Page:Schenck v. Knight.pdf/3

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Schenck v. Knight
[255

sion of the state Welfare Department, which resulted in her relinquishing legal custody of Donna Marie to the Welfare Department with the understanding that Donna Marie would be placed in a suitable orphanage where she would obtain spiritual guidance as well as assistance with her schoolwork. Transfer of custody was accomplished through the written consent of Mrs. Brown and very informal juvenile court proceedings in the Faulkner County Juvenile Court. Through the efforts of the Welfare Department as well as the efforts of Mrs. Brown's mother and father, Donna Marie was placed in a parochial orphanage in Pulaski County where she continued her schooling in public school and was permitted to visit her relatives in Faulkner County occasionally on weekends.

While Donna Marie was still a ward of the state, she became pregnant and was transferred from the orphanage to the Florence Crittenton Home for unwed mothers, where she remained during the last several months of her gestation period. Donna Marie was transferred to St. Vincent Infirmary where her child, Patrick Daniel Schenck, was delivered by caesarean section on October 6, 1971, when Donna Marie was 14 years of age.

The greatest conflict of the evidence in this case has to do with agreements pertaining to the custody of the infant, Patrick Daniel Schenck, prior to and following its birth. Numerous caseworkers and Welfare Department personnel and personnel from the Florence Crittenton Home testified that Mrs. Brown, as well as Donna Marie, and Mrs. Brown's mother and father, agreed, prior to the birth of the child, that it would be to the best interest of all concerned that the child be released for adoption. They testified that Mrs. Brown's mother and father only requested that the adoptive parents should be of the Catholic faith. They testified that clear up until the time of the child's birth, they were under the impression that everyone concerned, including Donna Marie and Mrs. Brown, was agreeable to releasing the child for adoption. This testimony was denied by Mrs. Brown and Donna Marie. They both testified to rather extreme pressure exerted by the personnel of the child Welfare Division of the Welfare Department directed toward the release of the child for