THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 5, 1994 TAG: 9407020038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 262 lines
THE LETTERS, official documents and poems fill nearly a dozen plastic folders in Shirley Hassell's large home office.
There's the list her grandson, then 9, kept - a ``list of punishments,'' he called it. Papers granting Hassell and her husband, Joe, temporary custody of the boy. Court documents outlining her approved visitation with him. Letters to North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt, Jr., to President Clinton, to the attorney general's office - begging someone to do something to enable her to see her grandson.
At a time in their lives when most older people are enjoying retirement and the special bond that exists between a grandchild and grandparent, Shirley, 55, and Joe Hassell, 62, are fighting in the courts of North Carolina for the right to visit their 13-year-old grandson, Allen Hooper. They helped raise Allen until he was 6, but now he lives 30 miles away from their Mann's Harbor, N.C., home in Salvo, N.C.
Shirley and Joe aren't allowed to see their grandson. His mother, Jennifer, Shirley's daughter, has filed court papers saying that Shirley leaves Allen alone during substantial periods of time and that she speaks negatively about Jennifer and her husband.
Situations like the Hassells' are becoming more common in today's society, where family ties are not always strong and where divorce and single parenting, coupled with family misunderstandings, old angers and bitter hurts, combine to deprive grandparents of involvement with their grandchildren.
``Normal families should get along; but that's not in our society anymore. There's discord, breakup of families,'' said Lucile Sumpter of Haslett, Mich., founder of a national clearinghouse, Grandparents/Children's Rights.
Since 1965, prompted by increasingly activist grandparents, every state has enacted grandparent visitation statutes. But these laws do not create an absolute right for grandparents to visit their grandchildren; rather, like Virginia's and North Carolina's laws, they give grandparents the right to petition the court for ordered visitation privileges - typically only in the instance of death, divorce or separation of the child's parents.
Even when visitation is granted, says John Morrison, an Elizabeth City attorney who has handled several grandparent's rights' cases, it's not remotely near what a non-custodial parent would get. And it's often difficult to enforce, as Shirley Hassell discovered.
If the grandchild's parents refuse to honor visitation orders, grandparents only recourse is to charge contempt and haul their own children back into court, a costly and emotionally devastating approach.
``I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've come to the conclusion that despite everybody's best efforts, the court system may not be the most appropriate forum in which to resolve domestic disputes,'' says Morrison wearily.
And yet it's the only venue Shirley Hassell - and thousands of grandparents like her - has found.
Shirley Hassell tells her story in a living room filled with framed pictures of her 10 grandchildren and the fabric dolls she sewed when each one was a baby, a picture of the model pinned to the dolls' clothes.
She cries often as she talks, apologizing for the tears, but unable to stop them from falling as she details her version of the past 13 years of her grandson's life and the rift with her daughter, Jennifer.
Jennifer declined to be interviewed for this story. What follows was gleaned from interviews with Shirley and from court documents.
Allen Hooper was four months old the first time Shirley saw him.
Jennifer had moved out of the family's Chesapeake house after high school and gotten married. She had just left her husband and was staying in a battered women's shelter.
Could she and her son come home? she asked her mother.
From that point on, says Shirley, Jennifer was a model daughter.
As for Allen - he was like a late-in-life baby to Shirley and Joe. He knew Jennifer was his mother, but in actuality, remembers Shirley, Jennifer was more of a playmate.
``We made the final decisions and always told him if he had any problems he couldn't handle, to come to Nammy and Pop and we'll help you.''
When they discovered he had a talent for singing and music, they paid for private lessons and instruments. When he had his tonsils out, Joe slept on the floor in his hospital room. The boy traveled with his grandparents and slept in bunk beds his grandfather had specially built for him.
When Allen was 6, Jennifer began dating the man she would later marry, and suddenly, remembers Shirley, everything changed.
He asked Allen to call him ``Daddy.'' Shirley said Allen was upset by the request so she told her daughter she didn't think it was right. And that marked the end of their relationship.
