Child Abandoned or Rejected by Birth Parent(s)

Apess, William

Apess's parents were itinerant basket-makers and he lived as a young child mostly with his grandparents, who were very cruel to him. When his grandmother broke his arm he was rescued by an ... [more]

Kitt, Eartha

Kitt was given by her mother to another woman to raise on a South Carolina plantation. When she was eight she was sent to Harlem to another woman. She has never discovered who her parents w... [more]

Linkletter, Art

Linkletter was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. He was abandoned by his parents as a child and adopted by an elderly couple who were itinerant evangelists. After several years they settled ... [more]

de Porres, Martin

Martín de Porres was born in Lima. There are two versions of his early life. In one, he was the son of an unknown father and a free African-Peruvian mother, adopted when he was eight by ... [more]

Martinson, Harry Edmund

Martinson was born in Jämshög in southern Sweden. His father died when he was six, and his mother abandoned her seven children to emigrate to America. The rest of his childhood was spent in... [more]

Nelson, Willie

Nelson was abandoned by his mother when he was six months old. His father ran a pool hall in Austin, Texas, and he was raised by his grandparents in the village of Abbott, Texas. His grandf... [more]

Ruth, George Herman ("Babe")

Babe Ruth was the eldest of eight children born to a Baltimore bartender and his wife. They had no time for their son, and when he was seven they placed him in St. Mary's Industrial School ... [more]

Truffaut, François

Truffaut was born in Paris to an architect and his wife. He was a frail child and his parents, sports enthusiasts, rejected him, sending him to live with his grandmother until he was eight,... [more]

Whitbread, Fatima

Whitbread was abandoned in an apartment as a baby and raised in children's homes until she was 14. There was some parental contact but it was unsatisfactory and she was also sexually abused... [more]

White, Donald Edwin

White's father disappeared before he was born and he was abandoned by his mother. The canteen manager of the hospital where he was born adopted him. Major advertising accounts he handled... [more]