Mae Hepple Scott, who retained her independence despite cerebral palsy and the need for a wheelchair amid a life of seemingly endless struggles, died in her sleep May 16 in her Bolton Hill apartment. She was 33.
"There's something inside me that won't let me quit, that keeps driving me to continue," Mrs. Scott said early last year, when she was profiled in a Sun article. "I just want to let people know that no matter how bad your life seems to be, there's a reason to go on.
"Life is worth living."
Born in Hampton, Va., one of five children of an alcoholic father and a mother who was institutionalized for mental illness, the former Mae Harrison was removed from her home by social services officials when she was 3 months old.
Her siblings experienced a similar fate, and they were passed from orphanage to orphanage and foster home to foster home.
Mrs. Scott was brought as a young child to the Brooklyn section of Baltimore by her foster mother, who has since died. She attended William S. Baer School.
She was married at 18, and in 1983 gave birth to a daughter, Pamila. A year later, she left the troubled marriage. She later lived with another man, by whom she had a second daughter, Coley, about 1991. Shortly before that birth, Mrs. Scott learned -- she had the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome -- contracted from Coley's drug-abusing father, who has since died.
Realizing that caring for her daughters would become increasingly difficult, Mrs. Scott agreed to give up her children. One has been adopted by a Philadelphia attorney, and the other is in foster care.
Despite it all, late in her life Mrs. Scott embraced her words that life is worth living -- early last year falling in love with and marrying Lewis Scott, who loved and was kind to her, according to friends and relatives.
And last June, she was reunited with her own family. Mrs. Scott's mother, who was living in Hampton, received a letter from Social Security revealing her daughter Mae's whereabouts in Baltimore.
"Mae spent most of her life thinking that she wasn't wanted, and we had spent 30 years trying to find her," said sister Connie Eanes of Hampton.
"She had been an infant when she was taken away and had no idea we existed until the letter arrived and we were able to establish contact with her," she said.
"We planned a family reunion for the next month when Mae got sick, and then our mother got sick and died. The first time we saw Mae was when friends brought her from Baltimore to Hampton for the funeral," Mrs. Eanes said.
Mrs. Scott was reunited with a brother and two sisters she had never known (another brother's whereabouts are unknown).
"We spent five days together and at Thanksgiving went to our brother's house in Georgia," said Mrs. Eanes, who owns a cleaning business and is married with two children.
"When we came to Baltimore, she showed us around the Inner Harbor. I mean, she had so much spunk and energy that she wore me out," Mrs. Eanes said.
"She was a person of normal intellectual capacity but had major physical disabilities," said Pat Halle, a longtime advocate and friend of Mrs. Scott's.
"However, Mae wasn't a person who wanted pity. Her courage, fierce independent nature, sense of humor, and warmth and her outstanding attitude toward life was very enriching to anyone who knew her. It's a story of a life and what life can hold," she said.
A memorial service will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Bolton Hill North, 1600 W. Mount Royal Ave., Baltimore.
In addition to her husband, two daughters and sister, survivors include her brother, Michael Harrison of Kenesaw, Ga.; and another sister, Janice Ballew of Jacksonville, Fla.; and several nieces and nephews.
Pub Date: 5/25/97
