Baby’s Cry Is Same in War, Peace : Abandonment: The wail of an infant left beside a dumpster echoes that of homeless waifs of wartime Tokyo. So community, police, hospital come to the rescue.

The wail of an abandoned baby startled an Anaheim florist Monday, summoning up terrifying memories: images of her home country aflame and of children wandering darkened streets, crying for their parents.

So when she heard that a baby was crying next to the dumpster behind her flower shop, she quickly offered a hand.

“I was in Tokyo during the war,” said Betty, a Japanese native who asked that her full name not be used. “When Tokyo was bombed, there were little babies everywhere. We had to care for them because their parents were dead. . . . The parents would get killed, and we’d help the children.”

Betty brought the baby inside her shop and summoned police. They arrived quickly and turned the boy over to paramedics, who rushed him to the Humana Hospital-West Anaheim. After a peaceful night with no more than the usual crying, the infant rested Tuesday afternoon in the newborn nursery, napping serenely, surrounded by doting hospital staff.

“He was cold when he got here, but he was fine otherwise,” said Karen Blake, head nurse in the hospital’s newborn nursery. The boy is eating about every four hours, Blake added, normal for a young infant.

And after fewer than 24 hours in residence, the infant already has become the center of attention at the Anaheim hospital. The switchboard has been peppered with offers of help, and hospital workers are stopping at the nursery door.

“All the employees are coming by,” Blake said. “In 19 years of working newborn nursery I’ve never had one of these. I’ve read about them in the paper, but I’ve never actually had one.”

Other hospital officials were equally smitten. Several have suggested names for the baby, although the staff has yet to settle on one.

Mardi Coker, a public relations officer at the hospital, referred several times to the infant as “a cute little guy” and said staffers had rallied to his plight. “Everybody’s become sort of attached to him already,” she said.

The next stop for the infant is not clear. If his mother does not turn up shortly, he will become a ward of the county and would then be transferred to a county facility as soon as a bed becomes available.

Hospital officials do not know how long they will be asked to care for the child but said they will happily do their part while police and social service workers search both for the mother and an alternative home, should one be needed.

“Believe me, that little baby is getting the best care around,” Coker said. “We’ll look after him.”

Police could offer no predictions on how long it might take to find the mother. The dumpster sits behind a small corner mall, across the street from rows of apartments. Shop owners and mall patrons heard the crying Monday but said they did not see the person or people who discarded the bundle with the child inside.

Abandoned infants are a rarity in Anaheim. Mothers turn up about one-third of the time, said Sgt. John Kolbo, who is supervising the case.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing more to report for the moment,” Kolbo said late Tuesday.

That does not bode well for a happy ending to the story of the boy’s first days of life. Although detectives may find the mother themselves, all parties agreed that the boy’s best chances for a reunited family lie in his mother coming forward.

If she turns herself in, the mother would likely face a charge of child abandonment, police said. That charge can register as either a felony or a misdemeanor, depending on the circumstances surrounding it.

While police search, the infant is winning a legion of adult admirers. Betty, who was 17 and just entering college when American bombs rained on Tokyo, said the day-old baby reminds her of Japanese babies from another generation. Like the wartime Japanese infants, this boy also cried with hunger and cold, and he too was swaddled in nothing more than a thin blanket and paper bag.

He was dabbed with blood but not bleeding, she added. And although he was so young that his umbilical cord was still untied, the boy was clean and yelled loudly, convincing Betty and others who looked on, that he is healthy.

“He was chewing his hand and crying, crying real loud, like a good little baby,” she said.