Born and Raised: An American Story of Adoption

By Jerry K. Cline

Jerry Cline exists at the whim of an 1869 Comanche raiding party on his birthfathers family ranch in Central Texas. Jerry could also be a poster-boy for successful adoptions. He was adopted at age 3 months in 1939 by a hard-living couple from East Texas, via the Indian Territory of Oklahoma before it became a state. Despite the raw and dusty origins of his forbearers, Jerry grew up to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics from Purdue University and enjoyed a long career in the aerospace industry with McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now The Boeing Company). He worked on several space and missile programs and was part of the team which developed the design for the Space Shuttle. Dr. Cline also held an academic appointment as an adjunct faculty member of the mathematics department of Washington University in St. Louis. Jerry is now retired and lives in St. Louis with his wife Phyllis.

In 2001, aided by his wife, a cooperative adoption agency, and an expert genealogist, Jerry Cline began what turned out to be an exciting and successful quest for his birthparents and knowledge of how he came to be. He was 61 years old at the time. The search itself, the surprising identities of his birthparents, the heartwarming face-to-face meetings with new-found blood relatives and several years of research inspired this book. In Born and Raised, Jerry shares the details of his dramatic search and weaves a fascinating composite of the histories of his birthparents, his adoptive parents, their families, plus related events and personalities from Americas past. Thanks to two books written long ago, one by his birthfather (a renowned lawman of the Old West), and one by an aunt, Jerry is able to provide a graphic and authentic glimpse into what life was like on Americas frontier in the mid 19th century. Born and Raised is a classic tale of nature and nurture. That the stories in it are true makes the book all the more remarkable and appealing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453559901

Jerry K. Cline

What do you get when an aging Old West lawman of the 19th century and a gentile Southern lady of the 20th century have a love child that is put up for adoption and raised by a high spirited couple from East Texas via the Oklahoma Indian Territory? The author, Jerry K. Cline Dr. Jerry Cline is a professional mathematician. He obtained a B.A. and M.S. degrees in mathematics from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and earned a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Purdue University in 1967. After 29 years with the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now The Boeing Company) in St. Louis, MO, he retired in 1996 as head of the Operations Analysis Department in the Engineering Division. During his career at McDonnell Douglas, Dr. Cline worked on numerous missile and space programs, including the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, Harpoon Antiship Missile, The Galileo Mission to Jupiter, and the Viking Mission to Mars. As part of a sub-contract with Rockwell International (also now The Boeing Company), Jerry had the technical responsibility for the dynamic analysis of the Shuttle Orbiter/External Tank separation during the ascent trajectory. Dr. Cline held an appointment as a member of the adjunct mathematics faculty at Washington University in St. Louis from 1967 to 2004. Over those 37 years, he taught various evening courses including Calculus, Advanced Calculus, Ordinary Differential Equations, Complex Variables and Partial Differential Equations. In retirement, Jerry continues to live in St. Louis with Phyllis, his wife of 22 years. He has two successful sons, Jeff and Steve, two talented daughters-in-law, and three granddaughters. He is blessed with many friends across the country. His recreational passions are bridge and golf. Jerry and Phyllis spend part of each winter in South Carolina among some of Phyllis’ friends and relatives. His life is good.

Book preview

BORN AND RAISED

An American Story of Adoption

Jerry K. Cline

Copyright © 2010 by Jerry K. Cline.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2010912918

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4535-5989-5

Softcover   978-1-4535-5988-8

eBook   978-1-4535-5990-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 06/10/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Part I: The Teacher and the Marshal

Chapter 1: Welcome to the Texas Frontier

Chapter 2: Bayou Roots

Chapter 3: The Seeds of a Search

Chapter 4: Orphans Among the Comanches

Chapter 5: If at First…

Chapter 6: The Boy Becomes a Man

Chapter 7: Revelation

Chapter 8: The Teenage Texas Lawman

Chapter 9: Contact!

Chapter 10: In the Shadow of the Guadalupes

Chapter 11: Flowers on the Grave

Chapter 12: Out of Texas

Chapter 13: Louisiana Odyssey

Chapter 14: The Man Becomes a Legend

Chapter 15: Pearl Tullis—Mystery Lady

Chapter 16: Dearest Monty

Chapter 17: Coyotes and Cousins—Adventures in San Saba

Chapter 18: Back to the Bayou

Chapter 19: Caught by the Crash

Chapter 20: The Road to Me

Part II The Gambler and the Flapper

Foreword to Part II

Chapter 21: Cline Family History Capsule

Chapter 22: Osborne Family History Capsule

Chapter 23: Gambler Meets Flapper

Chapter 24: The Hardest of Times

Chapter 25: Gambling on the Earth

Chapter 26: Ode to a Boomtown

Chapter 27: Moving North Among the Yankees

Chapter 28: Life in Little Egypt

Chapter 29: The End of Love

Chapter 30: Of Men and Dogs

Chapter 31: Everyone’s Best Friend

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

The Beat Goes On

Sources

Appendix A: Birth Ancestors—Three Generations

Appendix B: Adoptive Ancestors—Two Generations

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my four parents.

