Baby For Sale

Juvenile officers today filed a petition in Juvenile Court asking that Ronald Bacus, 18 months of age, who was reported on sale for $150 be declared an abandoned child.

— The Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1936

Mrs. H. H. Moore and her husband weren’t able to have biological children. Cora Mae Bacus responded to their newspaper ad in which they described how they hoped to find a baby to adopt. Cora told Mrs. Moore she had an 18-month-old baby boy that she wasn’t able to care for. She was looking for a good family to adopt him.

It all sounded like the answer to Mrs. Moore’s prayers until Cora mentioned that she needed $150 to seal the deal. Mrs. Moore became suspicious about Cora’s motives and worried about the safety of the child. She reported Cora to the Long Beach police.

The police asked Mrs. Moore to tell Cora that she was willing to “purchase” the child and asked her to arrange a meeting. The women met on November 15, 1936, but instead of receiving cash for the baby, Cora was arrested. It turned out she also had another buyer for the boy — a Mrs. Helen Pace. She’d offered the baby to Helen for the cut-rate price of $50.

Cora was married to a bus driver named Roland Leo Bacus. The Bacuses were in their mid-30s and lived in Long Beach, California. Both had previous marriages and Cora had a teenage daughter from her first marriage.

The police investigated birth records at Long Beach Hospital and discovered that the birth certificates on file showed that Cora had a baby girl named Ramona Loy Bacus on March 18, 1935. But to their surprise she was also listed as having had a baby boy, Ronald Leroy Bacus, on May 17, 1935. Ronald was the baby Cora planned to sell.

Obviously only one of the babies was Cora’s. She claimed Ramona was her biological child. Ignoring the fact that the boy baby was listed as hers in hospital records, Cora told the police that a woman named Sue Weiner left Ronald with her in June 1935 and never returned for him.

The police went to the address for Sue that Cora gave them in Huntington Beach, about 15 miles south of Long Beach. The woman who lived there insisted she didn’t know Cora and that the baby boy wasn’t hers. He was declared an abandoned child and placed in a foundling home.

Cora was arraigned on two felony counts of trying to sell a human being. The count related to the offer to Helen Pace was later dropped. Cora pleaded not guilty to the remaining charge.

Her trial began in Long Beach Superior Court on January 12, 1937. Cora’s lawyers explained to the court that the $150 she’d requested was not a fee but simply compensation for what she’d spent while caring for Ronald.

A month after the trial began the Deputy D.A., Clarence Hunt, told the court he didn’t believe he could get a conviction. The charge against Cora was dismissed and she was set free.

On October 29, 1937, Cora was granted a divorce from Roland Bacus.

Cora either lost custody of Ramona or she gave her little girl up. By 1940, according to the federal census, Ramona Loy had been adopted by a couple named Eugene and Donna Norman. She grew up on a ranch in San Bernardino, California, where she loved to read and played volleyball and basketball. She died in San Diego in 1999.

After she divorced Roland, Cora had at least two more husbands and he had a couple more wives. Then Cora and Roland decided to give marital bliss another spin. They got remarried in Los Angeles in April 1966. Their second divorce came in September 1972. Both ended their days in Washington State — he died in 1975 and she died at the age of 94 in 1997.

Of all the people involved in this incident, baby Ronald is the one I’m most curious about. He’s not listed in the California Birth Index under the name “Ronald Bacus” and none of the 41 baby boys born on May 17, 1935 in L.A. County had a mother whose maiden name was “Weiner.” The 1937 Long Beach City Directory lists a “Bertha S. Weiner” who was unmarried and worked as a cashier at a grocery store. She and the Bacus family lived only three blocks apart on Cherry Avenue. If Cora was telling the truth about the mother’s name it’s possible Bertha S. Weiner was Ronald’s mother, but there’s no way to prove it now.

Having a baby out-of-wedlock would have been extremely embarrassing for a woman in those days. Perhaps Cora wanted to help the baby’s mother out and offered to raise him as her own, then had marital troubles and realized it wasn’t going to work out. So she came up with another plan, one that worked out very badly for her.

After Cora’s case was dismissed baby Ronald vanished from news reports and I couldn’t locate him in any later records. He was probably adopted and given a new name. Hopefully he grew up with a good family and had a wonderful life.

Featured photo: news photo of the mugshot of Cora May Bacus, December 12, 1936. Collection of the author.