Shownotes
Tim was adopted into a Lutheran family and his curiosity about his roots started when he was very young. When he met his biological mother, she portrayed her husband as Tim’s father, but the truth came out when her daughters suggested a different version of the truth. It wasn’t until Tim’s early 70’s that he made paternal links and solved the mysteries of his life
Read Full TranscriptTim: 00:01 So they were staying with me and then they brought me along to the convention, into the Party afterwards and brought me to the party and these are old friends of theirs saying, well, who is this? Who is this? And again, they played the kind of joke routine, oh, he’s the, he’s relative doesn’t he, look like us, don’t you think he looks like us then. And then there was a lot of laughter and that crossed the line. That was one of the lower points of this whole thing for me.
Intro voices: 00:36 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
Damon: 00:48 Who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis, and on today’s show you’re going to be Tim who called me from Brooklyn, New York. I asked him if he was a native New Yorker and he said, no, I’ve only been here 50 years. He was born and raised in Minnesota. You’ll hear him describe a life where he was allowed to bond with his birth mother early, which he feels made a huge difference in his adoption. Later. His faith, which he followed a long way, turned out to be quite different from his heritage. Tim shares how his birth mother first didn’t want to meet, but was convinced to do so by Tim’s father or so he thought many decades later, Tim searches over as he’s found the missing pieces in his seventies. This is Tim’s journey….Tim was born in St Paul, Minnesota in 1944 at booth memorial hospital run by the Salvation Army in connection with a home for unwed mothers.
Tim: 01:50 I like to say I think it was significant that my birth mother kept me for a little over a month. I don’t know if that was a policy back then, but uh, I look back and think… I’m not a bitter person. I think the fact that she. She nursed me and she kept me for a little over a month. I think that… That helped in this whole adoption process.
Damon: 02:15 What did you mean by that?
Tim: 02:18 I’ve read a couple books. “Primal Wound” being a being a pretty significant book and it just feels to me like I had that connection. I had that bonding with, uh, with my mother, with my birth mother and as a primal wound refers to the sounds and the smells and all that of the woman whose body you were in for nine months. But I… that remained for at least a month, a little longer than a month. I think it might’ve even been the policy at the salvation army back then. I’m not sure, but she kept me there at the home for four or five or six weeks. And so to me it feels like that helped. Uh, I think then I’m sure there was a trauma who really knows, but when I left that and was placed in basically an orphanage for five or six months, um, I’m sure that was traumatic on some level, but at least I had that one month of uh affection and closeness and bonding that I could relate to. And then, and from what I can figure, of course, who knows when we’re that young. But, uh, when I was adopted by my adoptive parents, I seem to cling to my adoptive mother affectionately for actually the rest of my life.
Damon: 03:57 What you’ve said is really interesting. You’re probably right if you were born and bonded to your mother for a month and then you know, separated when she left you to be adopted, the next person that you would have gotten a hold of with your tiny little baby hands would be somebody that you cling to. That’s really interesting.
Tim: 04:23 I mean I just have a vivid memory as does my adopted mother of me just being beyond affectionate with her her whole life.
Damon: 04:33 After that first month of bonding, Tim’s mother transferred him to Lutheran social services where he stayed for five or six months. At some point, he developed either measles or mumps, which held up his adoption. Then he was placed with his family. Tim’s adoptive mother had been a social worker at the very agency through which he was adopted. He figures that professional experience made her particularly sensitive to the needs of adoptees. She quit the social work job five years before bringing him home. After adopting their first daughter, his older sister, he was placed in 1945, but since then he’s found out that he was officially adopted in 1949, asking others about the five year gap between his placement and his official adoption. Folks who know the process well say they feel that timeline is unusually long. Tim speaks very highly of his adopted mother and juxtaposes his affection against his older and younger sisters.
Tim: 05:33 I refer to her. Of course she’s been dead for quite a while, but um, I refer to her as my lifesaver really because she was the absolute epitome of unconditional love as far as I was concerned. She, she had my back no matter what and I’m sure she was happy to get all the affection that I was her, my, my older, a sister adopted sister, uh, was not very affectionate and, and neither was my younger sister who was their child, their biological child, but neither of them were a super affectionate type as II was and still am to some extent
Damon: 06:21 That’s really cool. The kids always knew they were adopted tins. Older sister, five years, his senior was adopted through the family. Her birth mother was their mother’s sister. In other words, she was raised by her aunt, but Tim sister never knew that her aunt was her birth mother until a drunken uncle spilled the beans. As a quick side note, Tim’s sister approached her aunt, her birth mother, to try to reconnect, but her aunt wasn’t perceptive. They had a strained relationship and his sister spent a lot of time trying to find her birth father and trying to locate a daughter that she had given up for adoption. So in Tim’s immediate family, there were two older adoptees. Then six years after Tim’s adoption, his parents conceived his younger sister even though his mother was prompted to adopt after a few miscarriages.
