Uncovering the Mystery: Finding My Birthmother Irene - Part 1
Updated: May 19, 2024
I'm going to skip ahead quite a few years because I want to share with you the story of my search for Irene, my birthmother. It's a bit of a long story, so I'll share it in several posts.
I remember at quite a young age wondering who my "real" mother was. Perhaps the Queen of a country...then I could be a princess. Or someone famous like an actor, artist or writer? I had an innate need to find her...much like the arduous journey of salmon swimming upstream. I literally could not follow another course.
Many adoptees feel the way that I did, and still do at times - a sense of not belonging.. to a family, or a place or country. I felt a desperate longing to be connected. I was always looking - in crowds, restaurants, stores...."Could these people belong to me?" One time an older couple came up to me in a restaurant and said that I looked so much like their daughter that we could have been twins. I wanted to scream..."Am I your daughter?" But after a short conversation there didn't seem to be any possible connection. Somewhere my birthfamily existed, one with a history and ancestors. I wanted ancestors so badly.
My desire to search had nothing to do with my adoptive family, or trying to find replacements for them. I searched because I wanted to know where I came from, and most importantly, to thank the woman who gave me life, and then had given me to my parents.
The process of searching began when I became pregnant with my son in 1982. I was faced with the reality that I was dropped into a cold winter's day in 1956 and literally had no blood family ties or medical history. My (adopted) mother had told me a story about my brother Sam insisting that she drive him to the adoption agency in Vermont so that he could learn more about his birth mother. So with some trepidation, I mailed The Elizabeth Lund Home in Burlington, VT asking for information. I soon I received a letter from the Home with my non-identifying information. (Meaning that there was no information that I could use to identify my birthparents.) This letter became the most important document in the world to me at the time - it was the only proof I had that I had a history at all.
Fascinating! I am enjoying every installment of your story, Kate. I never met my father, and my mother refused ever to tell me anything about him except his name. Like you, I had many fantasies, but much less to go on than you got in this letter. I remember that my desire to know something about him increased when I was pregnant. I was unsuccessful in learning about him till more than a decade after he had died. I am reading this story with attention and appreciation for your telling.
Ahhhh! I laughed at the part were Irene is described as very "fair with pointed features" because that is me too! Uncle Dave and Auntie Bert (did you get to meet them or had they passed already?) use to say "she looks just like Irene" about me...I have such curiosity about Irene and my father's time with Anne....I know she was a most unpleasant woman and "unadopted " my father and he was sent to join the navy at 16...he would not talk about this time and if ever the conversation turned to Anne (by his brothers ) he would walk out of the room.