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The Beak-Baby

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Binkston1

Gone But Not Forgotten
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As a child my paternal Grandfather used to tell me of a strange event that happened when he was younger (I think that it would have been in either the nineteen-twenties, thirties or forties) which has fascinated me for years.

He was born and raised in Jersey and the story is set there. One summer there was a freak fall of snow with drifts everywhere (I'm sure that this sort of weather abberation is not unheard of). During the time there was only one baby born on the island and it was not as it should have been.

My Grandfather described the baby as having a "beak and feathers" and said that the mother had gone so far as to take her (I believe that this child was described to me as female) for walks in a pram through the town.

I am desperate to know if this has any basis in truth as it seems quite far-fetched. Is it a story made up from disparate elements? Was my Grandfather simply pulling my leg? Even so, are there instances on record of babies with bird-like characteristics?

Please advise...
 
I remember reading something similar in FT a while back. I think it was a pig-faced lady though.
It was remembered inquite a few differerent reports but I don't think there was any actual evidence.
I think the general opinion was that it was just a deformed child who was only seen in fleeting glances by townspeople and rumour/legend spread that it was a pig-faced/ duck-faced child.
Someone clever will know the exact details but it's defo been in the mag.
 
Beak Baby

Excellent... the plot thickens. I hope that someone with metereological connections can look back through the records for freak snowfall...
 
When I was a kid ,used to know a lady that worked in local Mental Home, as they were called then, she used to say that some patients were kept out of sight because they looked like various animals etc, how much truth in this I have no idea, but I never knew her to lie about anything!?.
 
McAvennie said:
I remember reading something similar in FT a while back. I think it was a pig-faced lady though.
Click to expand...

Somewhere, I have the Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not
with the illustration and name of said woman.
She is shown wearing a bonnet and very curly hair, IIRC.

TVgeek
 
People who live in Mental Homes, (Mental Health Units/Hospitals), tend to look like everyone else apart from some appearing more dishevalled through the negative effects of schizophrenia, sedating effects of medication, and having very little money, so obviously they don't get access to the best dentists or hair dressers.

Also there is a larger number of overweight people, again down to side effects of antipsychotic medication.

Never seen any patients that looked like animals though, But perhaps in the old days with various untreatable/untreated deseases still about, some disfigured people may have found safety in the old asylums.
 
Was it a baby?

It just struck me that I saw something puzzlingly similar in Shaughnessy last October or November. I was walking in the Crescent Park area when I spotted a young couple pushing a stroller ahead of me. Nothing unusual about that until I passed them and cast a brief glance at the baby - it was no baby! It was a cat sitting in the kid stroller with a blanket tucked around it, and it was wearing a sort of a baby bonnet. For an instant blood turned to ice in my veins. I shot a glance at the 'parents' - their faces were serious and unwelcoming. I kind of felt on my skin that I'd better move along and hastened my pace without looking back. I wonder what could be the meaning of this???...
 
Regarding the cat in the basket:

I was sitting at the window having breakfast in Greenwich Villiage with my husband. It was a lazy Sunday morning and we were people watching. All of a sudden I could not control my laughter as a young, well dressed and good looking couple passed by us with a stroller and large smiles on their faces....they looked so proud. Only problem was that inside he stroller sat a scottish terrier with a little outfit on!!!!!

Frighteningly engough, after that, I have scene similarly demented sights around NYC. Some warped trend I guess!
 
Hobbes - that's true today, but I'm wondering if In The Bad Old Days you could be incarcerated for looking odd - beaked even - and the asylums were used as a dumping ground?

Kath
 
genetic horror?

dreemik,
With dog lovers it's kind of easy to explain that they looked proud and happy, just look at all these crazy Halloween and Christmas shows where dogs are dressed up in costumes, etc. But those 'parents' did look like it's no-one else's business and gave me a sort of warning look. Nothing happy about them. On the contrary, spooky. Maybe that tabby really was their baby? :confused:
 
It's true people were dumped in institutions if they were impaired, physically or mentally and even if their lifestyle was deemed 'offensive' (unmarried mothers etc.). I doubt anyone would find safety in an asylum other than an acceptance from their peers, most of the colonies and hospitals around that time were horrendous in regime and the so-called medical treatment of their inmates was inhuman. It would also be quite lucky for a deformed child to actually be allowed to live, as the most common practice would have been euthanasia if a deformity was apparent from the outset (pillow over the face- no one to know but the Midwife or the family) but I add not in all cases.

