I am sure A LOT of you remember the story of Baby Jessica...
I know that I remember it quite well!?! I was 13 at the time -&- couldn't keep my eyes off of the TV during all the reporting of the horrific accident!?!
And, even a year or two later when they came out with a "Made for TV" movie reliving the ordeal - I was glued to that as well!?! Even to this day I still have that movie on VHS somewhere in my Mom's basement!?!
Well, Baby Jessica is now all grown-up...she turned 25 on Saturday -&- is married with a family of her own!?! And, now that she is 25 she has been given the Trust Fund monies that all the well wishers donated during her ordeal!?!
Here is a great article about all of that -&- some wonderful pictures as well!?!
Baby Jessica turns 25 and unlocks the $800,000 trust fund donated after her horrific ordeal stuck in a well in 1987
She became the biggest star on TV at just 18 months old.
Millions around the world watched and prayed for her safety as dozens of rescuers battled night and day to save Jessica McClure from inside an abandoned well.
During her 58-hour ordeal kind hearted viewers even donated money to help the little girl recover and as she turns 25 on Saturday she will unlock the $800,000 trust fund set up in her name.
Rescue: Jessica McClure became a worldwide star. Now a mother-of-two, she turns 25 on Saturday, unlocking the donations. She says she is proud of her scars and can't remember the ordeal
But as with all aspects of her life since those two-and-a-half days in 1987 Jessica is unlikely to let it faze her and she is believed to want to put the money towards a college fund for her two children.
She is now married to Daniel Morales and is a contented stay-at-home mother of two, looking after Simon, 4, and Sheyenne, 18 months, living less than two miles from the site which made her famous.
The windfall from her horrific ordeal will come at the same time her youngest hits the same age she was when all the world learned where Midland, Texas was.
Her father, Lewis ‘Chip’ McClure said: ‘That's all Jessica has ever wanted was to be a mom and have a family.
‘She's a good mom and keeps her eyes on her kids. She's certainly a doting mother.’
The mother has no memory of being wedged in the pipe or of the 15 operations that followed her ordeal, according to her father.
A scar from her hairline to the bridge of her nose is still visible where her head rubbed against the wall of the well.
Rescue operation: Scores of rescuers gather at the eight-inch opening to a well shaft on October 15, 1987, in Midland, Texas. Trapped, injured and alone, is 18-month-old Jessica McClure
Escape: rescuers encouraged her to sing songs during the October 16 1987 rescue
She also lost a toe to gangrene because one leg was pinned above her head in the underground shaft.
These days, she and her husband run a mobile car- and truck-washing business out of their home.
In October 1987, McClure and his wife, Reba ‘Cissy’ McClure, were poor teenagers struggling to make ends meet during the depths of the oil bust.
While visiting her sister, Jessica's mother left her in the yard while she went to answer the phone. Moments later, Jessica came upon the 8-inch well opening and fell inside.
Her plight captivated an immense television audience. Alone and 22 feet below ground, Baby Jessica sang about Winnie the Pooh.
It was ‘a nightmare that got worse and worse,’ recalled her father, now 42, who makes his living selling aircraft in Tyler.
When rescuers finally brought her to the surface, her head was bandaged.
She was covered with dirt and bruises, and her right palm was stuck to her face.
She made a miraculous recovery, helped along the way by her parents Reba 'Cissy' Porter, and her father Lewis 'Chip' McClure and became a national star. Below she met President George Bush Snr
A 1997 poll taken by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that coverage of Princess Diana's death earlier that year was rivalled only by Jessica's rescue in worldwide attention over the previous decade.
At the time of the accident, sympathetic strangers showered the family with teddy bears, home-made gifts, cards and cash.
McClure said his daughter has talked about first setting up trusts for her two children's college education. He said he's encouraged her to find a financial adviser.
‘We've talked about it quite a bit,’ McClure said. ‘That's going to be a challenge. It'd be a challenge to anyone. She's a very settled and down-to-earth girl. She'll be fine.’
Bank documents show the couple's home was purchased with help from the trust.
Carroll Thomas, Midland's mayor in 1987, said the city's reputation benefited from the rescue. Most people around the world had not heard of Midland back then.
‘They had a good feeling about Midland because they read about it and saw how hard we were working,’ he said. ‘It went on so long.’
About three years after the TV cameras left, Chip and Cissy divorced. Both have remarried. Jessica’s mother, now known as Cissy Porter, did not respond to a phone message.
Jessica is now happily married to Daniel Morales and is a stay-at-home mother to Simon, 4, and Sheyenne, 18-months. She received her high school diploma at Greenwood High School near Midland, Texas in 2004
Friends in high places: Despite the instant and international fame she could have embraced, Jessica - seen here with then president George Bush Snr in 1989 - has only spoken publically about the accident three times
Throughout Jessica's childhood, both parents worked to give her a normal life, her father has said.
In her later years of high school, she lived briefly with her father in Tyler. In 2004, she graduated from Greenwood High School, near Midland.
McClure said he and his ex-wife allowed their daughter to decide whether to talk to the media once she became old enough. She has spoken publicly just three times since the accident.
In 2002, she told Ladies Home Journal that talk of her ‘incident’ bored her, and she took pride in her scars.
‘I'm proud of them,’ she said. ‘I have them because I survived.’
In the same interview, she disclosed that she suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which was diagnosed just before she entered the 10th grade.
The ordeal ‘couldn't cage me then, why should it cage me now?’ she told NBC in June 2007.
Even the family doesn't talk about it when they're together, McClure said.
‘It seems a little surreal,’ he said. ‘In some ways, it seems familiar and recent. Other times, it seems like someone else a long time ago.’
Jessica's low-key personality has helped her adjust over the years, her father said.
‘She's not a center-of attention person,’ he said. ‘She just doesn't think a whole lot about it.’
Today I thankful for miracles - just because we don't see them doesn't mean that they are not happening all around us everyday!?!
