In Re the Adoption of Clark

UHLENHOPP, Justice.

The question here is whether a stepmother’s petition to adopt five children should be granted.

C. Walter Clark, Jr. and Margaret F. Clark were husband and wife. Mr. Clark is a teacher at Drake University. Within a space of six years, five children were born to them. The children ranged in age from three to nine years at the time the case was tried in May of 1969.

On the same faculty with Walter Clark was Truman Cross, who also was married. The Clarks had known the Crosses at another university where the two men were students. At Drake University, the two couples were together…