My great-grandfather, Richard Ralph Thompson was adopted in the early 1930s. He was born in 1931, and his birth certificate states in Tell City, Perry County, Indiana.

He was likely named after being adopted, as Thompson was the last name of his adoptive parents, Clarence H. & Bessie L. (Paddock) Thompson.

I have just recently found papers, referring to a man named Casper Cronin from Tell City. It was a newspaper clipping with "Richard's mother's brother" written in my great-grandmother's handwriting at the top. I am 100% sure that it is not a relation of his adoptive parents, being that i have fully researched their entire families.

From what I have found, Casper had four brothers, Curtis, Chester, Arnie & Kenneth Cronin. He also had two sisters, Odele, married to Carl Leehy and Sylvia, married to Leslie Coultas.

If the writing is to be believed, then either Odele or Sylvia is his birth mother. From the story I was told, he was left on the steps of an orphanage in Knightstown, Indiana called the Soldiers and Sailor's Home, but knew his birth parents. They kept his birth sister, but not him, for reasons I am unaware of.

If any family member of ODELE LEEHY, nee CRONIN or SYLVIA COULTAS, nee CRONIN, or any relation of OTHA and NANCY SIMPSON CRONIN who have information about this would please, please, please contact me, I would appreciate it!

My email address is abryant@parallax.ws

I would be happy to hear from you!