Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Friday, August 02, 2024
Baby Jessica, more from the Iowa Almanac in a moment. Aloha! Attached at the island! Right here in Iowa. Hi there, Auntie Peterson, joined Kerry Dolphin and I as we host the annual Tate and Dottie Cummins Memorial Pineapple Gala to benefit Camp Courageous. It's Friday, August 16th at 6 p.m. at the Double Tree Convention Center in downtown Cedar Rapids. Enjoy a Hawaiian dinner, live inside with auction and more. To view auction items or for tickets, simply go to Camp Courageous.org and we'll see you there! On February 8th, 1991, Clara Clausen of Cedar Rapids gave birth to a daughter. Two days later, she signed adoption papers as did the girl's biological father, Scott Seifelt. The baby girl was adopted by Jan and Roberta DeBore of Ann Arbor, Michigan. They named the girl Jessica. But Seifelt was not actually Jessica's biological father. Instead, a man named Dan Schmidt was. Schmidt and Clausen broke up shortly after Clausen discovered she was pregnant and she never told him about the baby. Less than a month after the baby was adopted, Clausen had second thoughts about the adoption and contacted Schmidt. They filed a legal action to have the adoption nullified since Schmidt as the biological father had not signed away his parental rights. They also got married. After a district court ruled that the baby needed to be returned to Iowa, the DeBore's filed an appeal. In December 1992, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled eight to one in favor of the Schmidt's. The DeBore's appealed this time in Michigan since that's where the child was living. They lost in court there too and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. By this time, the case had drawn massive national publicity. On August 2, 1993, while a television audience watched, a crying Jessica was returned to her biological parents in Cedar Rapids. The stress of the situation was apparent. Both the Schmidt's and DeBore's wound up divorcing. But the girl, now named Anna Schmidt, appears to have grown up normally and has avoided the spotlight. In fact, she says she has no recollection of the custody change, which happened on live television on this date in 1993. And that's Iowa Almanac for August 2. Follow us on Twitter @IowaAlmanac. Until Monday, I'm Jeff Stein.