The luck of the Irish, may not actually be lucky. I never forgot my dad’s birthday (actually March 18th) because he was coincidentally named Patrick, even though his actual great grandmother was full-blooded Irish. I say coincidentally because he was adopted from The Salvation Army. His unwed mother had an affair with a married Danish immigrant, not yet a naturalized citizen. She had lost her mother at the age of 3 months. She had stubbornly refused to return to North Carolina with her father, sister and an abusive step-mother after visiting her aunt (the sister of her father) in La Jolla, California. She handled the pregnancy with the same self-resiliency that she handled everything life threw at her.
My ancestral line is this – Mary Jane was born in New York City in 1840. Mary’s parents were both born in Ireland – Robert (born 1808) and Mariah (born 1813) Davis were married in 1867. Mary had lots of brothers and sisters. Austin E and Mary J Hempstead had two children, Raphael Vandervort Hempstead (my dad’s grandfather) and Laura Eldridge Hempstead (my dad’s great aunt). Raphael was born January 28 1870 at Greenport New York. Laura was born 1873 at Oyster Bay New York. Austin E died in San Diego near his daughter Laura on May 18 1932 at the age of 90.
My dad feared what was behind his surrender to adoption. When my adoptee mom wanted to find her own mother, he cautioned her that it might be opening a can of worms. Sadly, my dad’s biological, genetic half-sister was living only 90 miles away from him in New Mexico when he died. PS – my dad LOVED to drink beer but not the green kind.
When I imagine my dad’s genetic biological mother, I think of her having an actual relationship with the man who, it is certain now, was his father. She did have a head shot photo of him and wrote his name and the word “boyfriend” on the back. She placed the image in her photo album next to a photo of her holding my dad. That actually did eventually reveal for me who my dad’s genetic biological father was. My DNA and his geographical proximity at the time proved it and none of his other genetic biological relatives were in the area. It does not appear that my Danish immigrant grandfather ever knew he was a father. Self-reliant woman that she was, she simply handled it by going to a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers in Ocean Beach California. Some month later, the Salvation Army hired her and transported my grandmother and baby dad to El Paso Texas. I don’t think she really wanted to give him up for adoption but I think she was strongly coerced just to do it. He was already 8 months old when his first adoption was finalized (he actually was adopted a second time and his name changed again, after his adoptive mother divorced the abusive alcoholic husband and remarried, a marriage that lasted until she died).
This morning, I have read two stories about one night stands that actually resulted in pregnancies. That got me to wondering . . . , other than my grandmother’s clear feelings that my dad’s married father was her “boyfriend”, I really can’t know all the details. Be careful out there having casual sex because it could happen to you if you are not careful.
One from LINK>Quora – I had a one night stand and she’s pregnant and wants to keep the baby. I have no desire to be with this woman. Does this mean I’ll have to pay child support?
The answer from a Relationship Counsellor – Yes, you are responsible for that child if it is yours. A paternity test is certainly highly recommended. You are under no obligation at all to enter into a relationship with the mother (actually, that would be a spectacularly bad idea!!) but you do have an obligation towards the human you created, who had no say in the matter.
You can draw the line at providing financial support only, but do think carefully about whether this is the kind of person you want to be. What will future partners think of you if you explain that you have a child that you pay child support for, but that you don’t have anything to do with because you don’t want it? If you have kids later in life what will they think of you when they find out they have a half sibling that their dad just abandoned? More importantly – What will you think of yourself? I understand that it is a horrible situation to find yourself in, but try to accept the reality of it as soon as possible and decide what kind of a man you want to be – then live like that man.
Going for mediation with the mother is a very good way to figure out a way forward, and how to co-parent, in a way that both of you can live with. Becoming a dad may not have been on your to-do list for the immediate future, but it doesn’t have to turn out badly. The one way to ensure you achieve the best outcome from this is to make sure that you have the most amicable relationship possible with the mother – this should actually be easier for you than for most divorced couples who have a lot of hurt and baggage.
If the mother is keeping the baby simply because she is against abortion, and not because she really wants to have a child or is in a position to raise one, try to talk to her about adoption. This would certainly be in the best interests of the child, and could give that child a loving home with parents whose biggest dream would be fulfilled by the child’s existence, instead of their worst nightmare. (blogger’s note – that advice is where I part company with this relationship counselor’s advice but it would be very common to receive that advice.)
