The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 22

THE SUNDAY OKLAHOMAN Section A 22 December 1, 1996 What Became of Baby Mary Agnes Gross? Thomas' claims. She and her family dispute other parts of Thomas' story and say the marker that went up for Pamela was put up in 1989, not three years ago. i And so the mystery lingers. "All I want is the truth," Thomas said. "I want to know where my daughter la's but was misplaced when it was put in, Thomas said.

Once the Dickey headstone went up, she was convinced that only the Dickey baby was buried there, she said. Checking birth and death records, she found inconsistencies. No cemetery records exist for either child. Hospital records said Mary was healthy at birth, while the death certificate said she didn't breathe at all. Mary's birth certificate said she was born at 6:23 p.m.; a doctor's note on the death certificate said she died at 6:20 p.m.

Pamela's mother, Margaret Dickey, now 76 and living in Worthington, won't comment on some of riir. ''llflffl'fl'fl'flH iKlr'l-i 3liBBHBBfll BBBBBBBHBB ''l; jPLwflVflBflBflBflH IBYBYBYflYsYflYfl wBbBI BKfc-'py is. note was attached. But in the photo was a baby who resembled Thomas' husband. "I figure it was probably from people who adopted her (Mary) and wanted to show me that the baby was in their family," she said.

Thomas later remarried, moved to Washington state and California, had three sons and divorced again. She moved to Sioux Falls in 1971 to raise her boys. Three years ago, she walked into Heide-priem's office looking for help after she spotted a headstone at her daughter's grave. The stone was for Pamela Rae Dickey, who was born prematurely the same day in the same hospital but died from lung failure a few hours after Mary. Dickey's mother, Margaret, also lived in Bigelow.

Mary's headstone is a few feet from Pame "It's probably going to be unanswerable," Randall said. "What we have here is a pile of dirt." Thomas was 20 when she had her baby at the Worthington hospital in 1962. She was separated from her husband and living with her mother in the small town of Bigelow, 10 miles south of Worthington near the Iowa border. "Just before she was born, they put me to sleep," Thomas said in an interview. "And then I remember waking up, and I was straight on my back on the delivery-room table.

I looked up, and I recognized the doctor. He was right next to me. And then I saw the baby's feet. Then I drifted back to sleep. When I came out again, I remembered seeing those feet." She said she told the nurse she wanted to see her baby.

"Just then, the doctor came into the room and said, 'Your baby I will always remember that hurt. He said she had lived only an hour. He never said how my baby died," she said. Thomas said her daughter had dark hair and a mark on her forehead from forceps that were used during delivery. But a friend who saw the baby at the funeral home Thomas did not attend the funeral because she was still in the hospital told Thomas that the girl she saw had blond hair and no mark on her head.

"I questioned it over and over and over again," Thomas said. "It never made sense." Three months after the baby's death, someone mailed Thomas an envelope with a family portrait inside. She didn't recognize the family; no Baume Mercier GENEVE SUA Photo by UIH.Qth Brlnkmsn 'Veterinarian Dr. Boyd Bien uses a microscope So search for embryos he Just flushed out of a ftonor cow. Atlantis Water-resistant By Richard Meryhew Minneapolls-St.

Paul Star Tribune WORTHINGTON, MINN. For 34 years, Marlys Thomas has wondered: What became of my baby girl? Did she die, as her doctor said, an hour after her birth in June 1962? And if so, was she buried next to a pine tree at St. Mary's Cemetery, where her headstone lies? Thomas of Sioux Falls, S.D., is skeptical. She believes that the daughter she saw for only a moment may still be alive, yet her scrutiny of hospital and cemetery records has failed to turn up a definitive answer. So it was that the 54-year-old woman stood shivering in a bitter November wind on a recent morning as two plumbers chipped away at the frozen turf where her daughter, Mary Agnes Gross, supposedly was buried.

