Adoption & Grace

Oklahoma. October, 1942. Ella & Jim Hinkle adopt a baby girl born to an unwed high-school senior. Ella's health is fragile after near-fatal blood loss at the end of her final pregnancy. Jim's mental condition is questionable after a breakdown following a tornado which killed his first wife, their little son and unborn baby, and devastated his house and land. He camps out by the wreckage for months, sorting through the debris for who-knows-what. Townspeople wondered if he should be put in the asylum. The Hinkles name their baby Peggy Ann, and love her from the start. She brings them healing after their troubles. But she's the only adopted child in Apex, their home town, and the local busybodies begin asking if a "child of sin" should be allowed to grow up among the children of "decent families." Ella soon understands that gossip and prejudice will follow the child as long as they live in Apex. Labor becomes scarce as many men enlist. Jim is assured of a job in New Jersey, when his brother-in-law, John Munro, editor of the Apex Advocate, writes to an old friend who now works with the presses at the Newark News., recommending Jim who has learned to run and maintain the Advocate's cranky old press. Ella & Jim move to the East Coast, which for people from small-town Oklahoma is like another world. Every day, they face situations for which they have no precedent. Ella often stands between Jim and their daughter to help him step back from his small-town attitudes as they make decisions for Peggy Ann. All the while, Ella & Jim keep the secret of the adoption, and Peggy Ann only learns the truth after Ella's funeral. She's stunned and begins the process of questioning who she is and how she feels about her adoptive parents. Jann Braudis Brown, the author, is an adoptee herself who has experienced learning of her adoption in middle age.