If you don’t want to have children, please consider going for a vasectomy. This is the only option men have for taking control of whether they become dads or not, aside from never having vaginal intercourse. If you might want to have kids later, make sure to always use a condom, and talk to your sexual partners about their views on abortion and what they would expect should your liaison result in pregnancy. Too often men just leave it all up to the woman, assume that she is on birth control, assume that she will have an abortion if she falls pregnant, then they are horrified when they realize that they missed their ONE AND ONLY opportunity to influence whether they become parents through simple carelessness.
I do wish you the best of luck going forward. Sometimes a stupid mistake costs far more than it should, but such is life – I hope you can make the best of it.
I read another similar story in LINK>Slate – I Just Told My One-Night Stand I’m Pregnant. Then I Heard From His Wife. Apparently, I’m “baby-trapping.” (blogger’s note – I had never heard this term “baby-trapping” before.) A few months ago, I matched with a man on Tinder, “John,” who was in town on a work trip for a few days. We met for drinks, ended up sleeping together (with protection), and agreed that this wasn’t more than a one-time hookup. However, the condom must have failed because I very unexpectedly discovered I was pregnant.
She had several heartbreaking miscarriages and failed rounds of IVF and those experiences pushed her marriage to the breaking point and divorce. She was already at 14 weeks, twice as far as I had gotten when I’d miscarried in the past, and that the fetus was healthy. So, she is not unhappy this has finally happened for her. She writes – I decided to keep the baby. I have a house in an area with great schools, make more than enough to support a child, and will receive generous maternity leave. I already love my baby so much, and still can’t believe that this actually is happening.
Because she believed the man deserved to know, she tried to inform him but got an angry response from his wife. So, she replied to the wife – I truly did not know he was married and have no interest in keeping in touch after what was supposed to be a night of casual sex. I told her that this was a complete surprise to me, but that she needed to talk to her husband because he had gotten me pregnant, and while I was fine with him not being in the picture, he deserved to know. Her only response was to curse me out, accuse me of baby-trapping, and say that she wouldn’t be spending her money on my “bastard.” When I showed this conversation thread to my friends, they advised me to stop there and keep my baby away “from a cheater and a victim-blamer.”
A woman in my all things adoption group wrote – A few years ago, I found my genetic biological dad on Facebook. On a monthly basis I look at his page. His pictures. His families profiles. The last few years I have really wanted to reach out but it’s never felt like the right time. I hesitate because he is married and I have no idea if his wife knows about me.
Blogger’s note – This really tugs at my heart. Often when children are surrendered, the father is left out. My mom’s genetic biological parents were married but separated when my grandmother returned to Memphis at the tail end of a massive flood on the Mississippi River. After being exploited and coerced by Georgia Tann to surrender my mom, almost as an after-thought Tann’s lawyer suggested they better get my grandfather’ signature on the Surrender Papers too, so he couldn’t turn up later with a claim for the child. The only thing I’ve heard that he said about my grandmother was that she was so young. Compared to him, that was true. Same with my dad’s genetic biological parents (his parents never married because he already was a married man and never knew about the son he fathered). Old men seem forever attracted to young women. Sigh.
Looking for an image for this blog today, I came across the heartwarming story that the image here comes from. It was published in Good Housekeeping, May 10 2016, by Stephanie Booth. LINK>I Found My Dad After 33 Years of Searching. Katherine was adopted in Quebec Canada. On her original birth certificate, her biological father was listed as “Unknown,” but the certificate revealed the full name of her birth mother. Sadly, when she reached out hoping to meet the woman, she was told that her mother did not want to know her. “I could never be cold like my mother!” she says. “I had to find [where] the side of me that was caring and had a heart [came from]. I had to know what kind of person my dad was.”
Using a Family Tree DNA kit, Katherine sent her sample in. Just over two months, after mailing in the sample, Katherine was watching TV when her phone alerted her that she had a new e-mail. “I just knew,” she says. “I began sweating, and my heart was racing. When I opened the e-mail, it said I had a match.” It wasn’t her father but a female relative with the same surname as his. She fired off a note explaining that she was looking for her dad and sharing the bits of information she had. The reply came right away: That sounds like my uncle Casey. The two got on the phone and chatted, and Gerdi promised to reach out to her uncle.
