Oh It's YOU??? My Birth Father

August, 2015

My biological half-sister Peggy, who lives in Louisiana, flew out to visit me in Portland, OR, where I live. We did plenty of the usual touristy things, and soon the conversation of just who was my birth father came up. She said that I must do the Ancestry.com DNA test so maybe we could find out. She's the family historian, and had urged her son, parents and sister to do the test too. We knew that Peggy and Susan, my two half-sisters, were the daughters of Irene, my birth mother, and her husband Larry. And we knew the story (from the previous post) that a man named Lowell, to whom Irene had been engaged in West Virginia, was my birth father. But we hadn't been successful in locating him, or the purported half-sibling that he fathered who would be just about my age. So, we were off on a mission!

On September 21, 2015, I received an email from Ancestry that my DNA results were in! I couldn't get to my computer fast enough. If you're familiar with Ancestry.com, you'll know that you can look up your DNA matches. The list starts with biological parents and children, then siblings, followed by close family and finally extended family. Of course, a person would have to have completed the Ancestry DNA test to be a part of this extensive data base. So, it's possible that I might not see my birth father at all if he hadn't done a DNA test.

I started scrolling down:

Irene S. 100% your mother - check!

Ralph S. 100% your father - who???

Justin L. 100% your child - check!

Susan S. 100% your sister - 100%??

Margaret S. 100% your sister - 100%??

Scott S. 100% your nephew - 100%??

In stunned silence, it finally dawned on me that Larry (who's formal first name was Ralph), Irene's husband and father of my two-half sisters, was, in fact, my biological father. Hands shaking, I reached out to my (now full!) sisters. Susan and Peggy agreed that Irene would be devastated by this news, so we agreed to keep it quiet. They said that she never would have given me up for adoption if she'd known.

My sister Susan wrote the following about a luncheon she attended with her parents sometime later:

"Dad had a cousin, Sam, that he was very close to. After Sam passed away, Mom and Dad made it a point to keep in touch with his wife, Beryl, who lived several hours away. Trips were made to visit each other once or twice a year. When these trips became too much, it made sense to meet halfway. By this time, Mom and Dad had given up driving and Beryl wouldn’t drive long distances, so it fell to me and Beryl and Sam’s oldest son Bud to transport our parents to lunch."

"It was at one of these lunches that Beryl mentioned that her daughter had taken a DNA test through Ancestry.com. A name popped up as a close relative that she had never heard of. It was Kate. Mom explained that she had a daughter who she had given up for adoption before she and Dad were married. After a bit, Beryl said that wouldn’t explain why Kate is showing up as a relative to our family. There were confused looks around the table and the topic of conversation quickly changed."

"My memory is a little fuzzy as to when I had the next conversation with Mom and Dad about Kate, whether it was on the way home or sometime later, but I confirmed what Beryl had left unsaid. The Ancestry DNA results showed Kate was Dad’s daughter too. Mom was distraught that she was going to have to call Kate to let her know. I told her Kate knew. Peggy knew. We had all talked about it and decided we weren’t going to say anything because it would be too upsetting. As it was, Dad got mad at Mom for not telling him sooner, but she insisted that she thought Kate’s father was Lowell."

We know from the date of photos taken of Larry that he visited Irene in West Virginia in March and May of 1956. I was born in December 1956. An early March visit would add up, wouldn't it? All three of us sisters have wondered why Mom (Irene) thought she was pregnant with Lowell’s baby when Larry's visit was so timely. So many unspoken, and unanswered questions. It was all so long ago, and we'll never know.

Irene called me several days after Susan's confirmation of this news. She had been shocked by the revelation but seemed really quite delighted to know that I was their eldest biological daughter. Her demeanor towards me shifted just a bit - or was that my imagination?

I've thought about this a lot since discovering that Larry was my biological father. Imagine, being engaged to a guy, then discovering that he has another woman in his life who is pregnant, so you break off the engagement. You discover that you're pregnant, get no response from the ex-fiancee. So, you decide to give your baby up for adoption because you know that she'll have a better life if you do. I wonder what your feelings are for the baby? Can you love it as much because it's the child of a man who broke your heart? We'll never know, really. But all of us sisters agree that Irene always acted out of love, and giving me up for adoption was one of the most loving things she could have done.

But the most wonderful thing about this situation is that I gained two full biological sisters in addition to my sisters and brother in my adoptive family. And I finally knew who my birth father was!

Larry (Ralph) - Charleston, West Virginia - May 1956