FOREWORD

Pssst… I was adopted and I don’t know how I got here! Most adoptees are burdened for life with a very personal mystery:the details of their origin. Over time, that mystery weighs heavier and heavier on the soul, and sooner or later, each adoptee will consider whether or not to pursue their genesis. I was a bit long in the tooth when I found my roots, and this book is about how my mystery was unraveled, what had gone on before that led to my birth, and some of what happened afterward.

I was born on March 9, 1939, in Dallas, Texas, and was released for adoption within a few days. A little more than three months later, on June 20, King and Bertha Cline, from the tiny East Texas oil town of Overton, became the only parents I ever knew. They divorced when I was eleven years old, yet the bond between me and each of them remained strong throughout their lives. They nurtured me and provided opportunities for a successful life, which is what all good parents do. To their credit, they did not keep my status a secret from me for long; at about age five or six, I was told matter-of-factly by my mother that I had been adopted. At that tender age, I couldn’t know exactly what that meant, but I do remember feeling special about being picked out of a group of babies. For decades I had no interest in solving my mystery—King and Bertha gave me all I needed in parents.

My adoption was closed. That is, neither I nor my parents had any knowledge of, or communication with either of my birthparents. All identifying information about them, and the circumstances of my birth, was placed in sealed records at the adoption agency. In many states, including Texas, those records remain sealed by law, even after the birthparents are deceased and the adoptee is an adult.

In the first half of the twentieth century, closed adoptions were the norm. They had been introduced in the late nineteenth century as a way to protect the identity of unwed mothers, lest they endure a lifetime of shame. Officially, the birth father was often treated as if he did not exist. (On my own original Texas birth certificate, the space for birth father was left blank, when in fact my birth mother knew for certain his identity.) Closed adoptions also served to protect the adoptive parents from problems that might arise if the birthparents change their minds and attempt to regain custody of the child they gave up. So despite some shortcomings, there were good reasons for the closed adoption procedure in that era.

Today, in the early twenty-first century, our social values are different, and some of the stigma once bestowed on unwed mothers has disappeared. Moreover, birthparents who give up children for adoption often want to have some say in who adopts them and may even want to be kept informed as to how the child is faring in life. This latter issue is precisely what led me to finally search for my birthparents; I wanted them to know that I was OK. As it turned out, both my search and the aftermath are replete with real human drama—so much so that I felt a desire to share the experience with others who might be interested. This book is the spawn of that desire.

Despite the fact that I am not a professional writer, I hope this work will be treasured and handed down to future generations of the Harkey, Tullis, Osborne and Cline extended families. Beyond that, if the book finds an audience among other adoptees, genealogists, or those of the general public who enjoy reading unusual and fascinating true life stories, so much the better.

The book has two parts. The main story arc of Part I is the adventurous tale of our three-year search to discover the identities of my birthparents and to meet some of their descendants face to face. Interwoven with episodes of that quest are chapters that look back into various facets of both their lives before I came along. Taken together, those backward looks lead up to the big payoff: the story of how they met and formed a relationship. Part II is concerned with the lives of my adoptive parents, from their childhood in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma before it became a state, through their days in East Texas during the oil boom and beyond, after I joined their lives.

Because my birthparents are both long deceased, learning much about them presented a formidable challenge, which I have had much help in meeting. On the paternal side, both my birth father and one of his sisters each wrote a book about their colorful past on the Texas Frontier in the nineteenth century. With the permission of surviving family, I have drawn liberally from both books. As for my birth mother, social workers from the adoption agency that placed me conducted extensive interviews with her and the sister who took her in when she was pregnant. Since her pregnancy with me was kept secret from all later generations of her family, there is much information in those interviews of which her surviving relatives were unaware. My final sources are discussions with living relatives of each birthparent and the historical material they have provided. Of course, not everything about my birthparents is knowable. In some instances where it seemed reasonable, I have simply drawn inferences from what is known.

By profession, I am a mathematician. As such, it is my nature to identify and explore relationships between abstract concepts. That trait extends to other areas as well. I find it particularly interesting to see how seemingly unrelated events of the past can be stitched together to form the fabric of the present. Because of this interest, I have chosen to weave into the text some bits of historical commentary that seem relevant (even if sometimes only tenuously) to my ancestry. I have done this, not in pretense of creating a scholarly historical document (many of the references are online sources, not subject to peer review), but just to provide context for the large-scale events and family history that contributed to my birthparents living in the same house in Carlsbad, New Mexico, in June of 1938, the place and approximate time of my conception. These gentle forays into the past help me understand my place in this world, a common if unspoken need of many adoptees. Readers not interested in these Author’s Notes may skip any or all them without fear of missing the main thrust of the story.

