Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 4, 1994 TAG: 9401040016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MUSKEGON, MICH. LENGTH: Medium
That coincidence on New Year's Eve 1952 disrupted both families' lives forever.
Hours after the women were admitted to Gerber Memorial Hospital in Fremont, a doctor scurried between the deliveries of Leon Lord and Timothy Laisure.
A nurse placed name tags near the table where the newborns were cleaned.
"That's when it happened," said Janet Lord's husband, Earl. "She put the wrong tags on the babies.
"The first baby my wife saw was the baby we raised. He was not our child."
After the births, Earl Lord returned to military duty in Florida. His wife and the baby moved in with his parents, across the street from the Laisures in the town of Grant. The families visited frequently.
Both the Laisures were dark-complexioned and so was their first son.
"Here they had the new baby who was strawberry-blond, blue-eyed and very fair," Earl Lord told The Muskegon Chronicle.
Likewise, the Lords - blond, blue-eyed and fair-skinned - were raising a boy with dark eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion.
"Ellen made comments jokingly that they must've mixed the kids up," Lord said. "But Janet and her mother didn't believe it. They dropped it."
When Lord returned home from the Air Force in 1955 and saw his son, then almost 3, "I could see the difference right away," he said. "I wanted my own son."
Lord took his family to a Grand Rapids hospital for blood tests. Doctors discovered the toddler they were raising could not be their biological son.
Attempts to talk with the Laisures resulted only in disbelief and acrimony, Lord said.
"I haven't talked to them since," said Lord, now 63. "There's been an understanding, or truce."
The Laisures, who still live in Grant, say the incident is better off forgotten.
"It happened very many years ago," said Ora Laisure, Ellen's husband. "It's very emotional. I don't understand why this is coming up now."
Lord explained the mix-up to Leon when he was 12. "Lee told me he always felt there was something, but he couldn't put his finger on it," Lord said.
Janet Lord told Timothy in 1972, when he announced his engagement.
"He had no idea," Lord said. "He broke down and cried. Janet felt he and his bride had a right to know."
The sons declined to talk at length, saying the topic remains too painful for the Laisures.
"He's got my name and I got his," said Timothy Laisure. "I'm always going to be a Lord, but I've been a Laisure for 40 years. I have no intention of changing my name, and I don't think Lee does, either."
Hospital spokesman David Hewitt said Monday that records show the hospital never admitted wrongdoing. He said none of the current staff had been there long enough to have firsthand knowledge of the case. Records don't show the name of the attending nurse.
by CNB