Casey was already 82 years old and retired. He was living in Cape Coral Florida. Minutes after having talked with his niece, Casey sent Katherine an e-mail introducing himself. “He told me he loved me and signed it Your dad,” Katherine says. “That touched my heart. I felt like my life had come full circle.” “There was an immediate bond,” Katherine says. “It was a shock to both of us, but we felt connected. I had no problem calling him my dad. I’d waited for him since I was a teenager, for 33 years.”
“We have an adult father-daughter relationship. There’s no baggage, just respect. We enjoy each other. Not everyone gets a happy ending, but I got mine,” Katherine says. Casey says, “She’s a hell of a gal.”
Because I really do love trees, this image tugged at my heart. A new term for me – the Just-World Fallacy. It is often used to blame victims and excuse abusers.
In spiritual circles, one might hear re: adoption, “It was in your soul contract. You agreed to it.”
I am a spiritual person and I do have some belief in soul contracts but not as binding devices that eliminate free will choices and decisions.
Getting real – an infant can NOT consent to being adopted. Pre-birth? Who can really know ?
Generally, the responsible parties are the mother and the father. One or both may have been pressured or coerced, as in my mom’s adoption where Georgia Tann was involved. That is clear from information in my mom’s adoption file, which was given to me by the state of Tennessee as a descendant who’s parent was affected by Tann’s practices. My mom always thought she had been stolen. Politely, she would describe her adoption as having been inappropriate.
My dad’s father probably never even knew he was a father. He was a married man involved in an affair. My grandmother, the self-reliant person that she was, simply took care of her circumstance. She gave birth in a home for unwed mothers run by the Salvation Army and was subsequently hired by them and transferred from Ocean Beach, California to El Paso, Texas. The Salvation Army then took custody of my dad and adopted him out.
If my parents did have any kind of soul contract pre-birth, it was probably to meet and marry but it would take getting adopted to achieve that outcome or at least the way the situation played out in their real lives.
This leaves me definitely on the fence about whether their soul contract with one another included the necessity of getting adopted. Hmmm. I do know it seems like adoption was necessary for me to exist. So there’s that. Could it have happened another way ? I have to admit to that as well.
So back to that Just-World Fallacy. It is termed a fallacy because clearly in individual circumstances and events, justice is never a certainty. It is defined as a cognitive bias that assumes that “people get what they deserve” – that actions will necessarily have morally fair and fitting consequences. In spiritual circles, it could be termed cause and effect or even karma. “Just-World” has believers because people have a strong desire or need to believe that the world is an orderly, predictable, and just place. Related beliefs include – a belief in an unjust world, beliefs in immanent justice and ultimate justice, a hope for justice, and a belief in one’s ability to reduce injustice (which is what motivates any kind of activist and motivates my writing this blog).
In spirituality, we believe in a larger, broader view of how justice manifests. And always, we hope for an evolving and maturing humanity that rises above. I liked this graphic on empathy.
Being a domestic infant adoptee is hard enough but image that you met your biological mother but were told that you were a product of rape and that she wouldn’t go into any more detail about your biological father. This adoptee would rather know the truth than always wonder. Therefore, she asks what other adoptees have done when faced with a similar situation. Did they just let it go or bet a DNA test ? She admits that her biggest fear is that 50% of my DNA is monster and that now she has passed that on to her own children.
Some responses –
I wouldn’t condemn yourself for the crimes of your origin. There’s been several studies on the impact of nurture vs nature. The best way to deal with some things in life beyond our control is to just acknowledge them. You don’t need to accept it, you don’t need to approve it. Just know it and understand what that information means to you and what you will do with it essentially.
Another shared – A very dear friend was always told she was the product of incest. She did DNA testing for other reasons and has found a whole other family that never knew she existed. It’s been difficult for her to navigate but she is glad to be in reunification. The stories we hear about us form our ideas about the world and as the stories evolve sometimes our identities and the world we see changes too.
Then there was this – I’m an admin of a large adoptee only group, and this narrative is sadly not uncommon. Now, your mother may well have been abused, however many women are so heavily shamed that they were left with invent a story that makes what they did (have sex!!) appear more socially acceptable, to them and their (judgmental) family. It’s actually more common than imagined. That said, I’d highly recommend having a trusted therapist in place before exploring – to guard your mental health no matter the outcome. Personally, my mother won’t even say my father’s name. He was a major player. AND I have a relationship with his side of the family, which I value. Take your time.