Tim: 07:10 The joke is everybody thought she had the flu but it was to my younger sister and to this day I still refer to her as the flu baby! and like I said, I think honestly I think mothers in their forties and she raised us too and she was tired. I get the feeling kind of tired, so she kind of let the younger one, become a bit of a wild child and strangely enough there was a bonding and even my sister was saying she never really bonded with mother that much.
Damon: 07:55 Tim says that the sisters within 11 years spread between them never bonded either. Actually, his words were, there was no love lost between them. Tim said that if he mentions his older sister’s name, even though she’s deceased, the younger sisters still implodes with furious, feelings about their relationship. I kind of speculated that his older sister and adoptee who already wasn’t the affectionate type, might have questioned her adoption and the introduction of their biological sister could have been sobering for their older sister. I don’t know, and neither does Tim.
Tim: 08:29 My oldest sister was never really a happy go lucky person at all. I, in fact, that makes. She told me that when they went to pick me up at the orphanage, she I was not the one she wanted him to take, let’s put it that way. Oh yeah. she let me know it. Believe me me. She had own demons. He was fighting most of her life.
Damon: 08:58 I asked him to return to his childhood and his memories of clinging to his mother. He said he had a great childhood and was happy at school and it wasn’t a popular kid, but he said he did have a couple of moments of questioning the whole adoption thing.
Tim: 09:11 I think I was in fourth grade and I just casually mentioned to my best buddy at the time that I was adopted and he almost fell over. was like, what couldn’t be true and blah, blah, blah. And I, this was kind of stunned me. Like, yeah, what’s the big deal? I was adopted. So. And then that night he called and said he didn’t want to speak to me, wanted to speak to my mother, and so he spoke to her and asked her, is that really true? Was Tim really adopted? And that starts me thinking, good Lord, this is more of a thing that I’m really making it or it is to some people. Anyway, so my mother, again, being the wise, a former social worker threw out the line that know we chose him. You’ve heard that word chosen, I’m sure by other people. But uh, you know, so she kind of reassured him and said, yes, it’s true with Blah Blah Blah.
Tim: 10:16 So, okay, that’s fine. And then the next day, fourth grade show and tell this little friend of mine gets up and his show and tell is that guess what Tim
was adopted. And I’m like, good Lord, wow me for a loop. And then the teacher who again, that was a good student and popular and all that. She said, uh, so Tim, I’d like to see you after school for a little bit that day. So I saw her and she said, is it true? So, you know, that’s the only real experience. And Times I remember as a, as a kid that I, I kind of had to face the reality of being adopted, but uh, and it threw me off a little bit but really didn’t, didn’t make, didn’t change me much.
Damon: 11:19 It must have been such a shock for Tim’s fourth grade buddy to call his mother for confirmation of his adoption and then to out him during show and tell the next day. But that wasn’t any real catalyst for tim’s curiosity to search for his birth parents. Thinking back on when his curiosity was peaked, he mentioned his older sister learning. Her aunt was her birth mother when he was in college was one big moment, but she wasn’t the only one adopted within the family
Tim: 11:47 And then we hand a cousin in the extended family who we all knew was adopted through the chain. Father’s cousin was actually his birth mother. It was kind of common knowledge, but us three, my sister, my cousin and myself are the only three int a rather large extended family on both sides. Both my adoptive mother and adopted father’s side, but we are the only three that were adopted and those two having been adopted through the family chain really made me curious about, okay, one of these guys or gals walking around here that I know his aunt or cousin or something if I want to know my birth parents. And so that really peaked my curiosity. And then it was about the time this. You have to realize this is a long time ago, 1968. Probably before you were even thought of, but the agency. There was a social worker, and I wish I could remember her name because she was a big advocate for the rights of adopted adults and she had written an article in a Church magazine on the rights of adopted adults and it spoke to me, not only spoke to me, but she was from the very agency through which I was adopted. and I thought, you know really? Yeah.