That being said I'm at a loss as to the original post. It sounds ULish to me, some genetic/chromosomal disorders can cause facial disfigurement but feathers? I think not.

Perhaps the 'feathers' relate to an impairment of the baby's arms, the baby did not have feathers but instead if it had fused fingers, 'flippers' instead of fully-formed arms, then perhaps uninformed people could have likened them to bird wings?

Perhaps even, Gloria X's post is more closer to the truth in this instance, it could be that it was an actual bird in the stroller- I'm no ornithologist but some Parrots grow quite big I believe.
 
Gloria X,

Yes, it is more understandable for dog maniacs to do such a thing.....in the same neighborhood I saw a tall guy in wild west clothes and beaver skins with two poodles wrapped up in designer vintage pucci scarves.

Also, people walking a cat like that is kind of scary and unusual, considering the more occult associations one can make with felines....
I would have been creeped out if I were you, no doubt!
 
When I kept ferrets I used to take them for a walk, got some funny looks mind!
 
Michael Watson said:
When I was a kid ,used to know a lady that worked in local Mental Home, as they were called then, she used to say that some patients were kept out of sight because they looked like various animals etc, how much truth in this I have no idea, but I never knew her to lie about anything!?.
Click to expand...

I've heard a very similar rumour about the Mental Hospital in Lancaster - A policeman who worked with my father had to visit it in the 1960's after a fire or break in (I don't know the details) and was very disturbed by some of the patients who looked like animals.
 
Hi,
Just wanted to mention that there's a form of dwarfism that makes the afflicted resemble a bird. Details are available here:

http://phreeque.tripod.com/koo-koo.html

Could explain some of the bird headed people reports maybe? Especially back in the day when they'd just throw anyone with a deformity in an asylum...
 
Quixote said:
It would also be quite lucky for a deformed child to actually be allowed to live, as the most common practice would have been euthanasia if a deformity was apparent from the outset (pillow over the face- no one to know but the Midwife or the family) but I add not in all cases.
Click to expand...

I worked with a woman who said that her aunt had gone to her grave convinced that the doctor attending her childs birth had killed the child. Apparently (and I suppose we are talking about the 1910's here) her child was born with an extreme amount of body hair, not just the sometimes heavy hair that new borns have but very thick, black hair, almost ape-like. The woman said that she heard her child cry before she blacked out from the pain but on coming round was told the child had been still-born. Whether or not the baby was killed or not in this instance it is certainly true euthanasis was practised by 'well-meaning' midwives.
 
Hi! Sorry to come in so late- I was directed by a later thread!
Regarding people resembling animals, or having horrific deformities in 'mental homes'; There is a book by James Herbert called 'The Others' that revolves around an institute like that. He describes some really horrible mutations, and just when you think it's all just made-up, on the last page he says that every one of the deformities he has mentioned have been taken from real medical case histories! It makes you wonder ............
:eek!!!!:
 
cheeky said:
Hi! Sorry to come in so late- I was directed by a later thread!
Regarding people resembling animals, or having horrific deformities in 'mental homes'; There is a book by James Herbert called 'The Others' that revolves around an institute like that. He describes some really horrible mutations, and just when you think it's all just made-up, on the last page he says that every one of the deformities he has mentioned have been taken from real medical case histories! It makes you wonder ............
:eek!!!!:
Click to expand...

I have been looking for that book here to no awail. Could you have some examples on the deformations described there? Thanks.
 
Onix said:
I have been looking for that book here to no awail. Could you have some examples on the deformations described there? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Here's the link to it on Amazon.co.uk, and here's part of a customer review:

"What however makes this book so different and so original, is the central character Nicholas Dismas; a man with such physical deformities, he resembles the elephant man. Quite a stark contrast to other "heros" who are 6ft tall, handsome and charming."
 
Sorry OT!
IIRC James Herbert links a karmic-type theory that his main character killed someone in an earlier life in a crime of passion (?) so when he was later reincarnated, he was born severely disabled. He is then redeemed by saving the 'Others' with similar disabilities and psychic powers.

