Jean Paton, 1908-2002

by Mary Anne Cohen

maireaine@hexatron.com

Before Jean Paton, there was no adoption reform. We all owe a huge debt to the courage and foresight of one lone adopted woman who dared to "break the silence" about how it feels to be adopted and denied one's heritage. Jean Paton was born on December 27, 1908, in Detroit, Michigan, and named Ruthena Hill Kittson. As her parents were not married, she was soon surrendered for adoption, adopted by the Paton family and renamed Jean Paton. She had a happy childhood, grew up, and became a social worker. She worked for many years in the adoption field before she began to question the system and wonder about her own heritage as she approached middle age.

In 1954, Jean wrote the groundbreaking work The Adopted Break Silence, which grew out of her interviews with forty adopted persons, as well as her own experience in searching for her birthmother. I was delighted to learn recently that one of these forty adoptees was the playwright Edward Albee, who kept in touch with Jean for many years thereafter. When Jean Paton was born, adoption records were open to adopted adults, so she had no trouble obtaining her own original birth certificate, but by the time she began her research into adoption as a social system, records were being sealed everywhere. Jean spent the rest of her long life battling this injustice, often virtually alone.

Jean began the support network Orphan Voyage in the 1950s, where far-flung members kept in touch via her newsletter “The Log,” and by phone and mail. Jean answered all phone calls and correspondence personally, and made many referrals to search help and local groups as the adoption reform movement began to expand and grow from the 1970s onward. I first connected with Jean in around 1975, after getting her address from a magazine article about adoptee searches. She answered me, a suffering young birthmother, with a long, kind and compassionate letter when other organizations just sent a form letter and request for dues. I was greatly impressed with Jean. Thus began a friendship that lasted for many years.

It was Jean who first suggested that birthmothers should have their own group and newsletter, and this suggestion led to the formation of CUB by Lee Campbell and a group of birthmothers, including myself, in 1976. Jean was also the first to claim the name Bastard as a term of pride, with her "Bastards Are Beautiful" buttons that came out in the ‘70s. Many of the more timid reform groups were shocked by these buttons, but I loved them and wore them with pride. Jean was always firm about adoptee rights, without compromise or permission from anyone. As an "insider" of the social work profession, she was scathing in her denunciation of that group's infantilization of adopted adults. She was unique in the adoption reform movement in that she did not seek personal fame, money, or ego gratification, but lived and devoted her personal efforts to the good of all touched by adoption, without asking anything in return.

Even when we disagreed on some issues, I never doubted Jean's integrity, brilliance, commitment, and her unique view of adoption and the adoptee's place in the world. Jean continued to be controversial and challenge us all right up until the end. Jean Paton was not just a reformer. She was also a poet, philosopher, and accomplished sculptor and visual artist. Her book of poems, They Serve Fugitively, is still one of the best examples of adoption poetry, and her writing on many issues in “The Log” and elsewhere is still worth reading, pondering and debating. She was truly a Renaissance woman of many talents and gifts. She brought much needed wisdom and a profoundly spiritual view to adoption that many others missed, and went deep into the mystery of adoptee as outsider, gadfly, oracle, and prophet to the larger society.

When Jean passed away this spring at the age of 93 from a heart ailment, she was still bright, sharp, and working on a new book about adoption. As the founding mother of adoption reform, she richly deserves to be remembered and honored, and her work for adoptee rights must be carried on. I only regret she did not live to see open records everywhere, but it is because of the work she started alone over 50 years ago that the rest of us have such a firm foundation from which to go forward to victory. Jean fought the good fight, with compassion, grace, intellect and soul. May she be met in heaven by all her family, by adoption and by birth, and may we continue her good work here on earth. Rest in peace, Jean. You were one Beautiful Bastard.

Mary Anne Cohen is a birthmother, and editor of the Origins newsletter.

(This feature appeared in the Summer 2002 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)