Babe Found in a Picnic Basket
The Pittsburgh Press, July 30, 1929, page 1
Today, we remember the birthdate of long-time Trafford resident Leonard “Lenny” Pokriva, formerly Pokrzywinski, July 29, 1929. For a brief period of his life, he was known as Robert Edward Kennywood, named after the Kennywood police officer who would deliver him to the foundling asylum located in the Hill District after he was left in a basket by his birth mother at the Kennywood picnic grove. His entry into this world made front page news for the Pittsburgh Press, the story later followed up by Press reporter Ruth Ayers not long after he was adopted by the Pokrzywinski family. Lenny passed away in January 2021 at the age of 91.
The following is the article written by Ayers in November 1931.
Orphans of the Storm No. 6 - “Picknickers Find Waif in Lunch Basket”
Merry-go-round music filled the air at Kennywood Park on a July afternoon in 1929. Barkers called out their wares in honeyed voices. Shotguns popped in the alley side-shows. Above the clamor, a group of Bridgeville picnickers who had spread their luncheon on tables under the maple trees heard another sound the battle cry of an infant calling for his supper, too. Men and women dropped their sandwiches and paper salad plates to investigate.
Basket Yields Boy
They found a chip basket not unlike the ones in which they had brought their own contributions to the picnic spread under a nearby table. In it was a baby boy later named Robert Edward Kennywood. Two and a half years have elapsed since then and the waif is now at the run-about age, able to talk and walk and laugh. He has a head of flaxen curls eyes as blue as the July skies of the day he was forsaken and chubby cheeks that dimple when he smiles. The baby has been adopted by a family where there is one little daughter, to whom the Kennywood foundling will be a brother.
Wrapped in Blanket
On the day he was found, Robert Edward Kennywood was wrapped in a cheap cotton blanket. It was without an identification mark. There was no note in the basket to link up the baby boy's identity. He could not have been more of a mystery if the stork had flown over the picnic grounds and left him there. The Bridgeville delegation brought the baby back to their table. Someone heated a cup of milk over a canned heat burner and fed it to young Master Kennywood, spoonful by spoonful. Officer Robert Kennelley responded to the picnickers' call and arranged for the baby to be taken to Roselia Home. It wasn't long before he was on his way to a warm bottle and a comfortable crib but somehow the picnic which had started out so gaily with the Bridgeville group fell short of expectations.
Crowd Loses Gaiety
The sandwiches were not so tasty - salads turned flat - coffee cooled. A week later, records show, a couple visited Roselia and asked to see Robert Edward Kennywood. They asked if they might give him a home. When a year was up, they filed papers for adoption. The baby is theirs now, quite as much as if it had been born to them rather than found in a picnic basket. Authorities never could learn who came into the Kennywood grounds swinging the lunch basket on an arm quite as any other guest at an outing. Perhaps it was the mother who believed the hearts of holiday crowds would be touched by the pathos of a lonely little boy. If so, she guessed right, and Robert Edward Kennywood need never know anything about it.
