Arranges Marriages For Unmarried Mothers

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30956, 12 January 1966, Page 2

Arranges Marriages For Unmarried Mothers

[By SUSAN VAUGHAN] Stella Groschel operates one of the most unusual marriage bureaux in the world. She arranges matches for unmarried mothers. Official social workers have condemned Mrs Groschel’s unorthodox approach to an age-old problem. Most of them favour schemes providing I special flat accommodation for 'groups of unmarried mothers. But Mrs Groschel, a mother herself, disagrees with this method, which she feels produces “ghettos” instead of helping the girls involved to take a normal place in society. She works from her home in Lincoln, England, where, she lives with her engineer husband. So far, she has!

found husbands for 28 single girls with babies. Some of her successes are impressive. One young man who applied at the bureau was asked if he would be prepared to meet an unmarried mother. He said he was—and three months later he became the father of a child which he knew was not his. The first point Mrs Groschel stresses to girls who come to her is: come to terms with the situation. “Most of them think no man wants to know them—let alone enter into marriage with them. ‘They have to learn how important it is to be patient I stress to them that they must take their time, and not just grab the first man to come along and cling toi I him.” One 20-year-old girl who|

was literally left holding the baby became “very depressed” and eventually stopped going out with boys. Marriage, to her, seehied far away.

The boy she was introduced to at the agency, a long-dis-tance lorry driver, plans to marry her next month. “So far as I’m concerned, her child is my son. I will adopt the baby after we are married,” he says.

More and more girls are coming to Mrs Groschel to see if she can solve the unmarried mother's biggest problem and help them start afresh.

She has trodden on a few orthodox toes with her unusual methods. But, she says: This is the only positive and human way to face this growing problem.”