Another adoptee admitted – My biological mom told me I am the result of rape also. And I’m inclined to believe her, because that’s a heavy burden to carry and I want to believe she wouldn’t lie about it. She did, however, give me his name and I found and spoke to him, and naturally his side of the story was very different than hers. I don’t know where in the middle of both of their stories the truth is, and that will probably eat at me for my entire life.
Then this one – While my mom didn’t say she was raped, she did tell me that my father was a pretty shitty human. They started dating when she was 15 and he was 21. Two years later she got pregnant, thought they were headed to get married, but instead got blind sided by him telling her that he was already married with an infant and a pregnant wife, and that he was also heading to prison for armed robbery. I did do DNA tests and found his side. He passed about a year before I found him. I’m still back and forth on whether I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him or if I’m relieved I don’t have to make that decision. I did find both of those siblings, along with another younger brother (yet another mom) and a bunch of nieces and nephews. As big of a surprise I was to them, they have all been wonderful and welcoming. I don’t know if this helps but I don’t regret finding all the answers.
Some more encouragement – It’s okay to feel like you deserve answers, because you do – even if the answers are uncomfortable or hard to hear her give you. DNA testing helped me find family and get a few more sides to my adoption story than the one I had initially. Your mother may absolutely be telling you the truth, and I’m absolutely not saying to doubt that. I’m also very much a “believe all women” type. But if you feel a nagging that there’s more to the story than you’re aware of, it’s okay to seek answers. Good luck.
More about the potential realities – My biological mom will not tell me any details, although I do believe her that it was rape now. It’s frustrating not to know details of who this person was, but it’s painful for her to talk about it and she said she will never tell me. I’ve done a DNA test, not specifically to find him, but I didn’t get any additional information by doing so. At the moment, I’m just letting it go.
With the arrival of March, came thoughts about my father. He was an adoptee, as was my mother. Like my mom, he never knew anything about his familial origins. When he died, he had a half-sister living only 90 miles away who could have told him so much about his birth mother. Sadly, he never wanted to know and counseled my mom not to go searching that it might be like opening a can of worms – fisherman that he was all of his life.
My dad was sociable and outgoing which had me reflecting on my dad’s own father – Rasmus Martin Hansen, who was born in Denmark and immigrated to the US in the 1920s. He was a married man having an affair at the time my dad’s mother conceived him. It does not appear that he ever knew he had a son and my dad was the only child he ever fathered (as far as is known LOL). What I know of him is that he was also outgoing and sociable. He was the dock master at a yacht club in San Diego until his untimely death from a heart attack while driving home. He had many celebrity friends who even came for his funeral.
So, my dad comes by his fisherman genes honestly by way of this other fisherman who was his father. My dad is also a Pisces (as was his father) and was born just a few steps away from the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. He just was as he was conceived and born to be. He passed away February 3 2016. I do miss him dearly.
While he could be a lot of fun as a father – gave me a dirt bike to ride when I was still a school girls and took us for rides in his dune buggy in the desert sandhills of El Paso Texas where we grew up – he could also be infuriating and at times when I was growing up, truly terrifying (while never laying a hand on us). Even so, though I did get angry at him and would give him a piece of my mind quite honestly on many occasions, it never diminished a deep love I had for him. After all, when my unwed teenage mother turned up pregnant with me – he did not abandon us.
His birthday is so close to St Patrick’s Day that I have never forgotten it and so he was given the middle name of Patrick when he was adopted (his birth name was Arthur Martin Hempstead – the first a family name, the middle his dad’s name and the surname, his unmarried mother’s surname). Interestingly, I have learned that my Grandfather Rasmus’ birthday is very close (March 10th) to my dad’s and so, I think of both of them with the arrival of March.
Approximately 46 years ago, my daughter ended up in the non-legally mandated custody of her father. When we divorced, I explained it to my 3 yr old daughter – you still have a mother who loves you and a father who loves you, we just aren’t going to be all living together again. As a bit of a feminist, I truly believed BOTH parents are important and I still believe that. As a mom, with what I have learned about in utero bonding, I do lean towards mothers in the early years more than it did then. I never intended for my ex-husband to raise our daughter. I didn’t leave her with him when I went in search of a method to make enough money to support the two of us. I left her with her paternal grandmother who had cared for her from 3 months of age while I went to work. But that is how she ended up being raised by her father and a step mother. Was it perfect ? No but I didn’t have a better option to offer her at that time either.
