A discussion in an adoptee’s group caught my attention yesterday but it wasn’t the first time I have pondered this coincidence (which I don’t actually believe is one).
A woman noted that on her first Christmas in her new adoptive home she was given a doll. She named her doll Carol. Decades later she learned her natural mother’s name was Carol. Her adoptive family said it was only a coincidence because she was so very young could not have known. The good ol’ blank slate theory.
My mom died never knowing her natural mother’s name (she only knew her parents were Mr & Mrs J C Moore which hardly told us anything at all !). My husband and I have theorized that she named my sister LOU Anne because she had heard her mother’s name while in the womb since we know that fetuses in the womb can hear.
My grandmother signed her name on my mom’s original birth certificate “Lizzie Lou” and in letters to Georgia Tann after losing my mom to that master manipulator and in a divorce from my mom’s natural father, her first name is listed as Elizabeth.
However, imagine my wonder in coming into contact with my mom’s cousins (the children of my grandmother’s youngest brother) and hearing them refer to my grandmother as Aunt Lou !!
Not only that but the first time I saw a photo of my grandmother I thought she looked a lot like my sister Louanne. I believe.
Missing Mom 