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.
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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.
