Unwed teenage mothers in the '50's -- need a bit of info

You guys haven't failed me yet -- I figured I may as well check for help here.

For the next story I'm planning, there will be a teenager who accidently gets pregnant at 18 or 19, in the mid or late '50's, but won't marry the father, or have an abortion. Her only plan of action is to have the baby, and give it up for adoption. The girl doesn't want her parents, or anyone in town for that matter, finding out, so she plans on running away to Vancouver, BC, to have her baby.

My question is -- were there any homes for girls in her situation to go? My mom ended up in the same situation in 1968, and at that point, there was a sort of boarding house, (the way I remember her describing it) where she stayed until she had the baby. Would that have existed in the '50's? If so, how would she have found out about it?

If not, how would she have survived over half a year in the big city while pregnant and not really able to work? Would she have been forced to go to a homeless shelter, or to rent a little apartment of her own and borrow money from friends to pay the rent? And how much covering up would she need to do to hide this? Would she have needed to claim the baby's father was dead, and that they'd been married, to avoid looking like a whore?

I mainly need the girl to end up in a situation where she needs to sneak out of town, and end up with very limited communication with her younger sister, who's the only one who knows about it. Even guesses should help me with settling on what exactly will happen, the plot's still in its infancy.

All help would be appreciated, as always.

@PattiTheWicked -- considering the teenager in my story would probably have extremely stict religious parents, that kind of a place would probably be somewhere where she'd go. Ironically enough, part of the story will be that people freak out over her disappearing, so the bit about the girl disappearing one day definitely caught my attention.

I'll probably take a few liberties with how the girl would leave town. The younger sister should drop her off somewhere like a train or bus station, or the church, at a time when nobody's there, or getting into the building isn't possible. Somewhere where she should be safe, but could be kidnapped from. (The younger sister goes out of her way to reassure everyone that she's safe, but then finds out she isn't and gets herself into quite a bit of danger trying to set things right.)

@Fern -- man, married at 12 and 15. That would be crazy. I still thought guys had cooties when I was 12. Although it begs the question, how old were their husbands? Where I live, you can't even get a job until you're 15, so the 12 year old girl would probably have to have a hubby a fair little bit older than her.

That definitely helps my reason for the girl running away hold up, odds are by the time she realizes she's pregnant, she's already ended things with the baby's father, or is about to. She'd be just out of high school, so it would probably seem normal for her to be marrying at that age, especially considering she's pregnant. She'd pretty much have to run away to get out of ending up in a shotgun wedding.

Those articles were some interesting reading, too, thanks for the links.

Would many teenagers be going to high school and having an after school job? My main character (the pregnant teen's younger sister) has a motorcycle rather than a car, more or less just to piss her parents off. They weren't going to let her get the bike, so she got a job to pay for it herself. I was thinking of going with an after school job, maybe should I say she took a year off school to save up enough money for her bike? Or, she could've quit school for good, but went back after gettin fired from work. Hmmm . . .

@Fern -- and this is why I love you guys. I'll have to emphasize how strict her parents are even more, it's definitely going to be hard for her to get that bike. It might even make a decent place to start the story, it could set up the situation between her and her parents up nicely.

If the father was working as a lawyer, and was helping someone who was fairly poor, he might get the bike. He'd sell it before he ever let the women near it, although that wouldn't stop his youngest daughter from teaching herself to ride it when nobody's looking. Maybe he found out, and put the bike up for sale. The main character would have a boyfriend by then, although she'd be hiding that from her parents. If he bought the bike, then basically gave her the bike, that might work.

Or, maybe a car was bought for the two sisters to use, and the older sister owns it. The car could be sold, and the bike could be bought with the money they made off the car. The younger sister could work as a carhop to get the money to pay her sister back. She's more or less given up trying to make her parents happy, and she's gotten to the point where she's showing them how much better she was before.

@Carole -- thanks for telling us about your mom's situation. I haven't dug too deep into how the older sister will be, but she's definitely nowhere near as tough as her kid sister. If she wants to keep her child after everything that happens, and I'm guessing she probably would, she'd probably end up in a situation like your mom's. It's a good example, I'll definitely be reading it over a few dozen times before deciding on what happens to the sister.

@Fern -- that saves me the trouble of trying to find a car for the mother of the two sisters. I'm still not completely certain where the family will live, but they'll probably live in a rural area. Normally, did the mother borrow the father's car to get groceries and such, or would that be the man's job?

It's probably for the best that the boyfriend isn't a method for getting the bike. They end up breaking up half way through the story, so it would've been awfully tedious working out what would happen to the bike. Was jewelry (not a ring, but maybe a bracelet?) something that a boyfriend could give to his girlfriend, so long as it wasn't too pricey? I've never seen my main character without a little gold bracelet on her left wrist, not unless it's in the beginning of the story.