I have toiled mightily over this project, trying to get it just right. There are three basic reasons for my long and diligent labor. First, and most importantly, I have found the writing to be a cathartic experience, and for me that alone has justified the effort. Second, I wanted to provide a trail of ancestral history for all my descendants. Now, unlike me, they will never have to wonder about their paternal origins. Finally, I wish to honor my four parents and their families. From what I know or have learned about them, I feel all four clearly tried to do their best for me—before and after I was born. This book is my way of recognizing them and thanking them for my life, the lives my two sons, their children, and all those who follow.

The book begins by taking the reader to central Texas in the late 1860s, just after the end of the War Between the States. It is there that my birth father’s story begins.

PART I

The Teacher and the Marshal

The Search of a Lifetime

CHAPTER 1

Welcome to the Texas Frontier

I exist on the whim of an 1869 Comanche raiding party in Central Texas. As a creature of the twenty-first century, just knowing that bestows a special element of drama to my origins. Moreover, it’s just one of the fascinating discoveries made about my birthparents after I discovered their identities.

I have always felt a connection to the Lone Star state even before learning that my roots there go back more than 150 years. Texans enjoy a spirit of independence, exuberance, and accomplishment that probably began with the victory over Mexico at San Jacinto in 1836. The state’s modern image remains one of success—burnished by almost two centuries of achievement in the cattle, cotton, oil, aerospace, and other industries. It’s a good place to come from. My link to Texas dates back to the mid-1850s, when the family of my birth father moved there.

The rise of Texas was upon us

The late 1860s was a time of turmoil in the United States. The bloody and divisive War Between the States (known hereafter as TWBS*) had been declared officially over in 1866, but the country still bore the open wounds of that terrible conflict. Among the more significant of those were the physical and economic ruin of the South, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the emergence of violent racism. Reconstruction, the federal government’s plan to rebuild the country physically, socially, and economically, was barely underway and steeped in controversy.

Texas was one of the original members of the Confederacy. The big state took sides with the South mainly for two reasons: (1) the federal government had failed to help quell the incessant Indian raids, and (2) the vast majority of the state’s Anglo immigrants were from the South. After the war, Texans, like other Southerners, struggled to solve political, social, and economic problems that had resulted from the outcome of the conflict. The end of slavery and the resultant change in the labor system threatened to undermine the power of those who had prospered from the plantation-based antebellum life.

But Texas had an advantage. It was very much a part of America’s western frontier and was experiencing a large influx of people, partly as a result of the Colonization Act of 1825. (It has been said that this legislation did for Texas what the discovery of gold did for California.) Indeed, to many venturesome Americans of this era, Texas was considered a land of great promise. It had been admitted to the Union in 1845, and in 1854 the legislature offered land grants in the state to promote settlement, develop agriculture, defend frontiers, and attract investment.[1]

The land grants had the desired effect. Toward the end of TWBS, Northern investors helped develop a thriving cattle industry in Texas, and cattle drives on the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Abilene, Kansas began around 1866.[2] This new industry stimulated even more people to head west. By the end of the war, trail driving had become an important economic factor, and thousands of former slaves found work as cattle herders or cooks.

This land is . . . uh, well, whose?

However successful they were in achieving their purpose, the land grants were not universally popular. The Native American Indians, who had populated the continent for centuries, were naturally less than enthusiastic about seeing their homelands taken over by the white settlers. Red Cloud, the eloquent Oglala Sioux chief, summed up the Indian’s position quite simply: They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land and they took it.[3] The Indian’s bitter feelings often erupted into the raids and open warfare that are well documented in American history books and western movies.

Indian attacks occurred throughout the West: on settlements, wagon trains, or individual homesteads. They were often brutal but justified in the Indian’s eyes. In Texas, the military was too much involved in TWBS to provide sufficient protection, and the Indians took advantage. The Comanches of Central Texas were especially fearsome. They were known to raid remote family homesteads, steal the women and children, and slowly scalp the men alive before allowing them to die. Upon returning to camp after such a raid, they would often display to the captured women the scalps of their husbands/fathers/brothers. If they reacted, they too would be tortured and killed. Even if they didn’t react, their fate at the hands of the Indians would not be pleasant. Sometimes female children were integrated into the tribe and would ultimately marry one of the braves and have children. Even when given the opportunity to return to their original families, the abductees would often choose the Indian life to which they had become accustomed. Occasionally, the Comanches would take the captives to trading centers, such as Sante Fe, where their families could buy them back. [4]

Westward ho!

Among those people moving from the southeast United States to Texas were members of the Harkey family of North