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Man, abandoned at birth, finding relatives 68 years later

Roy Wilhelm
The (Fremont, Ohio) News-Messenger
Ted Cashen, now 68, was found abandoned in the bushes soon after his birth near Fremont Community Hospital in Ohio, the Toledo (Ohio) Blade reported. The Toledo paper said the child was born March 9, 1948, but The (Fremont, Ohio) News-Messenger puts Cashen's birth on March 8.

FREMONT, Ohio — Not long ago, Ted Cashen saw himself as a member of a small family.

The 68-year-old, who was born in Fremont but now lives in the Cincinnati suburb of Liberty Township, Ohio, grew up as an only child. His wife, Maureen, is an only child; and so is their son.

His adoptive parents are deceased.

Yet in a matter of months, he has found more than 100 relatives from coast to coast and is headed to a family reunion later this year.

Not long ago, Ted Cashen didn’t know who his biological parents were. Now, he can trace his ancestry back to the 1600s.

In 1997, I wrote about Ted, spurred by his search for information. He had made the news nearly 50 years earlier in March 1948 as a newborn baby left wrapped in a thin cotton blanket in subfreezing weather near the entrance to what was then Fremont Community Hospital.

Newborn's death spurs discussion of Safe Haven laws

This was long before the era of Safe Haven laws, statutes enacted since 1999 intended to keep women from abandoning babies in places where they might be in danger.

Mrs. Arthur Krienke, who had just visited her daughter in the hospital, discovered the 7-pound, 2-ounce baby at about 9:30 p.m. ET on a Monday, March 8, 1948, according to The News-Messenger's account at the time. In keeping with the times, Mrs. Krienke's first name never was mentioned in the story, but she likely was Clara Krienke, who is listed as Arthur Krienke's spouse in 1940 census records and died in Fremont in 1997.

The population of this city, about 75 miles west of Cleveland, is about the same today, 16,500, as it was back in 1948.

“Mrs. Krienke first believed she heard a small kitten, and then there was a louder wail as she walked a few steps further,” the newspaper reported. “Investigating the now-recognizable cries, she found the infant in the bushes.”

The hospital's staff cared for the newborn that day. Ruel "Pat" and Henrietta Cashen adopted him, and he eventually grew up 20 miles away in Genoa, Ohio, but always has wondered about his biological family.

His search for family medical history to pass along to their son Craig, then 12 years old, prompted the contacts in 1997. And recent discoveries have led to amazing developments.

“In August of last year, an article in The Cincinnati Enquirer caught my wife’s eye … about a Facebook group which helps adopted individuals in searching for their birth families,” Ted Cashen wrote.

He sprang into action, and on the advice of the organization known as Search Squad, entered his story online with another group called Foundling Finders.

He “almost immediately got a response,” he said during a recent interview. Amanda Reno, who works with Foundling Finders and its parent group, DNA Detectives, began the process of helping Ted Cashen find family connections.

Baby abandoned just steps away from safe haven

No one really knows how many babies have been abandoned through the years although the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has had the option listed on child-abuse and neglect forms since at least 1980, and it now is considered one of a dozen types of physical neglect.

Ted Cashen's abandonment in 1948 was unusual enough to attract the attention of at least two newspapers. But cumulatively across the USA, enough people have grown up after being abandoned as babies to support at least two additional Facebook groups, Abandoned Child Support Group and Foundlings - Babies Without a Name.

“Foundling Finders is a smaller group we manage specifically for foundlings or the immediate relative of foundlings and our core team of DNA experts,” said Reno, a genetic genealogist. The group “is a place they can find others with similar stories and seek specialized help, … a place they get the chance to be open about their abandonment and ask questions without feeling different.

“At nearly 20,000 strong, our Facebook group is connecting families and solving mysteries daily,” she said,

The Cashens learned that Ted Cashen’s birth mother and her husband separated after he returned from World War II. His birth father — Ted Cashen and investigators are more than 99% sure of the identification — had four brothers and at least two sisters.

That makes for a lot of potential relatives, whom he didn't want to identify publicly until some DNA tests are final and everybody meets in person.

“They opened the door that was always locked behind me,” Ted Cashen said.

As possible connections began to be made, he uploaded his DNA to Family Tree DNA and bought DNA kits that Reno sends to people who might be willing to take the test and find a possible connection.

Newborn found alive near road; umbilical cord attached

A woman in California, who turned out to be a first cousin, already was working on family genealogy, so she was happy to take the test and will be sharing even more information with him.

Other potential blood relatives also have taken the test. Through the tests and family trees, Ted Cashen has been able to identify 104 close and distant relatives from Maryland to California.

Many still live in northwest Ohio, including a half brother and a first cousin in Fremont, both of whom the Cashens visited. He approached the contacts with uncertainty because he didn’t know what their reactions would be.

'Burger King baby' finds birth mother

“Everyone has been very great about it, very cordial about it,” Ted Cashen said.

Not long ago, he longed for clues to his background. Now, much of the mystery has been solved.

And he has been invited to a reunion of the family that he didn’t know he had.

Roy Wilhelm, now retired, began his 40-year career at The News Messenger in 1965.

Ted Cashen's birth announcement was news coverage March 10, 1948, of his abandonment in bushes near Fremont Community Hospital in Ohio and his discovery by a woman visiting her own daughter there. The Toledo Blade puts the date of the baby's birth on March 9, but the hometown News-Messenger said it happened March 8.(Photo: The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade archive)

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