Recent posts concerning adoptions in the Quaker community prompt me to post this query. My great grandmother, Florence A. Beeson, (born 1874, in Indiana or Ohio, died in the mid-1930s in Kansas City, MO) who married Thomas Jay Cook of Carmel, Indiana, was adopted when she was under the age of four or five by Silas Beeson and Sarah Roberts Beeson. The Beesons raised or adopted at least three other children at various times: Luther A. Johnson, who later took the name Beeson, Mary Iske or Ishe, and Orpha Beeson. Florence first appears in the 1880 census at age 6, living with the Beesons and Orpha in Liberty Twp, Hendricks County, IN. She has the surname Beeson and is listed as "daughter" (as is Orpha). A photocopy of a letter now in the Earlham Quaker Collection, written in 1904 by her husband, Thomas Cook, mentions that she had lived for a time in an orphanage in Richmond. The orphanage was turned into a boarding house or rental property by 1904 and the four T. J. Cooks were now living in an apartment there. A handwritten family tree of one branch of the Quaker Cook family lists Florence's actual surname as "Irwin" or "Irvin." Other than that I know nothing about her origins. If anyone knows a likely "Irwin" or "Irvin" who may have left an orphan daughter around 1874-1879, or if anyone knows of a list of orphans living in a Richmond orphanage (there were several) between 1874-1879, would you kindly post here? Any leads appreciated. Tom Miller (Thomas Cook Miller)