I never even thought about the Korean War! I don't know much about it, but if Canada was involved in it, that would be a perfect way to explain the bike. Plus, I'm loving the idea of there being an older brother. He could've been the same way as my main character with his parents, and just finally up and left for the war, then was killed in action. His parents were furious with him leaving and so exasperated with him that they had a 'maybe he learned his lesson' attitude over his death. His father would, anyway. My main character would have a huge chip on her shoulder after that.

He'd have to die before the story starts, I'm guessing, because I've tenatively decided on the story starting somewhere from 56-58. I should adjust the ages of the parents a little, right now the mom was just a teenager (although a married one) when she had her two daughters, and unless I want to say she was 11 when she had her son, I oughta make her a little older. I'll go do some research on the war, too, this is an awesome twist. Thank you!

@Saanen -- I'm fairly sure both sisters will have her licenses already, the kid sister just won't ever be allowed to take the car. The oldest will be allowed to take it so long as daddy doesn't need it, she probably would have the same rules as your mom. The kid sister mainly needs a set of wheels to get away from the house before fights get violent. Her father isn't afraid to hit her, and she isn't afraid to hit him, but she won't let herself do it. When she thinks she might, she gets the hell out of the house. Borrowing the car in such a situation wouldn't go over too terribly well.

@Aconite -- hmmm. That kind of situation with coming home with a baby would probably be what the older sister would do if she kept the baby. Ironically enough, it wouldn't be too far from the truth, because I'm fairly sure the baby's father will end up dead by the end of the story.

I figured I'd end up having the father be fairly abusive with the younger daughter right from the start, and he probably wouldn't have a problem with hitting any of his children if they did the slightest thing wrong. The older sister just tried to keep her nose clean, but the brother and the youngest sister both weren't going to be bullied around by his fists. Or, the younger sister realized she just couldn't be perfect, gave up trying, then decided to be her brother.

That's crazy! I can't see why you wouldn't let your wife drive, would you rather end being the family chauffeur? Funny how much things can change in a decade, my parents actually met in a drag race in the late '60's, mom was driving her car, my father was in another, they challenged her and she won.

@Carole -- whew! 10 kids? That must've been hectic. Even if she had a driver's license, she probably would've been way too busy to go anywhere. I can't even imagine how crazy it would've been to try to take everyone out on a family outing. 12 people in one car . . . yikes!

My brother never lived with me, we only got reunited with him when he was 30, so I grew up more or less an only child. I can't even imagine what it would've been like with 9 siblings, all living under 1 roof.

@Fern -- hmmm. I'll have to watch that present that the main character gets. The bracelet would probably be gold, in my mind, it's always been a very thin, delicate looking yellow gold bracelet. Would it have been okay if the girl didn't realize how expensive the present was? Say, she was told it was silver, but it was really white gold? I have some white gold jewelry that's the exact same shade as my silver stuff, so it's very possible that my tomboy main character couldn't tell the difference.

For the girls getting their licenses, I guess I'd have to say that the mother would've fell ill when the father was out of town, so one of the girls had to learn to drive to get her to a doctor. But, that wouldn't get the youngest girl a motorcycle license. Hmmm. Someone would have to be tricked into signing the papers, probably. Around here you need to be 16 to get your license, I'm guessing it's been that way for quite a while.

@Aconite -- very true. My main character will probably have to get the bracelet on a special occasion, like Christmas or her birthday, then say that her sister gave it to her. It wouldn't fly if she tried to say she bought it with her own money, even if she had a job, since she wasn't the kind to want jewelry. Hell, her parents might still get suspicious, considering a bracelet doesn't seem like a present anyone who knew her well would get her.

@Barnabas -- the home sounds perfect, the only problem is, I don't know how I would explain how a small town girl from British Columbia could hear about a home for girls in her situation in Florida. Plus, that's an awfully long way to go, it would be well over a week, (maybe even two or more) of being crammed on a bus with morning sickness. I don't think she'd want to attempt a trip like that. Although, I could use that Miami home as an example, and say there was one like it in Vancouver. It would probably be a good compromise.

@MadScientistMatt -- that would probably be the best way to go with the bracelet. In my experience, the coating flakes off before too long, but it looks real until then, so long as you don't look for the 10K stamp. The girl could just be told it's fake, just so she'll accept it and won't get shot by her parents.

@Barnabas -- actually, the family will live a little ways north of Vancouver, probably a ficticious town in place of where I live right now, which is a good 6 1/2 - 7 hour drive north of there. And that's with the newer, safer, highway through the Fraser Canyon. Even nowadays, you don't go to Vancouver unless you have a good reason, and you don't go more than a couple times a year.

I'm guessing that would've applied in the fifties as well, and the girl's parents know her well enough to know she never would've run that far to that large of a town without someone she trusted, and since all her friends were accounted for, they ended up assuming she was kidnapped. Getting into the States probably would've required a passport, and a teenaged girl crossing the border alone, without a car, might've raised enough eyebrows for her to be remembered.

But, enough rambling. I'll make a note of having Vancouver newspapers delivered to the small town somehow to make sure the older sister can see that 'girls in trouble' ad.