I recently donated to a legal fund through my all things adoption group for a birth father seeking custody of his soon to be born (may have already been born) child. His mother is assisting him. The birth mother has decided unilaterally to adopt out her baby to a wealthy couple and has cut off communication with the father. I just feel that a birth father with his mother’s support (much like my own daughter had) is better off there than with strangers who want to adopt her.
I had never heard of the Fathers’ Rights Movement before today. I know with my two sons how critical their father is in their lives as a genetic mirror for them. I am glad to be their mother and I know my nurturing of them matters. I am glad to have discovered, after feeling like a failure with my own daughter, that I am capable of being a “good enough” mother.
There has to be a good middle ground that supports the rights of BOTH parents. That is my view. My dad’s father likely never knew about his son. They would have been great fishing buddies. I don’t know what his reaction may have been had my paternal grandmother told him she was pregnant. He was married and as the self-reliant woman she was, she simply handled the situation.
So, I am simply sharing my new found knowledge of this organization for anyone who might need their support. The Fathers’ Rights Movement.
A friend commented on a music video I posted to Facebook inspired by today’s full moon, known as the Wolf Moon, this – Unfortunately, that song always reminds me of the woman who shot her kids to be with a married man. This song was said to be one of her favorites. Yikes !! Talk about unintended consequences . . .
It does appear that my friend was at least correct that a natural mother (not the first time as the news goes in general) shot her own children and then made up a story to cover for the deed – She claimed she was carjacked on a rural road near Springfield by a strange man who shot her and the children. Upon arrival at the hospital, the oldest child, Cheryl who was age 7, was already dead. The youngest, Danny age 3 was paralyzed from the waist down. The second child, Christie age 8 had suffered a disabling stroke. The mother had been shot in the left forearm.
In 1973, she had married a man she met in high school. Her first child was born in 1974. The next in 1976 and the youngest in 1979. However the couple divorced in 1980 because the husband suspected the youngest child was not his but the product of an extramarital affair of his wife’s. The prosecution argued that the mother had shot her children, so she could continue her affair with a married man who did not want children.
Sometimes, a parent really is not fit to raise their children. In prison, the woman was diagnosed with narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial personality disorders and labeled a “deviant sociopath”. And the judge intends that he dies not intend for the mother to ever be released from prison in her lifetime. The two surviving children went on to live with the lead prosecutor and his wife, who adopted them in 1986. Prior to her arrest, the mother became pregnant with a fourth child. She gave birth to a girl, who was seized by the State of Oregon and adopted. That girl has appeared on national television saying that she regards her mother as “a monster.”
And I never will know my grandfathers, or my grandmothers either, because they have all died. But I’ve seen photos and heard some stories which is more than I had for over 60 years of my life.
My mom wasn’t much inclined towards this man and showed no interest in these half-siblings. She only yearned for her mother who was already dead when she pushed the state of Tennessee to give her details as an adoptee (which they still denied her). I think my mom had a pre-birth and infant sense that her own mother felt abandoned by this man with good reason. The true reasons for their separation and why he didn’t come to her aid in Memphis, I’ll never know. I have this picture thanks to my cousin, the daughter of the younger girl in this photo.
An article in Severance magazine where the aftermath of separation is often detailed by those who have experienced it is shared caught my attention for it’s headline – The Grandfather I May Never Know. I still need to actually read it (and will before I finish this blog) but I would suspect from the headline, it is still possible for the author.
In her article, Bianca Butler writes – “As a young child, I didn’t know that my mother and her twin sister (now deceased) had been adopted in 1960. I found out in 2000, when, after nearly 40 years of silence, their biological mother wrote to the twins asking to reunite.”
She describes one outcome of their reunion – “By meeting her biological mother, my mother learned her biological father’s identity and that she and her twin are of mixed-race ancestry: African American and white. Their biological mother had been a young African American college student at the University of California, Berkeley when she relinquished her twin daughters for adoption. They were born in a time in the United States when interracial unions were not only taboo but also illegal (Loving V Virginia) and when young unwed women were shamed and stigmatized—a time known as the Baby Scoop Era, from 1945 to 1973, before Roe V Wade in 1973.”
