BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WILLIAMSTOWN -- George Gilpen visited a relative one day and came away with a mission. Save the baby.
Back then -- before paperwork and rules and lawyers -- people were more impulsive about such things. They did what they could for each other. And if a child was involved. . . . Well, you didn't think. You just did.
The year was 1950. As family legend has it, Mr. Gilpen walked into that home and saw a teen-age mother struggling to keep it together. He also saw a 1-year-old girl recovering from accidental burns.
"He came home and said to me, "You wouldn't believe the way that baby's being taken care of, the way they're doing her,' " recalls his wife, Virginia Gilpen.
One week later, the baby was theirs.
In years to come, little Ginger would grow up knowing her biological mother, whom she called "Mama Helen." In fits of adolescent pique, she'd sometimes say, "Well, I'll just go live with Mama Helen now." But she didn't mean it. She knew who her real parents were.
Instincts converged
Years later, Ginger would adopt a little girl of her own. And years after that, she'd learn that her own mother -- Virginia Gilpen -- also had been adopted.
Imagine: Three generations of children loved not by birthright but because loving them was the right thing to do.
These Gilpens are some clan.
I met the three adoptees -- Virginia, Ginger and her 23-year-old daughter, Tashawna -- at Virginia's place recently.
Mrs. Gilpen lives on a country road not far from the center of Williamstown. At 75, she still watches children at her church's nursery and baby-sits other kids during the week.
Tashawna and her mother, Ginger Gilpen Bilka, live in Denver. Ms. Bilka is a nurse, and Tashawna recently graduated from the University of Colorado.
George Gilpen died more than a decade ago. His presence is still here, though -- in Ms. Bilka's eyes when she calls him "the greatest guy ever," and in Mrs. Gilpen's voice when she recalls how long he's been gone.
When they got married, Mr. Gilpen had three daughters by a previous wife. Virginia discovered she couldn't carry children of her own. Times were hard. Soon enough, the couple's instincts converged with someone else's need.
In 1946, they were living in Harrodsburg when a neighbor woman put out word: Her husband had run off, and she was desperate. She had six children to give away.
The Gilpens took a boy. Relatives decided on several girls.
"She stood there while we went in and picked out what we wanted," Mrs. Gilpen says. "She stood there and watched us.
"Another brother-in-law went back and got the boy and girl that was left. We all told her, "Now, if you want to come and see them, you come and see them.'
"But she never did."
The boy grew up to be Stanley Gilpen, who lives in Bardstown now. His sister, Ginger, once wrote a story about his adoption, because it moved her so.
She herself wanted many children. But in the early years of her marriage, pregnancy eluded her, and she cried to her mother. Mrs. Gilpen sent a letter. "Well," she wrote, "I couldn't have children, and look what a beautiful daughter I had."
Eventually, the Bilkas adopted Tashawna, who doesn't know her biological parents.
As sometimes happens in such cases, Ms. Bilka soon gave birth to two sons.
But she had a special bond with her adopted child. When Tashawna said, for instance, that she didn't have to follow rules because "you're not my real mother," Ms. Bilka knew it would pass.
After all, she'd said the same words, once.
Today, Tashawna is curious about her biological parents but not desperate to find them.
She's content. So is her mother.
Mrs. Gilpen is matter-of-fact.
In the old days, she says, "you just did it, that's all. You didn't think."
Today, I'm convinced we sometimes think too much.
Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or email
her at ksamples@enquirer.com
SAMPLES ARCHIVE