And honoring

Jean Paton
Orphan Voyage Founder & Executive Director
1908-2002
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith..."
--2 Timothy 4:7-8.

"The secret society of adoption contains two turbulent populations who are by public design held secret from one another -- adoptees and birth parents. They are kept apart by a secrecy, which takes the form of sealing of records of the transfer of babies to adoption. The link between the adopted person and his forbears is removed from their grasp."

Jean Paton, Orphan Voyage Founder.

Jean M. Paton was born December 27, 1908, in Michigan. She was adopted in Ypsilanti, Michigan and grew up there. She died March 27, 2002, in Harrison, Arkansas.

Jean earned her B.A. at the University of Wisconsin, and her M.A. from the Philadelphia School of Social Work. Her work with foster children conviced her that in many cases sealed adoption records were seriously destructive of human potential. She founded Orphan Voyage in 1953 and started the adoption reform movement in America. Jean spent more than 50 years campaigning for open records for adoptees and birthparents. She wrote the Adopted Break Silence and Orphan Voyage. These books detail the devastating effect sealed adoption records have on many adoptees and their birthparents. For more information about these books, contact Molly Johnson at jaxgrma@aol.com

Molly Johnson, at Jean Paton's request, is the new director of Orphan Voyage. All of Jean's books and papers will be in Molly's care until she can find a permanent home for them. Some of Jean's papers are stored at the University of Florida, George Smathers Libraries Special Collections, and may be viewed with advance notice.

May this memorial in some small way help to ease the pain, frustration and desolation experienced by those of you who found at the end of your search, that the one you sought was no longer in a place where they could be seen, held or spoken to.

To view the memorials follow the link below.

Inscribe your own memorial to the one you lost to adoption: your grief, your sadness, your hurt, your longing, and your thoughts about what hindered your search until your time for coming together was over.
Send it by email to Alice Syman.

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Lovingly created by Paula, Dixie, Alice and Katrina.