Gladney Blog

We are thrilled to share some remarkable news with you – the staff of Madison Adoption Associates will be joining the Gladney Center for Adoption family! This union demonstrates that GCA is growing and that our work is now expanding to new parts of the world. In fact, this partnership will give GCA the largest footprint of diversified adoption and wrap-around services in the country. 

1. Gladney's Humanitarian Aid efforts began in 1996, when Gladney began providing the funding for a "baby home" in Can Tho, Vietnam.  Gladney placed our first baby from the orphanage in October 1996.
2. The movie, 'Blossoms In The Dust', was in the Top Ten films in 1941. 
3. At the first Gladney fundraiser hosted by the Houston Auxiliary (nka the Houston GFA), adoptive parents gave Mrs. Gladney a platinum ring with five diamonds in honor of her twenty-fifth anniversary as superintendent of the Home. For once in her life, Edna, a fighter with such a tender heart, got up to the microphone to make a speech. Instead, she cried. 
4. Actress Greer Garson, who played Edna Gladney in the movie Blossoms in the Dust, died in 1996. Shortly thereafter, the E.E. Fogelson and Greer Garson Fogelson Charitable Foundation in Dallas gave $500,000 to The Gladney Fund in support of endowment.  
5. I.Z.T. Morris was among the first adoption advocates to focus on the interests of the child. He traveled and sought out children in need, interviewed prospective parents and raised money.  Today, Gladney continues that legacy of helping children in need. In our International Adoption program, we find families for children ready to be adopted in Colombia and Taiwan.  Learn more about some of these children.
6. The Gladney Center for Adoption has relocated five times since founded in 1887.
7. The child who portrayed Tony in the movie 'Blossoms in the Dust' was a 4-year-old named Pat Barker. It was only when Pat came to Fort Worth to celebrate the movie's premiere that the world discovered that Pat was actually Patricia. 
8. Prior to its former site at 2300 Hemphill Street, Gladney was located two blocks North at 2110 Hemphill Street. The Board of Directors purchased two old apartment houses in the early 1960s, which were converted into apartments and a recreation center. Administrative offices were housed in an adjoining home. 
9. Gladney fought two important legislative battles on behalf of adoption. Thanks to her efforts, in 1936 Texas legislators passed a bill that made Texas the first state in the Southwest to legally remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records. 
10. When the first dormitory opened in 1948 at 2110 Hemphill St., furniture was purchased from the Army Surplus Store. Tables and dressers cost $3 each and chairs were 50 cents!  
11. Edna Kahly married Sam Gladney in 1906, and they honeymooned in Havana, Cuba, for one year where Sam also had business interests.