Merciful God, you who have awakened the wholeness of our being through the journey of our lives…. Help us to understand the depth of a mother’s love, an empty womb, torn from arms way too soon.

Help us to understand the silent fears, the wondering years, the trials of becoming that which we are, without knowing how, what, why, where or even when.  Help us to understand so we may come to accept without reservation the full mystery of being and doing your will, that we may find peace in our minds, hearts and souls.

Help us to understand the tenuous beginning, the new beginnings, and the strange land in which we find ourselves without words that are understood.  A land in which we find ourselves not understood. Help us to understand the transitions round us, within us, shaping, molding, building, healing, indifferent, lacking, desiring, self-conscious of our difference but longing to hold on to what we are, how we are, why we are.  Different but the same and still not being able to explain…. Help us Lord, for you are our refuge and our strength.

Help us to understand the Hostilities for us, about us, withstood by us, internalized, memorized, mesmerized, and conditionalzing our inner being.  Children bearing pain, loss, anger, and yes, even the joy and exhalation of the moments in time that have brought us this far, bearing witness to your ever presence in our lives and to our survival.

We are Children living because of Your mercy, compassion and grace in the face of all evil, loving hearts, and indifference.  Help us to build the bonds of unity that we may share our joys, pains, and sufferings with each other and for each other.

Help us to understand the fullness of light begins only when we are joined together, each bringing our piece of light to the table of life, sharing the light within and without.   Help us to understand that together, healing takes place as forgiveness and reconciliation finds its path through our veins into our hearts.
Thank you God for your faithfulness in our lives, may we together stand united in dignity, truth and justice, to bear witness to your light and the light within.

Amen

Written By Dr. Helga Baskett-Tippett    3/28/10

I’m excited to say that a recent version of Daniel Cardwell’s “A Question of Color” was read by a focus group of 26 people, including 10 high school students. More than 80% enjoyed or “loved” the book and exactly 80% said they wanted to recommend the book to at least one other person. We’re now in the process of going back into the book to make a few adjustments based on the great feedback we’ve received. Look for us to wrap up and release the book shortly!

Knowing that soon it would be fighting with Japan and Italy, America waited a good while before being drawn into WWII. We were actually one of the last to enter the war, after the Canadians and other coalition countries. When we finally did throw our hat into the ring, America sent many white troops before the decision was made to send in black troops as well; as Americans, this was their fight, too. But in fighting for America, blacks would have to fight alongside their white counterparts, many of whom would just as soon put a bullet in them as they would the enemy.

Many of these whites were the descendents of the southern and northern whites who were apt to think of themselves as descendants of the Grey and the Blue Coats—fighters of the Civil War. Strangely, the whites of America, southern and northern, had more in common with the whites of Germany that they were fighting against than they did with the blacks on their same side. So the army separated the two groups, putting many of the blacks in service roles, such as laundry, bath, grave registration, mailrooms, water purification, cooks, and stewards—roles where they would not work side-by-side with white combat soldiers. They certainly would not be found in a tank or flying a bi-plane in a dog fight.

These black and white soldiers were exposed to the same general population of these European countries. During the war, black and white soldiers had to find their entertainment at different times because blacks were not allowed to go out at the same time that the whites did. The owners of the pubs would have black days and white days when soldiers could come in and be entertained. Later, they wouldn’t even let them go to the same bars.

Unlike Americans, the European population didn’t see these soldiers as different from one another. Sometimes the general German population would host a carnival, give the troops some pies, or invite them to Oktoberfest to take part in their culture. They gave no thought to dividing off the blacks and the whites—they thought of them all as Americans.

White German and Polish refugee women were out for a good time and were not discriminating. Many white women of Germany had a better time in some of the pubs where the blacks would play their jazz than they were having in pubs that wouldn’t allow blacks. It was a new form of music to them—an open forum of culture with dances that were wild and provocative and gospel music that came from deep within the human soul. And black soldiers could walk down a European street with their arms around white women. It was a tinder box, and every once in a while, a spark ignited, and a relationship occurred. Out of many of these relationships came children.

