Newspaper Articles for Bourbon County, Kansas

BOURBON COUNTY

Anna and Norman Hill: together again after 61 years

HE FINDS HIS FAMILY AFTER 61-YEAR SEPARATION

LANCASTER, Calif. -- "I was really stunned," said Anna Mathis. "I was really too numb to believe it."

"After searching for so long. I really didn't believe it," added Norman Hickman.

"I had been leery of the situation -- I really wasn't that convinced until I got here," he continued. "Then I knew they were my family!"

After 61 years, Anna Hill Mathis and Norman (Hill) Hickman -- sister and brother -- were reunited after a lifetime of separation. The reunion took place recently at the home of Mrs. Mathis' daughter and on-in-law here.

The reunion brought to an end more than three decades of searching by Hickman for members of his real family, a family that was separated by adoption proceedings back in 1915.

Tragedy had struck the family of Henry A. Hill back in 1915, when Hill's wife, Margaret, died, leaving him with six children to raise.

Living on a farm outside Seneca, Mo., Hill soon found that his eldest daughter, Anna, then 16, simply couldn't take care of five younger brothers: Walt, then 14; Bert, 7; Kenneth, 4; Norman, 2; and Ralph, only six weeks.

"It was too much for me to raise all five boys," remembered Anna. "We had to move to town, because my father couldn't make a living on the farm."

Nevertheless, she related, they managed to keep the family together for almost two years, until her father had to go to Oklahoma to find work in the oil fields. It was then that he decided to take the three youngest boys -- Kenneth, then 6; Norman, then 4; and Ralph, 2; to an orphanage operated by the Nazarene Church in Ft. Scott, Kan.

Anna and the two oldest boys were now on their own, living with other relatives near Seneca, working "anywhere I could find work" she recalled.

On his fourth birthday, Oct. 22, 1917, Norman Hill met his "new" parents: James and Mosie Ellen Hickman, of Alva, Okla. The HIckmans had come to Missouri to attend a family reunion, heard about the three children, and after seeing them at the orphanage in Ft. Scott, decided to adopt Norman.

"I didn't have a whole lot of recollection of my real family at that age," Norman recently recalled. "I didn't remember who my family was, but I knew I had a sister and Bert -- but I called her 'sister,' no Anna, and I didn't know who 'Bert' was.

The years passed, and each of the family members went their separate ways, although Anna and the three older boys maintained some contact. Kenneth ended up in Oregon -- where he still resides -- while Anna, Walt, and Bert came to California. Ralph, unknown to the rest of his family, had died of diphtheria when he was 10.

"I made no attempt to locate Norman or Ralph ," Mrs. Mathis recalled. "I felt they were probably better off than I was. I tried to forget as quick as I could -- but I didn't forget, of course."

Norman's "new" parents didn't hide the fact that he was adopted from him, "but they didn't encourage me to find my real parents" either, he related. They also told him his real name was Hill, after schoolmates had taunted him for being adopted.

Following the death of his adoptive mother in 1948, Norman received the official decree of adoption, which traced his adoption proceedings back to the long-closed orphanage in Kansas. He then set about trying to find out what had happened to his real family.

Letters and advertisements were placed in newspapers in Oklahoma and Kansas, and attempts were made to get birth certificates from those states, all to no avail. No one had ever heard of a Norman Hill, born Oct. 22, 1913.

Correspondence over the next decade filled a notebook, with all answers -- if any -- coming back negative.

Following the death of Norman's first wife in 1959, he married his present wife, Marcella. And she took up where his first wife left off, writing to surviving members of the Hickman family, traveling to the communities he remembered, even going door-to-door on occasion seeking information. "We never go to the right clue," she said.

But, finally, that clue came.

"I had written a letter to Norman's adopted sister last Christmas, told her about the whole search, and how terrible important it was for Norman to find his real family," she related.

She wrote back, with a detailed accounting of names and events in the Hickman family's history. Among those events was a family reunion in Missouri before Norman was adopted.

"Missouri was the clue," she said. "We didn't know his real mother died in Missouri."

But from then on, things began to happen fast.

An instructor in a genealogical course at the community college in their home town of Modesto, Calif., suggested that she write the postmaster of Seneca, Mo., giving information about the three youngest boys and when they were taken to the orphanage. She did so, requesting the postmaster to give the letter to someone who had lived in the area since that time.

The postmaster did just that -- even giving the letter to a family named Hill, although that family was not related to Norman's real family.

And then fate, coincidence -- or call it Providence, if you will -- stepped in.

"This family went to the same church that Norman's real cousin went to," recalled Mrs. Hickman. "They asked her if she remembered a Henry A. Hill (Norman's real father). She said no, but read the letter anyway.

"When she read the letter, she knew instantly that they were her cousins -- Norman, Kenneth, and Ralph.

The cousin wrote back immediately, giving the name of Norman's older brothers and his oldest sister, Anna, and stating that she lived "somewhere in California near Mojave." She also gave the name and address of another cousin in California who she thought would know where Anna lived.

In short order Mrs. Hickman got a letter off to the other cousin in California who indeed did know where Anna Mathis lived -- next door to her daughter in Lancaster.

Shortley before Easter, the phone rang at the Hickman home in Modesto. ON the other end of the line from Lancaster was Anna Hill Mathis. After 61 years, Norman Hickman's search for his real family was almost over. Several days later, the Hickman's drove to Lancaster to make the reunion with his older sister complete. After an emotional greeting, there was one last phone call to make.

"We called Kenneth in Oregon," said Betty Riggs. "I said, 'You better sit down. Would you like to speak to a man named Norman?' "

"He said, 'Oh my God, I wondered where he was!' " she related.

Norman Hickman's only regret was the knowledge that two of his three older brothers had died before his search ended: Walter about a dozen years ago. Bert about 10 years ago.

Bert lived his last 10 years in Fresno, and we lived in Modesto -- less than 100 miles away -- but we never knew him," Mrs. Hickman reminisced.

And from Norman, Anna learned that the last brother -- Ralph -- had died when he was only 10 years old.

But the family circle, though smaller, was now complete.

Hickman is critical of adoption laws which prevent children from finding out who their parents are.

The adoptions papers are still sealed and will stay that way," he commented. "If we had more information, we could have seen Walt and Bert before they died.

"Isn't a court of law supposed to be a court of the people? It seems as though it is not," he added.

Although several states have modified their adoption laws to permit adopted children to locate their real parents after the children reach adulthood and the real parents agree to be identified, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma are not among them.

Neither has California although a recently-introduced bill would allow limited exchange of information between adult adoptees and their real parents, with the consent of both parties.

Norman and Anna, who bear a striking resemblance, will become the central figures in a huge Mathis-Hill family reunion in Lancaster this summer.

And as for Marcella Hickman, who did much of the actual detective work over the past 17 years, another problem arises:

"Now that it's all over, I don't know what to do," she laughed.
(The Pharos-Tribune, Logansport, Ind. ~ Sunday ~ June 26, 1977 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)