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HANCOCK COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, CEDAR REST CEMETERY-HALLOWEEN EVENT.
My name is John Damborino. I was a Western Union delivery boy in Jr. Hi.. I worked for the Sea Coast Echo while in St. Stanislaus and for 25 years afterward. When Mr. Moreau sold the paper, I went in business for myself as the Hancock County Eagle.
I was an orphan, one of the 300,000 orphans in N.Y. City during the late	1800's and	early 1900's who were put	on trains to	the West and
South to	be adopted	by families who would give	them a	good	life.
My mother left me on the steps of the Sisters of Charity in N.Y. City with enough information that the Sisters could get a birth certificate for me. My name is John Lawrence Korcinsky. My parents were Annie and Michael Korcinsky, polish immigrants. I was born Dec 10, 1906 and died on my 8lst birthday, Dec. 10, 1987.
Along with Tom Luc, Margaret Cuevas and probably several other orphans, 2 Sisters brought us to New Orleans for adoption to Catholic families who had signed up to adopt children.
Actually my adopted sister, Katy, who is buried here beside me, had more	to do with	my adoption than anybody.	She was	grown, married and
had lost	a child and wanted to adopt. She adopted Tom	Luc.	Her parents
who were elderly	also wanted to	adopt since	Katy was their only	child.
They	adopted me 5	I was	3 2 years	old at that	time. My adopted father, Alec
Damborino died not too many years after I was adopted. My adopted mother, Lena Damborino raised me. She died when I was 20 years old.
My adopted parents are buried on my left; my adopted sister and her family on my right.
Thomas Luc, the first to get off the train that day, married Catherine, sister to	Annie	of Annie's restaurant. I	married Margaret
Heitzmann of BS., June 18,	1927.	We had 2 children.
In those	days,	Catholic	families didn't admit adoption.	As a
teen	I asked my mother	if I was	adopted and	she said, "No", and	burned
my papers. This is the story of nearly all adopted children of that era. Tom was different - after he was adopted his family had 8 other children and he looked enuf like his adopted parents and brothers that nobody suspec
Naturally, as an orphan I wondered about my real parents. When
I was grown, Married, and had children I went to N.Y. to the Sisters of
Charity to find out.	What	I have	told you is mostly	what	they told me
except for the birth	certificate.	Their records had	been	damaged in a
water pipe leak. The supposition is that my father died - thousands of
(Over)