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Protestant Home for Babies was an adoption and maternity home located in the lavish and historic Garden District of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was established in 1926 by community women seeking to provide a shelter for destitute infants. In 1959, maternity services were added to provide short-term shelter for pregnant young women. The shelter continued to provide for adoptable and homeless infants. By 1974 the community's needs for maternity home services decreased and the Board of Directors discontinued the maternity and infant shelters. A group home was established for adolescent girls in need of a nurturing home environment. In 1979, the agency's name was officially changed from Protestant Home for Babies to Raintree Services.
Today, many adoptees and birth-families from the Protestant Home for Babies, and other maternity homes all over Louisiana and the United States, search for each other on the Internet. Many states still maintain sealed records and continue to keep this information sealed even after the adoptee and the birth parents mutually find each other by way of the Internet or otherwise. Several states have measures allowing adult adoptees access to their birth records or provide an intermediary to assist in a possible search and reunion. Louisiana remains a sealed records state despite great efforts by proactive groups such as the Louisiana Adoption Advocates These mansions stand in the center of large grounds and
rise, garlanded with roses, out of the midst of swelling masses of shining
green foliage and many-colored blossoms. No houses could well be in better
harmony with their surroundings, or more pleasing to the eye. -- Mark
Twain, speaking of the Garden District. |
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