In the very early days of the adoption rights movement, well before Operation Identity and the American Adoption Congress were started, a woman named Jean Paton became very interested and concerned about adult adoptees’ rights to information about their original family and identity. This was in the early 1950s, when some states were still in the process of closing their adoption records to adult adoptees and birth parents. Ms. Paton was adopted herself, not once but twice. Her first adoptive father died when she was two years old, and she was subsequently adopted by a Dr. Paton and his wife.

The first time she went to the court in Michigan to obtain her original name and that of her birth mother, she was given the information with no problem. This was in 1942. The next time she went, the records had been closed and she was denied the information. This became the impetus, eventually, for her work in research with adult adoptees, as well as her own search for her birth mother. She was reunited when she was 47 and her birth mother was 69.

The O.I. Lending Library has copies of two of her best-known books: The Adopted Break Silence, published in 1954, and Orphan Voyage, published in 1968. The latter was published under the name Ruthena Hill Kitson, a pen name based on her original name. The Lending Library also contains several shorter papers by Paton, and the O.I. records contain several articles about her. She was well-known to O.I.’s co-founders, Sally File and Leonie Boehmer. Over the years, Paton lived in several different states, especially in Cedaredge, Colorado. She published a newsletter from there for several years, restarting it at the age of 85. She was born in 1908, and died in 2002, at the age of 93.

Paton never gave up in her quest for the right to information on the part of all members of the adoption community. Her first book, The Adopted Break Silence, was a study of adoptees who were adopted before 1932, before most records were closed. It was intended primarily as a professional reference for those working in adoption, particularly those in social work, which was becoming a big part of adoption process at that time. While not exciting reading for many, it is full of facts and anecdotes that many will find interesting, and certainly has great historical value. Orphan Voyage has somewhat more of her personal story, as well as her professional work as a social worker/therapist and interviews with adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. She also conducted research in England with adoptees.

A smaller publication in the O.I. library, a booklet called “A Friendly Debate Across the Waters,” which reflects her correspondence with an adoptive father in England, from 1964 through 1966, was published in 1992. The man, a Mr. Lipson, became involved in helping with research in England.

For anyone really interested in history of adoption issues, all these publications should be of interest. O.I. is very fortunate to have these rare resources. Jean Paton was far ahead of her time, and tireless in her efforts, even well into old age.