A few days later, says Shirley, Jennifer and her boyfriend moved with Allen to an apartment in town and told Shirley she could no longer see her grandson.
Panicked, Shirley visited seven lawyers before she finally found one willing to take her case.
Still, it was two more years before a court date was scheduled, two years during which the Hassells only saw Allen during public events in their small community.
Even when visitation rights were granted in February 1989, Jennifer rarely abided by them, claiming in court documents that Shirley counteracted her own discipline and instructions, and spoke negatively about her and her husband.
During the next three years, Shirley was in and out of court charging her daughter with contempt.
During a rare weekend visit in May 1992, Allen had nosebleeds and cried with a headache all weekend. Shirley took him to her family doctor who jokingly asked Allen if he had been punched in the nose.
Yes, said Allen. By my stepfather. But a Social Services investigation showed the complaint to be unsubstantiated.
Still, Shirley says, Jennifer called her mother and told her to come get Allen, saying the boy would be better off living with her.
When Shirley arrived, Jennifer handed her Allen's clothes in a paper bag. A couple of weeks later, she signed over temporary custody to Shirley.
For the next year-and-a-half, Allen lived with his grandparents, seeing his mother and stepfather on occasional weekends.
``It was devastating to Allen,'' says Shirley.
During this time, the six years of bitter back-and-forth fighting began taking their toll on Allen.
Jennifer said she had reason to believe that Shirley was leaving Allen alone and unprotected for long periods of time. She went to court to have Allen returned.
Since that September day when her daughter showed up at her house with a sheriff's deputy to collect Allen's clothes, Shirley hasn't seen her grandson except at a distance.
She thinks he's afraid to seek her out, to show his love for her, for fear his parents will punish him.
The Hassells have pushed for another court date to get their original visitation orders enforced, but have had their case continued three times.
In the interim, Jennifer Hooper has filed papers to modify the original visitation order, claiming that Shirley did leave Allen alone during substantial periods of time.
``I feel like I'm checkmated,'' said Shirley. ``I can't take my court order to the judge and say I have visitation rights; I can go to Salvo on the designated time and they won't let me in the gate. Are they above the law? I guess they are. What can you do?''
She's so desperate to see Allen that when she ran for Dare County Board of Commissioners this spring and campaigned in Salvo, she put a large sign on her van saying ``We love you, Allen'' hoping he'd see it.
She's so devastated by the separation that she always wears a broken gold heart around her neck to signify her sorrow.
So far, the Hassells have spent more than $6,000 of their retirement money on lawyers' fees and court costs, and they're prepared to spend more.
``All I can do is go to court and defend my honor in loving this grandchild and see to it. . . that he lives a normal life.''
Shirley has taken her fight beyond the environs of Dare County. In March, she organized a grandparents' rights legislative day in Raleigh, bringing in national leaders of the movement.
``I keep fighting not because of my case, but so someone else won't have to go through the heartache of what we've been through, and so some other child will have the right to be part of their roots. Whatever difference you have with a child, that should not affect the grandparent/grandchild relationship. We're a vital part of his life and he of ours.''
Catherine Hatcher can't afford and doesn't want to go the route of lawyers and judges. Time, she feels, is on her side in her quest to see her grandson, Trey.
Born in Germany where her son and his wife were stationed, the boy now lives with his mother in Hatcher's hometown of Broadway, outside of Harrisonburg.
She and Hatcher's son are divorced and her son doesn't see the child.
Hatcher, who lives in Norfolk, wants to be able to take her grandson to her own parent's house a couple of miles away from her daughter-in-law, but her daughter-in-law won't allow it.
Her father and husband have told her to forget the child, but she can't do that.
``He's a part of me and I want to know him,'' she says in her soft voice.
Instead, she calls often, running up enormous phone bills that anger her husband.
She's started a trust fund for the baby, scraping the family budget for the extra cash to put in it, and began keeping a diary, in which she explains how she felt when he was born, the fears she has, the hope that he will not be confused about his background.
``The diary is because I don't want him to think we put him on the shelf and then at 12 or 13 said OK, we're ready to be in your life.