"She came today expecting some closure," said Scott Hei-depriem, her attorney. Instead, the mystery lingers. Wood chips possible coffin remains were unearthed, but no evidence of skeletal remains was found. The dirt will be taken to a lab to be scrutinized. DNA testing also may be done.

Brad Randall, a forensic pathologist from Sioux Falls who examined the findings, said it is possible that any human remains decomposed. If so, the world may never know whether Thomas' baby was buried there. Science Boosting Aunt Bertha's Fruit Cake Have You Worried About Extra Pounds? From the 14 Karat Gold Classiques Collection for men. Masterfully crafted with precision Swiss quartz movement, scratch-resistant synthetic sapphire crystal and leather strap. This year can be different.

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Boyd Bien hung an IV filled with saline solution on a pitchfork as he prepared to go to work. He hoped the cow in front of him was pregnant with more than one fertilized egg. The Texas veterinarian talked about epidurals, fertility drugs and embryos as if he were teaching would-be mothers what to expect during pregnancy and childbirth. He was explaining the terms not to mothers but to a class of interested animal science students at Cameron University. The would-be mother was a cow about to donate the embryos growing inside her to surrogate cows who would carry her offspring to term.

The embryo transfer Bien demonstrated has been a part of the pure-bred cattle industry for the last 17 or 18 years. It allows a cow, selected for her potential to have high-quality offspring, to produce more than one calf per year. People like Bien who are trained in the process give the cows drugs, inseminate them and expect that the cow in seven days has more than one embryo to donate. Those embryos then are transferred to the surrogate cows. Bien's demonstration marked the first time Cameron brought the technique, directly into the classroom to show students just how much technology is involved in agriculture.

Cameron officials also encouraged people from high school students to experienced farmers, like Lawton rancher Dennis Hickerson, to learn more about the procedure. "It's not research," said Dr. Al Bennett, chairman of Cameron's agriculture department. "We're using relatively front-line technology to accomplish some purposes with regard to our cow herd." The procedure the Cameron students learned about is only one of the recent developments to improve the cattle industry, animal science experts said. Bien told Cameron students scientists can take the cow's embryos and split them into two or more embryos, which is cloning, he said.

They also can determine the sex of the embryo when it is just a few days old. Neither practice is cost-effective yet, Bien said. However, he said splitting embryos in two has met with some success, and he is doing more of it at cattle operations. But genetics research may have the most potential to improve the cattle industry, said Dr. Glenn Selk, an extension animal reproduction specialist at Oklahoma State University.

Researchers are currently mapping bovine genes to determine which DNA causes which traits. From there, they hope to be able to select those traits to improve the meat a cow produces, Selk said. "If we can identify genetic markers and therefore particular animals that can pass those down to their offspring, then they're going to become in very hot demand," Selk said. During a recent demonstration at Cameron, Bien showed the students how he uses the saline solution in the IV to flush the embryos through a rubber tube out of a pregnant cow's womb and into a jar. Bien said he travels through several states to perform the procedure through his company, BovaGen, of San Antonio.

BovaGen recently opened a location in Miami, OK, so ranchers can bring their cows there. The donor cow at Cameron didn't feel pain because she was given an epidural, Bien said. After the procedure, a technician then meticulously searched for the embryos under a microscope, showing them to students on video when he found them. The first donor cow produced six, which were then transferred to other cows. In as scon as 60 days, the first cow could be ready to donate again.

The most embryos ever collected was 95, but only 35 were viable, Bien said. The most viable Healthcare Oklahoma Has Another Reason For Federal Employees To Smile. When it comes to health care coverage, Oklahomans want convenience, affordability, and choice. And at Healthcare Oklahoma, we think you deserve all three. With dental coverage for no additional premium.

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(Another) gave us 15." The technique is used only on pure-bred cattle ranches because of the cost involved, Glenn said. Pure-bred cattle ranches raise cattle to ensure continuing genetic diversity for the rest of the cattle world. Ranchers sell their cows and bulls to commercial ranchers for breeding purposes. 3030 N.W. Expressway Suite 140 Oklahoma City, OK 73112.