I was kidnapped as a three year old by Cleo Smith in Philadelphia, PA. I have little memory of the actual kidnapping. I do remember being carried up an escalator and being put in a green car. I also have a memory of a blue wheelbarrow. I remember being incredibly terrified at the very sight of that simple blue wheelbarrow.
In addition to those few little memories, Pastor Richard Harris who is now the retired pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Sellersville, PA has told me repeatedly that Cleo brought me to see him at his church. Pastor Harris told me Cleo told him she had found me abandoned in one of her rental properties in Philadelphia. Pastor Harris says he told Cleo she needed to call the authorities and could not just keep me. The pastor never called the authorities himself, however.
Cleo owned an 110 acre farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The farm was not listed under her legal name. It was on this farm that I would stay full time until I was 12 with Cleo and Lou Canby. Lou officially was Cleo’s farm hand, but Cleo and Lou were also lovers and much more. Lou was an alcoholic.
Cleo was very active in support of Carl McIntire’s ministry. Carl McIntire was a staunch fundamentalist pastor. Carl McIntyre was well known for his fight against the FDC, communism, and speaking out against the counter-culture of the 1960′s and 1970′s, and greatly involved in politics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_McIntire Richard Harris had helped set up a “cow pasture rally” for Carl McIntire on Cleo’s farm in the summer of 1963, the year before I was born. Richard Harris had also gone to Faith Theological Seminary that was run by Carl McIntire after Pastor Harris had graduated from Bob Jones University which also bestowed on McIntire an honorary doctorate. Thereafter, it was Dr. Carl McIntire even though his doctorate was not earned.
This is background, in future posts I will tie these details together and tell more of my story.
