ATHENS, Ala. (AP) – It’s a story that has everything: A love affair, a baby sold on the black market, family secrets, suspicious deaths and a group of women coming together to use DNA and family genealogy to solve a mystery.
It started with a tale as old as time: A young woman meets a young man and nature takes its course. The young woman in this case was Marcella Holsapple, who was waitressing at a diner in Colby, Kansas, in 1937. In an old black and white photo Marcella stands in front of a diner advertising lunch for 25 cents and “tables for ladies.” She is striking: Tall, slender, her dark hair pulled back, a hint of a smile evident as she looks into the camera. Mel’s Diner was the namesake of owner Melvil Wesley Bever, a young and handsome man with a reputation as a ladies man.
They had a relationship – how long it lasted is unknown – and in November or December of 1937, Marcella found herself pregnant. In April, Bever married his fiancee, another waitress at the diner.
Nineteen-year-old Marcella got on a bus bound for Denver, some 240 miles west.
‘A BAD, BAD CHILDHOOD’