Introduction

     "And I don't know if it was the day . . we were taken away . . I remember the sheriff's department coming up. And he said . . I don't remember if it was the day we left . . cause I totally tried to block that part out, when they took us away. But I remember daddy being in the police car . . and the cop says, "Well, damn, Corbin, you can't even buy those boys shoes for school." And daddy said, "Don't take my babies." I remember that. And he said, "I promise I'll get them shoes. Just don't take my babies." And he was crying. And Momma started crying. And, of course, me and Melissa started crying. And I can remember the two boys were just standing over there, just looking. Cause everybody was crying. And, I don't know . . that's when they took me and Melissa. Cause they said it was partly because we didn't have enough food, and you boys didn't have school shoes. And . . Melissa and me were holding each other. . ." (Patty Ann Merrell 26-28 May 1990)

     "Now, I can remember Mom holding me and hugging me . . I can remember that . . 'Don't cry, baby. Don't cry. Every-thing's fine.' (Patricia Merrell, 26-28 May, 1990)

     Patty Ann Corbin-Merrell's life story is one of those tales you don't hear or read about. You won't find her listed in any of the state or local history books where you find all the prominent people who moved and shook the community. And that's a pity. Patty Ann was one of those little people who always seem to fall between the cracks.

     But Patty Ann's life story was one of great contrasts, marked by all the bureaucrats who managed and manipulated her life.

     From the age of five, Patty Ann's life didn't belong to her. She was made a tool of the bungling bureaucratic do-gooders and the manipulative greed and selfishness of her elders.

     This five year-old's family was suddenly rent asunder and she found herself a prisoner, along with her three year-old sister, of strangers in a monolithic, gloomy edifice euphemistically called the Summit County Children's Home; more like "institution." Taken from her mother and father by strange men in brown uniforms, her mother couldn't stop this thing happening to them.

     Patty Ann was taken away from her family, not knowing when or if she would ever see her brothers again. She would never see her mother alive again. The familiar world Patty Ann knew suddenly disappeared. She became a ward of Summit County, and her life would change inexorably for the worse. This, in the United States of America.

     The year was 1945. The war in Europe was coming to a close, and she was simply a name on a slip of paper, wafting erratically in the turbulent winds of change. A ward of the county, she became an asset to those who promised family warmth, and worked her like an employee, abusing her like a jail house prisoner. When an older couple finally came along who saw in her a useful farm hand, Patty Ann Corbin simply disappeared.