Man abandoned in Lancaster phone booth in 1954 meets birth mother, gets answers

LANCASTER — Closure is setting in for a 64-year-old man, who was abandoned in a telephone booth near Lancaster as a baby in the 1950s, and the city that found him.

Steve Dennis, of Phoenix, has no connection to Lancaster other than it's where his birth parents abandoned him in January 1954. It's where the official records of his life begin.

The Eagle-Gazette had written numerous articles days after he was found, but the mystery was left unsolved for more than 60 years. In August, Steve and his wife, Maria, had set out to learn more about how he came to be in that phone booth and who had put him there.

They called the Eagle-Gazette this summer to update the old story, saying Steve had found his birth mother and planned to meet her for the first time in September.

The response to the news article was unexpected. Locals had reached out to say they remembered the baby, including one of the men who found him, and national and international news outlets had reached out to get their interviews.

Steve, however, declined those opportunities when his birth mother's family became uncomfortable with the increasing media attention despite their identities being kept anonymous.

And while numerous interviews were declined, Maria thought it was only fair the last steps of Steve's journey be shared with the community that found him, saying Lancaster needs closure too.

The meeting

Steve met his mother, his half-sister and other relatives in September.

It was a day of many firsts, including the surreal experience of being in a room with people who look like him for the first time.

He also got some answers. He knows he was born in a hospital in Kentucky and his real birth date, which is only a few days off from the one he had been given when he was found.

Steve also learned more about his birth father, who died in October 2017, than he could have imagined. During the visit with his mother, a relative handed Steve an index card with his father's full name on it.

When Steve got home, Maria began searching for the name online. She found his obituary and a Facebook page.

"I was stunned because there’s a man looking just like my husband," she said, recalling the internet search.

And while he never got to meet his father, he has since reached out to his fathers' relatives to learn more about his life. None of them, including his widow, had heard about a baby in a phone booth.

“We’ve been in touch with the father’s side of the family who have recalled conversations where the talk was about how he’s never had kids, and there was a baby he had, but it died," Maria said. "So whether that’s what he was telling people, or whether he believed he put the baby in the phone booth and it died. Maybe he never found out if the baby survived.”

When Steve met his mother he did get some answers, but not all of them.

“He only got to meet his birth mom for a few hours and never alone," Maria said. "So he never asked any questions. He just let the conversations happen.”

“He doesn’t feel any ill feelings," she added. "He understands the decisions they made. That was 64 years, and he’s never dwelled on it.”

Steve hopes to stay in contact with his birth mother and relatives and is anticipating future meetings.

A local connection

As abruptly as the baby locals nicknamed "Little Boy Blue-eyes" had come into Lancaster, he had suddenly left it.

The locals who remember the mystery baby still wondered what happened to the babe that appeared in the morning paper so many years ago. This included Bob Wilson, now in his 80s, who found him.

A copy of the 1954 news article had been in the Wilson home for years. Wilson's daughter contacted the Eagle-Gazette after the story published in August and were put in contact with Steve and Maria.

“The next weekend we arranged for the three or four of us to talk," Maria said. "This was so special because this was the man who found Steve."

Wilson and his father had been delivering bread to Yielky's Drive-In on U.S. 22, just outside Lancaster. It appeared the baby had been there for a few hours, nestled in a blanket in a cardboard box with a bottle of milk next to him.

"He was a young man out of high school and was working with his dad delivering bread," Maria said of Wilson. "He was waiting for his dad to unlock the door and he noticed the baby. Back then they would just open the doors and let themselves in to drop the bread off ... He noticed a little hand at the bottom of the phone booth.

“That was special finding out about Bob. That (1954) article had been in the Wilson house all these decades, and they used to call him the miracle baby or the phone booth baby. Susan (Bob's daughter) said they always kind of wondered about the baby, saying 'I grew up looking at the picture all my life.'”

Wilson's story provided yet more anecdotes of Steve's first few weeks of life he never expected to have. But despite the recent connections and discoveries, there is still a lot he does not know, more he'd like to know and questions he'd like to ask.

sremoquill@gannett.com

740-681-4342

Twitter: @SpencerRemo

Earlier coverage: Mystery of infant abandoned in phone booth solved 64 years later