When that brown, mixed, or black child was produced from a white German lady, something very taboo resulted. Once born, these children immediately stood out like red dots on an all-white board, and German men despised these kids. These opinions were supported by their governments, their churches, and, of course, the returning enemy soldiers who considered these white German women to be traitors. Their mixed children were a Scarlet Letter.

Many black soldiers lost their lives as a result. There are reports of black soldiers being hung, just as they were in America under Jim Crow Law, and stories of them being executed by firing squad after being accused of, and court-martialed for, “raping” a fully-consenting white woman who merely thought of them as another interesting American.

These children carried on as the only evidence of the love affairs between soldiers—giving their lives for America and—women in a country who should have despised its conquerors. Eventually giving away these babies caught on. When mothers found out that babies were being taken to the United States, they gave up their children willingly, just to release themselves from the torture of a society that did not accept their babies or them.

More than 5,000 children were born by black troops and their white counterparts in German territory. They were called Mischlings, or Brown Babies, and almost 90 percent of them were put in orphanages.

The pioneer of what would come to be called intercountry adoption by proxy, Mabel Treadwell Grammer was the founder of an overseas version of the “underground railroad” and a savior to an estimated 500 mixed children born to black GI fathers and European mothers during the occupation of Europe in WWII.

Mabel was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914. As a young woman, her talents for writing, her sincerity, and her great drive led her to become a journalist for the Afro-American newspaper in Baltimore. She wrote a successful society column there and was later a civil rights activist, as well as an exceptional beautician and typist.

Mabel’s significant humanitarian efforts did not begin until later in life, some 10 years after she met and married her husband Oscar Grammer. She taught cosmology in Cleveland, and then moved to Washington, D.C. , where she worked as a secretary. While there, she began dating Oscar—a well-dressed, well-groomed, and soft-spoken man. Oscar was a Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army with a steady way of meeting people’s eyes and an inherent friendliness. Both came from very large, loving families. Thus, when Oscar proposed marriage, Mabel felt an obligation to tell him that she was unable to bear children. Oscar waved this off, laughed, and said, “What’s wrong with adopting children?”

In 1951, the U.S. Army transferred Oscar and Mabel to Germany, where Mabel endured episodes of intense headaches. She took several different kinds of pills and often veered in and out of depression. Overwhelmed with pain, she had to call an ambulance to escort her to the hospital. After a medical exam, she was diagnosed as “feeling sorry for herself over her inability to have children.” Her doctor was a woman, a German-Jew who had put herself through medical school only to be sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis. She told Mabel about the horrors of the camp and concluded by saying that, as a result, she, too, could not have children.

The doctor told Mabel about the Kinderheims (orphanages and nurseries) and about the abandoned children that filled them. They were the children of European women and black GI soldiers—so called “brown babies,” children whom no one in Germany wanted.

Mabel soon visited a Kinderheim and found a boy there, not yet five years old, standing alone and wearing nothing but a sheet; sores covered his head and lips. This was Peter. While pursuing his adoption, Peter begged Mabel Grammer to adopt Roswitha as well; and soon after came Wera, and young Mabel, all from the same Kinderheim of St. Josef. The children were all aged four or five.

All of the children were illegitimate, making the legal maneuvers for adoption quite difficult and arousing a lot of German suspicion and disparagement. The German press spun stories that Mabel and Oscar were adopting these children so they could auction them to southern plantations as slaves. In order to adopt, the Grammers had to track down each child’s mother and get her permission, and also prove that the maternal grandfather was a native German. Mabel made the kids an active part of their own adoption, taking them on the car rides down backroads in the German countryside to locate these people and obtain the documentation.

It wasn’t just the Germans who made Mabel navigate through lots of red tape. The U.S. army and the U.S. Consulate required their own special credentials for these children as well. However, it was the German judges who had the final word on the adoptions. One of them became a supporter of Mabel’s cause and deeply admired her faith. When she walked into the courtroom, he would say to her, in precise English, “Here comes Mabel Grammer and her God…” You see, by now Mabel, was practicing her religion through a mission to save these children by assisting to place them in loving homes.