I found the book uncomfortable to read- not because of content or imagery, but basically because it's another one of the 'Let's roll out the Freaks' type of thing. (which does have it's purpose in society, if it is educative or if it highlights disablity issues)

Having family members with impairments and having worked with people with severe and profound disabilities (such as Herbert writes about- but with NO psychic ability or superhuman ability to make up for the loss of other senses etc) I find that anyone (or even any culture) who can propose that the reason a person is missing important genetic material and chromosomes etc. is due to something they did in a past life, quite offensive IMHO.

'The Others' is also contradictory because on the one hand he makes his 'hero' a person with a disability, and IIRC then as a reward for saving the 'Others' he is given the chance to be reincarnated as a 'whole' man again (without disability). This reinforces a whole load of misconceptions towards people with impairments and their sense of self-worth.

That being said I'm still a Herbert fan, apart from that last book I read by him (Fairy story [?]) that was soooo crap.
 
I'm sorry you felt that way about The Others Quioxte. When I first read it a few years ago it sparked my curiosity in human deformities-maybe morbid, but i'm interested in the genetics that cause them, and embryonic development. I never really viewed the ending as you put it, but I just read the last few pages and realise that it is a bit unfair and can understand how the idea behind it would anger people. I have to re-read the whole thing again now, with more mature eyes! Agree about 'Once...' though, that really was pants!
 
Hmm.. it's that kind of thinking that got Glenn Hoddle sacked from his job as England manager iirc.. Distasteful stuff really, but hey, everyone's entitled to their own opinion :hmph:
 
Talking of Mr Hoddle, if his idea that we are punished in a later life for crimes comitted in an earlier life has any validity (personally I think it's a load of crap), then boy is he in trouble next time he's reincarnated - remember Diamond Lights anyone? :D
 
I watched a documentary the other night about children with progeria and thought of this post. Progeria is an awful disease which speeds the aging process and most who suffer from it die before age 13. The children afflicted with it have very distinct physical characteristics. They are exceptionally diminutive in size and very thin. The disease causes them to become completely bald. Their faces are gaunt which makes their eyes look unproportionately large. Their noses become hooked, looking rather beak like. It could be the baby discussed in this thread could have suffered from progeria
 
Doesn't one of our members come from Jersey? I think he's called Cat Simon - mebbe he knows something about such a story.

Carole
 
Anonymous said:
Hi,
Just wanted to mention that there's a form of dwarfism that makes the afflicted resemble a bird. Details are available here:
http://phreeque.tripod.com/koo-koo.html .
Click to expand...

The link is long dead. Here's the text, salvaged from the Wayback Machine ...

Minnie Woolsey, born in Georgia in 1880, was afflicted with a unique form of "bird-headed" dwarfism or nanocephaly. In addition to her unusual facial features, she was blind, mentally handicapped, toothless, and had only fine wisps of hair on her odd-shaped head. The story goes that she was rescued from a dismal life in a Georgia insane asylum by an enterprising showman, and began her showbiz career as "Minnie Ha-Ha", a play on North Carolina's Minnihaha Falls. "Minnie Ha-Ha" dressed in a phony American Indian costume and spoke jibberish to sideshow audiences.

By the time Minnie landed a role in Freaks in 1932, the sideshow world already had a "Koo Koo, the Bird Girl" - Betty Green - but this didn't stop Minnie's managers from dressing her in a feathery costume, too. Though she has no lines in Freaks, she made a lasting impression on moviegoers when she shimmied on the table during the wedding feast of Cleopatra the aerialist and Hans the dwarf. Thus it was Minnie who was best remembered as "Koo Koo", not Betty Green, although the two are frequently confused. Later, Minnie worked at Coney Island as "Koo Koo, the Blind Girl from Mars", where she confounded spectators by failing to respond to visual stimuli. Her blindness is just one of a host of symptoms that characterize some types of primordial dwarfism.

It's unknown exactly how long Minnie was with the circus or when she died, but some accounts claim she was still living (and was nearly run over by a car) in 1960, making her at least 80 years old.
Click to expand...

SALVAGED FROM: https://web.archive.org/web/20070127191137/http://phreeque.tripod.com:80/koo-koo.html
 
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