``There's a lot of history I want to put down for him; it's real important for him to get to know where he came from, to know where he's going.''
Eventually, she says, her grandson will be old enough to ask questions about his father's family, and, hopefully, will seek them out on his own.
In the meantime, she keeps buying him clothes, like the blue-and-white-striped romper that hangs on her front door - a birthday present for a grandson whose size she doesn't even know.
In recent years, the grandparents' rights movement has shifted its focus from grandparents' rights to children's rights. ``This is where we all should have gone in the beginning,'' says Sumpter, ``because most state legislatures think grandparents are an obscene name, you're interfering; parents can do what they want to with their children and it's none of your business.''
If children have more rights awarded to them, including the right to live in a safe environment and the right to the care of a loving family, then, say grandparent rights advocates, grandparents will once again have the right to be a part of their grandchildren's lives.
Grandparents' rights advocate Marion Robitaille of Norfolk, who began a support group 10 years ago after she was denied visitation with her 11-year-old twin grandsons, says funding the family court system the General Assembly approved last year is one answer.
``I'm going to get hot on that soon,'' she says, outlining her plans to lobby her representative and the governor.
It's only now, 10 years since she last saw her grandsons, that Robitaille is able to talk about them without crying.
They're 20 now, and she recently learned they're living in Chesapeake. But she's afraid to contact them.
``I feel like they've got to remember the good times and the love and caring and nurturing. If they want to see me, they could see me. But they might not remember.''
Why is it so important to her? What is this bond between grandparent and grandchild?
She smiles.
``Grandchildren, lord have mercy,'' she sighs. ``They give you another breath of air.
``You see that baby and it's a part of you, a bit of your life that's going to go on. There'll always be that connection there.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Shirley Hassell looks over scrapbooks, photos and other mementos
that remind her of her grandson, Allen Hooper, now 13.
Graphics
TIPS FOR GRANDPARENTS
Steer clear of your children's divorce. Don't choose sides.
Remember that your daughter- or son-in-law may be the
``linchpin'' of your relationship with your grandchildren, so be as
cordial as you can, even if it's hard, says Dr. Arthur Kornhaber,
president of the Foundation for Grandparenting, a nonprofit
Cohasset, Mass., organization dedicated to strengthening
grandparent-grandchild bonds.
Don't alienate either parent by dispensing unwanted child-rearing
advice. Be a helper and adviser, but not a parent. ``As long as
people stay in their correct roles, there are no problems,''
Kornhaber points out. ``That's the trick.''
Don't go to court without first trying apologizing, counseling or
family mediation. There's no point in exposing everyone to a bloody,
expensive court battle if you don't have to.
If you do go to court, remember that while grandparents have the
right to petition for visitation in the event of a death or divorce,
there's no assurance they'll get it.
Grandparents who are nevertheless determined should know ahead of
time that they may be asked to produce records, such as letters,
that document a good relationship with their grandchildren. They
should also be forewarned that the judge may consider a variety of
factors, including finances, or whether the grandparents are
emotionally stable.
Make sure you find a lawyer who has handled
grandparent-visitation disputes before. Read as much as you can on
the subject. A good place to start is with the American Bar
Association's resource manual, published in 1989, called
``Grandparent Visitation Disputes.''
If you're an angry parent who is feuding with a grandparent,
recognize the possible consequences of your actions. A loving
relationship with a grandparent can contribute greatly to your
child's well-being, mental-health experts say.
Parents need to realize that just because someone was lousy at
raising children doesn't mean they'll be a lousy grandparent,
mental-health experts say. It's a totally different relationship.
Source: Boston Globe
RESOURCES
United Grandparents for Family Life, Marion Robitaille, founder:
855-6844
Grandparent Connections, Ellena Hand, national networking
coordinator, 205-859-5996
Grandparents Anonymous, Luella Davison, founder. 313-682-8384
Grandparent/Grandchildren's Rights, Lucile Sumpter, 517-339-8663
AARP Grandparent Information Center, 202-434-2296
by CNB