Two members of the Massachusetts Legislature introduced a bill yesterday to permit Mr. and Mrs. Melvin B. Ellis to keep their foster daughter, four-year-old Hildy McCoy, whom they have been ordered by a court to surrender. The Ellises have defied the court and are hiding out.
The bill introduced yesterday by Reps. Abraham H. Kahalas and Alvin Tamkin would make certain changes in a state law banning interfaith adoptions. It would exempt from the provisions of the adoption law children placed with families before 1954. Hildy has been with the Ellises since 1951.
Meanwhile, the doctor who delivered the child, Dr. Herman C. Sands of Salem Mass., declared that he told the natural mother that the couple that was willing to take the child for adoption was Jewish. He added that the mother, Mrs. Marjorie McCoy Doherty, who was unwed at the time of the child’s birth, said that it did not matter to her that the Ellises were Jewish. She now seeks recovery of the child in order to turn her over to a Catholic agency for placement with Catholic foster parents.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