With the addition of Eugenia and Karen, the Grammers became a family of eight. Where their love was seemingly abounding, the Grammer’s finances were finite. Oscar drew an Army salary of $6,000 per year. Mabel was infamous, however, for getting the most out of a buck. She purchased dry goods in 50-pound sacks, and she had a recipe book written by her great-great grandmother called “Poor Man’s Recipes.” One of the recipes, astonishingly, could feed 14 on a single pound of ground beef.

Eventually, the German media started portraying the Grammer’s story in a much more positive light. Soon after, a German teenager showed up at their doorstep with a seven-month-old baby boy. This one happened to be white, though Mabel, of course, was not at all discriminating, and especially not when it came to children; but this child was practically an infant. Mabel suggested the child would be better off with a German family, but the teenage mother was adamant—she wanted her child to go to a home with love in it, and she believed love overflowed in the Grammer’s home. Mabel could not possibly turn the girl away now. She borrowed a crib from a friend, studied up on infant care, and began buying diapers and formula.

Most of the children were adopted by Mabel while Oscar was away on field maneuvers. He came home, often late at night when the house was dark, to find that the small shape in his easy chair—breathing softly, sleeping soundly—was, in fact, a new, unfamiliar child. However, this time Oscar came home to find Mabel holding a seven-month old baby, and his face reflected their already overstretched salary. Quickly, cleverly, Mabel said that the baby boy she held in her arms was “Oscar George Grammer, Jr.

When stories about Mabel’s adoptions were printed in the papers, the Grammers began receiving mail from families requesting her assistance in adopting children in the same manner. In 1955, one of the children Mabel helped find an American home was again orphaned by his new family. Like many before him, Edward became the newest Grammer family member. During the Grammer’s transfer back to D.C., seven-year-old Edward was diagnosed with leukemia. At Christmas, he asked Mabel if there would be a Santa Claus in heaven. A few months later, he passed on, but Mabel was happy that in his last days, she had given him a home away from the orphanage. The Grammer children, under the umbrella of Mabel’s great faith, believed that Edward was happy in heaven and took great pride that hey knew someone “up there.”

A year later, eight-year-old Mack arrived, just after Oscar Sr. returned from Korea. The Grammer kids—all eight of them by this point—would hold mock courts to decide family matters. One such decision was that Mabel adopt yet another boy that Mack had met at the Kinderheim. In 1961, James and his sister Elwin were added to the clan.

Back in Germany, on Easter in 1962, Mabel found an infant on her doorstep holding flowers and a letter. The older Grammer children, having grown in their faith, quickly became champions of their mother’s cause, answering their mother’s mail. Such was their compassion— they wrote one reply of acceptance behind their mother’s back, and Nadja joined the family.

During this time, Mabel was helping place children with U.S. families at an astonishing rate. It’s estimated by the German press that in the first two years of her work, she arranged some 300 adoptions. Other sources put the number closer to 1,000. She did this without the assistance of any agency. Mabel wrote articles urging Black American families to adopt these “beautiful children.” Her old employer, The Baltimore Afro American Magazine, ran regular announcements with pictures of available children and detailing the procedures for adoption. Mabel convinced Scandinavian Airlines to fly the children overseas at reduced rates and to act as temporary guardians of the orphans to assure their safe arrival in the U.S. Scandinavian Airlines called it “the Grammer plan.” Mabel’s mission was becoming a success.

Mabel and Oscar Grammer, who could not biologically have children, ended up with a family of 14. One of the Grammer children, Karen, later gave them two grandchildren. Six of the Grammer children grew up to follow in Oscar’s footsteps by serving in the U.S. armed forces. The Grammer children, now with their own families, reside all across America from Alaska to Florida. Mabel believed that in a country as affluent as America, every child should belong to a home and that orphanages should exist only as homes of transition. She was adamant in her mission and stood her ground in giving these children the opportunity to become Americans.

In 1968, Pope Paul presented Mabel and Oscar with the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Medal and the Benemerenti Medal, two of the highest humanitarian awards that can be received. It was the first time such an award was given jointly to a husband and wife.