Babies who were mixed up at the hospital reconnect 72 years later
By Jim Palmer
On Sept. 30, 1951, Ben and Marcella Motis of Lowry, Minn., gave birth to a healthy baby girl. They named her Betty. After a 10-day stay in the nearby Glenwood Hospital (standard stay in 1951) it was time for the Motis’ to take Betty home.
Ben and Marcella were given their new baby girl, all wrapped up in a blanket, and they drove to their home near Lowry, about 10 miles away. The baby was sneezing on the way home, which was unusual, but they assumed it had something to do with the blanket she was wrapped up in.
“My mom said that they just assumed I was allergic to wool,” said Betty, who has lived with her husband Jim in Glenwood for many years.
Marcella carried the newborn into the house, laid her on the crib and unwrapped the blankets. It was at that moment that she knew something wasn’t quite right.
“My mom said, ‘This isn’t my baby!’” said Betty.
Just as Marcella and the family were walking with the baby back out to the car to bring her back to the hospital, a car pulled into their long country driveway. It was the doctor. And when he got out of the car, he had Betty in his arms.
It was the classic “switched at birth” scenario that the family has laughed about for decades.
“The other girl was in my bed before I was,” said Betty.
Betty had heard the story retold many times growing up from her parents, and she had passed on the story to her kids and grandkids over the years.
“The story comes up once in a while,” said Betty. “And my kids were asking me about it again recently... so I started to think, ‘I would really like to meet this person.’ It is kind of odd to meet someone 72 years later because we were switched at birth, but I decided to try anyway.”
Betty’s first step was searching for information at the Pope County Museum, with the help of the museum crew, Merlin Peterson and Ann Grandy.
“I remembered my mom telling me that the name of the other family was Hawkinson, so we had that information to go on,” said Betty. “We started by looking for birth announcements and names, but we couldn’t find anything in the newspaper.”
After some work at the museum and on the internet, Betty and the museum team found someone by the name of Hawkinson who lived in Kensington and then later moved to Alaska.
“We found out that the parents had moved to Alaska first and then the daughter and her family moved there later on,” she said.
When Betty found out that the name of the other baby was likely Vickie Hawkinson, she looked her up on a people search site on the internet.
“I found someone who had moved from Alaska to Arizona by that name,” she said.
Betty sent a letter to that address in Arizona, explaining who she was, and asking if Vickie was aware of the switched at birth story. She also expressed the desire to connect with her.
After a few days, her letter bounced back. Return to sender.
“It bounced back, but on the envelope there was a note from the post office to try another address. So I sent a letter to the new address in Phoenix,” said Betty.
And after a week or so she got a letter back from Vickie (Hawkinson) Boone, who lives with her husband, James, in the Phoenix area. She was the one Betty had been looking for.
“We found out that her parents (Leroy and Laverne) owned a hardware store in Kensington,” said Betty. “And she too was told the switched at birth story by her parents. The Hawkinsons were members of Scandinavian Lutheran Church in Cyrus and then Trinity Lutheran Church in Cyrus. Vickie graduated from Kensington High School in 1969, got her LPN nursing degree and worked in the Twin Cities for awhile. She and James were married in 1972. In Alaska, they didn’t have an LPN program, so she worked for the Zales Jewelry company. Her husband worked for the city of Juneau. The Boones have two girls, one who lives in Alaska and one lives in Arizona. Both are retired.”
As for Betty, she graduated from Glenwood High School in 1969 and she and Jim got married later that year. They had two girls and two boys. Jim worked for the railroad for about 44 years. Betty worked for Glenwood High School until it turned to Minnewaska Area High School, and then worked as a special education secretary and aide for special education for several years.
The two women started to correspond through email and then talked about meeting in person.
“My husband, Jim, and I go down to Arizona in the wintertime and we stay in Triology, which is a short drive to Phoenix,” said Betty.
So last winter, Betty and Vickie set up a day for them to meet, along with their husbands.
“We met at the Cheesecake Factory,” said Betty. “We were there a little early and watched as people came in. We would say, ‘too old’ or ‘too young’ when people came in. We didn’t know what they looked like.”
When the Boones arrived, the two couples had a nice visit. And of course, they talked about the infamous baby switcheroo story... but the story was enhanced for both, as they learned the other side of the story.
“We learned that when the hospital staff realized the wrong baby was sent home with my parents, they closed the door in the nursing area and didn’t say anything (to the Hawkinson family) until the doctor came back with the baby,” said Betty.
Betty also mentioned the wool blankets and the sneezing, which was a funny detail for Vickie to learn, although it didn’t sound like she had a wool allergy as first suspected.
The couples had such a good time that they got together a second time, this time at Sherlin’s place in Trilogy. And they made sure to take some photos. And a third visit is likely this winter.
Comentários