In 1955, Dave Hickman went fishing with his grandmother. While he was in the woods, he heard a strange cooing.
“On September 22, 1955, I was chasing my grandfather with my grandfather. I heard a very strange noise. It was not a crying baby, it was a soft cooing. To find out what it was So I started walking the fence,” he told CBS.
And that’s where he discovers the unimaginable: a very cold little girl.
“I climbed over the fence, I looked down and there was a little girl. She was wet. Her lips were blue. She was wrapped in a towel. My grandfather said, ‘We have to do something. very quick thing. We’ve got to get the baby’s help.'”
Dave and his grandfather took the baby to the authorities. She was given the name Roseanne Wayne.
The story of the 14-year-old boy who saved the wet little girl was newsworthy at the time. But for Dave, the story won’t end with the end of the diary.
A few weeks later, Dave was heartbroken when he had to say goodbye to Roseanne when she was adopted.
“They handed her over to me and said, ‘She’ll be adopted next week.’ “They wrapped her in a blanket and she was sleeping well, so I filed for her,” he said.
But he had no idea where he was caught.
Dave spent the next 58 years trying to find the little girl he had saved. But it wasn’t until 2013 that retired mayor John Katie called him with the big news.
“[Katie] said, ‘Dave, write down that name and phone number – Mary Ellen Sue and her phone number. I said, ‘Well, John, did you say who that is?'” ( He said) “She’s your little girl,” Dave recalled.
Dave found Marie Ellen Sue. “I’ve seen this picture of her lying in the weeds, standing over the fence every day of my life. And I’ll probably always see this, but at least now I know there’s an end happy.”
“It’s a story that has always been a talking point in our family,” Buckler said.
Richmond Mayor Sally Hatton also attended the meeting.
She said, “This story just says you never give up. You follow your hopes and dreams and believe they can be achieved.” “It also shows that we have a lot of good people here, and we still have and always will.”