Who is James David Huff ???

October 10th, 1944 0620am, a baby boy is born.  Looking out the window, the waters of Presque Isle Bay and Lake Erie are only two blocks from Hamot Hospital.  The early morning sun has just begun to outline the old steamship dock and the distant penninsula.  Dorothy looks at the second of her illigetiment children.  Another bastard born into the world, his arrival would not even be mentioned, in the Times newspaper, with the respectable children born that day.

Such is the beginning of a story not told before. This is the story of the man you know as James David Huff.  Other than casual recording of his name, in the files of the United States Marine Corps, SSA, IRS, CIA and FBI, the child born that day and the man he became are never linked. 

The events, as they unfold, are real and happened as recorded.  No attempt has been made to paint a pretty picture, although there is beauty in this story.  No excuse is offered for the wrongs I have done or the people I have hurt, yet there is joy in much of the telling.  I am what I am,  "What you think of me is none of my bussiness".  Truth is a liberator and God's grace is sufficient.  With this disclaimer out of the way, let us begin.

Dorothy Diehl was born on January 28, 1922, daughter of Charles and Rose Diehl of Erie, Pennsylavania.  She was the youngest of eleven children.  Her mother, Rose Fields Diehl died on December 15, 1951, at the age of 72 years.  She was partially blind and the cause of her death was unknown.  Her father Charles had died in 1929, when she was only seven, and her mother was left to raise this large family.  Dorothy came from a poor family.  In her infancy she was placed in the Erie Infants Home as she was suffering from malnourishment and body sores.  At age two, she was hospitalized for abscesses on her neck.  She was very slow in learning to talk and she had speach difficulties thoughout school.  Dorthy was in special education classes and withdrew from school in 1938.  After age two, there was no record of any serious illness of any kind.  Dorothy was in good health during her pregnancies with both myself and my older half sister.

Because of Dorothy's limited intellectual ability, her mother was very protective of her.  Dorothy lived with her mother untill 1945.  Being good Catholics, neither my half sister, Nancy, nor myself were aborted. 

Nancy was born March 31, 1943 and like myself, her father was "unknown".  Nancy was considered to be very slow in developement and was subsequently adopted by a family in Sarasota, FL.  I have two pictures of her and will add them to this page.  Her first communion and her engagement are the only images I have of her.  I don't think she knew she was adopted and I deliberatly never contacted her for that reason.

When I was two months old Dorthy left me with an elderly lady named Catherine Huff.  The idea was to pay Mrs. Huff to take care of me and eventually return me to her.  However, shortly after that Dorothy "disappeared" never to be heard from again.

Mrs Huff was taking care of her bedridden husband, Arlen, a victim of a serious stroke.  Taking me in was to help provide some income.  Instead, I became an instant liability.  Being such a beautiful baby and Mrs. Huff being such a loving person, rather than "giving me up" to the Erie County Institution District, she fought to keep me.  She will ever remain the first blessing in my life and became my "real" mother.

(cntd)