Finding the woman who abandoned this newborn baby on VJ Day was only the beginning of the story
Then... the unthinkable happened
Sixteen year-old newsboy Charles Spataro was watching the celebration, waiting to begin his shift at the nearby Park Street subway station when a woman - a stranger to him - asked if he would watch her baby while she performed an errand. She pressed two dollars into his hand and she promised to return shortly.
She never did.
During a week in which the most deadly and costly war in American history had finally ended, the story of the abandoned baby made the front page of several Boston papers. The timing of the baby’s abandonment was not lost on war-weary Americans, and several papers took to calling the boy “Little Mr. Victory” a nickname which endeared him to the hearts of Bostonians.
Neither the mother or father ever came forward, and the baby was placed in foster care. Adopted, he would later learn of his troubled beginning and search for his mother until his passing in 1987. One of his daughters would pick up the search. In 2008 she would, by chance, find David's Boston Globe article. Together, with the help of a genealogist, they would crack the case, and discover a surprising coda to the story.
Tina and David are currently working on the book. Interested agents and publishers are encouraged to contact them here.
