-shaped birthmark oil his right shoulder which Mrs. Stanford identified as that of her son. Mr. and Mrs. Stanford dashed across to England, and to-day Mrs. Stanford—reunited to her baby—is (ho happiest woman alive.