Tag: Newark NJ

But Where Is Jill?

Back when I was working through my own genetic identity puzzle (both adoptee parents died without knowing anything much about their origins), I read this book – The Foundling – which is the story of how Jack Rosenthal became Paul Joseph Fronczak. I was reminded of his story today by a friend.

The title of today’s blog was inspired by his own website LINK>Help Find Jill and the search he has still not completed – to find his twin sister Jill. I searched my blogs here to see if I ever wrote about his story but didn’t find anything – so today I thought I would highlight it.

Paul prefers to go by Jack these days but true to his complex identity, he will still refer to himself as Paul on the website. At Help Find Jill he notes – “I recently filed a missing person’s report for Jill with the Atlantic City Police Department, and I also commissioned a forensic artist named Natalie Murry to create age progression images of what Jill might look like today. The images are above, both smiling and not smiling, blond and brunette.” You can see those images at the link above.

At LINK>DNA Angels, I read – “. . . the man who grew up Paul Joseph Fronczak was actually Jack Rosenthal. One half of a set of twins that disappeared quietly and mysteriously from Atlantic City, NJ. Jack has a twin sister, Jill. But if Jack turned up in Newark, where did Jill end up?” So many questions still unresolved, so much time and energy spent on the searching, leaving Jack to wonder, “is the search worth all the pain.”

He writes – “I am hoping that someone, somewhere, will see something in these images that sparks a distant memory, and possibly leads me to the truth about what happened to Jill. The facts are few. Jill and I were born on October 27, 1963, in an Atlantic City hospital. Our parents were named Gilbert and Marie Rosenthal—they have both passed on.”

“Then, in 1965, when I was not quite two years old, I was found abandoned in a stroller in front of a department store in Newark, New Jersey. I was wearing a new blue suit, and I had a cold. A year later, I was thought to be the same infant who was kidnapped from his parents in Chicago in 1964, and police handed me over to that family—the Fronczaks.”

“I have not been able to learn what happened to my sister, Jill, at the time that I was abandoned. There was no record of her being missing, and no information about her since. It is almost as if she never existed. But she did. I have her birth certificate. I’ve spoken with people who met her when she and I were with the Rosenthals. Many different people remember her existing.”

Paul(Jack) is asking anyone who might know anything about Jill, or this case, or the Rosenthals, to please step forward and contact him through his website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact him. He notes – “I’ve always believed that Jill is still alive and out there somewhere. And I’m not going to stop searching for her until I learn the truth, no matter how long that takes.” 

blogger’s note – His story continues to resonate with me. I am a Gemini and so the idea of twins has always appealed to something deep in me. Also, when my mom’s adoptive mother was working with Georgia Tann to adopt my mom, she wrote that she wanted a “Jill” to go with her “Jack.” My mom’s adoptive brother was named John. My mom’s adoptive parents named her Julie. “Jack and Jill.”

From LINK>Wikipedia – The phrase “Jack and Jill” existed earlier in England to indicate a boy and girl as a generic pair. It is so used, for example, in the proverb “Every Jack (shall/must) have his Jill.” There are references in two plays by William Shakespeare dating from the 1590s.

Ray Liotta and Adoption

I don’t remember him actually making any kind of strong impression on me but I did see the movie “GoodFellas” back in 2020 (thanks to Netflix keeping track of these things for me).

It is interesting how ideas for this blog come to me. This one was from a short acknowledgement in Time magazine about the man’s recent passing. Something about his adoptive mother dying during the filming.

I thought, so another adoption story. It never ceases to amaze me how many people in our society are somehow touched by adoption more broadly (meaning not necessarily adopted themselves but in their extended family). I went looking to learn more about this aspect of the man’s life.

The story I read was about how he found peace with his adoption. He said, “At first, I didn’t understand how a parent could give up a child. So, I had that kind of energy of just being like, that’s just f***** up.” His perspective changed after the birth of his own daughter in 1998, at which point he felt he had to trace and locate his birth mother.

Ray was born in 1954, the same year I was, in Newark New Jersey. He was adopted at the age of six months. He was in an orphanage at the time. His adoptive parents were Alfred and Mary. Liotta knew he wasn’t his adoptive parents biological child growing up. He also had an adopted sister, Linda.

His drama teacher in high school asked him if he wanted to appear in a play during his senior year. Liotta didn’t take it seriously at the time (he was into sports) but it led to him eventually studying acting at the University of Miami. After graduation, he got his first big break on the soap opera Another World.

In his 40s, he hired a private detective to locate his birth mother and younger siblings. He subsequently learned from her that he is mostly of Scottish descent (like I learned regarding my maternal grandmother’s family). He then met his birth mother and siblings – a half brother, five half sisters and a full sister. She explained to him that she had given him up for adoption because she was too young and couldn’t contend with the responsibility.

He said that then, “I realized that she did it for very valid reasons from her perspective and for 99% of the kids put up for adoption, the birth parent believes that it’s for the betterment of the kid… Often, the household, the situation, the age just dictate that’s the best thing to do for the child.” After the meeting her, Liotta honestly said that he was “disappointed” by his mother’s story. He reminds me of my own mom in saying that he was “really grateful that [he] was adopted.” When Larry King mentions there is a book for adoptees called “You Were Chosen,” Liotta admits that his was “I was given up.” Most adoptees hate the “chosen” narrative.

Liotta died in his sleep while filming Dangerous Waters in the Dominican Republic. Foul play is not suspected in his death. At the time of his death, he was engaged to fiancée, Jacy Nittolo. That had made him a happy man. He wrote, “Christmas wishes do come true. I asked the love of my life to marry me, and thank God she said yes!!!” Liotta is also survived by his 23-year-old daughter, Karsen, who he shares with ex-wife Michelle Grace.