The case of four-year-old Hildy McCoy, foster child of Mr. and Mrs. Melvin B. Ellis, a Jewish couple of Brookline, Mass., went to the Massachusetts Supreme Court as the Ellises made another attempt to upset a lower court ruling which last June ordered the child surrendered to a Catholic welfare institution.
The child, daughter of a Catholic mother, was surrendered for adoption shortly after she was born and was taken and raised by the Ellises. The mother, since married to a man who is not Hildy’s father, now seeks to recover the child so as to give her to a Catholic institution. The Massachusetts law governing adoptions requires that “where practicable” a child be given only to foster parents of the same religion. The Ellises, who have refused to surrender the child, have been in hiding for months.
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.