Since the suspected father of the twins denied paternity, the author decided to get her DNA tested. She goes on to share that “The Ancestry DNA test confirmed that I’m 31% Norwegian and, through the DNA matches, that I’m related to his cousins. I sent him the DNA results, but he’s still in denial and, sadly, not open to a relationship.” She admits that – “Finding biological family and taking a DNA test can bring great joy and excitement, but it can also bring rejection and disappointment. . . . It can be very emotional opening up old generational wounds that still haven’t been healed. . . . some people don’t want to be found, especially when race and adoption are factors, and I’ve had to accept that reality. “
She adds a happier note – “On a positive note, through Ancestry DNA I was amazed to connect with a cousin on my mom’s paternal side who is close to my age and open to connecting. She moved to Sacramento from Minnesota last year for graduate school, and we plan to meet. From her own ancestry research, she was able to give me more information about our shared heritage and ancestral homeland in Fresvik, Norway, which, in addition to Oslo, I hope to visit.”
This happened for me as well (thanks to DNA testing). I have contact with a cousin in Denmark now. I have learned details about my paternal grandfather’s early life. I would love to travel to Denmark and visit the family there (who never knew my grandfather ever had any children, and he probably never knew either as he was a married man and my grandmother simply handled it quietly).
I do share this perspective with the article’s author – “As an adult, I’m doing the healing work to educate myself on intergenerational trauma, loss, and abandonment that happen through adoption.”
Vagabond, I think the man with the pipe in his mouth is my paternal grandfather.
Each of my parents was born with a meaningful name indicating family and personal relationships given to them by the woman who gave birth to them. In the kind of inside joke that only two adoptees could share, my dad sometimes called my mom by the name she was born under – Frances Irene.
It appears that the Frances may have come from a family that helped my grandmother when she first returned to Memphis with her two month old daughter. She probably had some connection to them before she gave birth to my mom in Virginia. When investigating my mom’s circumstances before adoption, Georgia Tann noted some vague family relationship between my grandmother and this family. I’ve been unable to track that back through Ancestry in order to prove it.
It appears my maternal grandmother was sent away from Tennessee to give birth by her father, after her lawfully wedded husband returned to Arkansas where his mother was caring for two daughters given him by his deceased first wife. Why he left her 4 mos pregnant or why he didn’t come back when informed she was in Memphis with the baby, I can never know though my heart yearns to.
Irene was the name of my maternal grandmother’s own mother who died when my grandmother was only 11 years old leaving her the woman of the house in charge of caring for her four siblings, two girls and two boys, the youngest only about a year old.
My mom’s name was changed to Julie Sue. My grandmother adopted a boy and then a girl through Georgia Tann and the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, Memphis branch. She stated in a letter to the society’s administrator that she wanted a Jill to go with her Jack. My mom’s adoptive brother was named John. So my adoptive grandmother was subtle about that heartfelt intention of hers when re-naming her children
When a person is adopted, their name is often changed by the couple that adopts them. Sometimes their date of birth and even the geographic location where they were born may be altered on the new birth certificate created for the adoptee showing the adoptive couple as their parents, as though these people gave birth to them.
It turned out the name my dad was given at birth was an important clue to his identity. My paternal grandmother named him Arthur Martin. Arthur was the man married to her aunt and she was working at their motel and restaurant at the beach in La Jolla California when she met my paternal grandfather. Unfortunately, he was also a married man. By the time she knew she was pregnant, she probably knew that marital status related to him as well. It appears he never knew he had a son.
Martin was the name of the man who fathered my dad. When I connected with a cousin who lives in Mexico, I discovered that she had my paternal grandmother’s photo albums (a real treasure trove of images). Next to a photo of my grandmother holding my dad in her lap, was the headshot of a man and she wrote his name, Martin Hansen, and boyfriend on the back.
My adoptive grandmother named my dad Thomas Patrick. The Thomas was the man she was married to when she adopted my dad. Since his birthday was only one day off from St Patrick’s Day (and that is why I never forgot his birthday), that may be the only reason for the Patrick part of his name.
However, she divorced that man and re-married and so my dad was adopted twice and his name changed again when he was already 8 years old to Gale Patrick – the Gale being her new husband’s name. It may not have been too confusing for him because he was called Pat all the years I knew him, at least.
In addition to the name changes, an adoptee is dropped into a family they were not born into but must “pretend” their whole lives they are related to. I’ve not cared all that much about names, though I like mine and now that I know about my original grandparents find a “family” connection because my paternal grandmother’s oldest sister was also named Deborah. She was hit and killed by a reckless teenage driver when she was only 3 years old.
Missing Mom 