216: Our Past Helps Us Understand Our Present

Hello everyone. If you haven’t listened to episode 215, “Searching for my Birth Father,” I suggest listening to that episode before continuing with this one. Just go to johncertalic.com/215. Today’s episode, #216, continues with the theme of how understanding our past helps us understand our present when we see how God began shaping us early on to find joy in being the person he created us to be.

Before we get into this I need to tell you that Carol, our announcer and executive director on vacation this week. Filling in for her is the latest addition to our staff, our chaplain and family cat, Father Patrick O’Malley. You’ll see his picture at the top of our show notes for today’s episode.

Picking  up where we left off in the previous episode

We left off episode 215 with the end of a conversation I had with my mother in the early 1990s about wanting to track down my birth father. The only information she had on him was that Jack Byrd, a truck driver, lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1948.

I’ll continue now reading from edited excerpts from my book, THEM  that describe what I did next. 

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At the time of this talk with my mother, our son and daughter were attending Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana, about forty miles from Fort Wayne. I learned through my genealogy class that Fort Wayne has one of the best genealogy libraries in the country.

Planning a trip to discover more about my past

I thought I would extend one of our weekend trips to visit our kids by driving to Fort Wayne to try locating this Jack Byrd. But without the Internet, and certainly without Google, I didn’t have a lot to go on. Just his name, and a seemingly common one at that, his occupation, and where he lived 43 years ago.

Before going to Fort Wayne, I started some research from home using directory assistance. (My apologies here to the thirty and younger crowd. Ask your parents or grandparents about “directory assistance.”) I called the Fort Wayne area code, asking for the phone number of any Jack Byrd, of which there were three. Each with different middle names or initials. So I called my mother and asked her if she remembered his middle name, and she did —it was Edward. Jack Edward Byrd.

Then I called the only Jack E. Byrd listed with directory assistance and found out he wasn’t the Byrd I was looking for. This Jack Byrd told me the following, “Back in the 1950s, I used to get mistaken for him all the time. Bill collectors and other people kept calling me, thinking I was the other Jack E. Byrd. It was quite annoying. Sorry I can’t help you out, but good luck in finding him.” 

A second dead-end in search for my birth father

Starting this search process surprised me; something I had ignored for thirty years had developed into a sense of urgency to locate my birth father. It created an adrenaline rush in me that lasted for about six months. In the genealogy class I learned of services that track down birth parents for adopted children. So I contacted one and paid twenty- five dollars for them to try locating Jack Edward Byrd. They came up with nothing. They’re not trying hard enough, I thought. 

Undeterred by this dead end, Janet and I decided to visit our college kids over their homecoming weekend in October of 1991. We drove down on a Thursday evening.  Then on Friday, while Janet spent time with our daughter Jennifer and our son Michael in Winona Lake, I drove over to Fort Wayne. I wanted to use what I had been learning in my genealogy class to try locating this mystery man in my life. 

My first stop was the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, where I camped out in the Genealogical Department. Looking through every source I could think of, I documented my research as I used to do when I wrote term papers in college. Using one bit of information to lead to another energized me. I started looking through obituary notices from the Fort Wayne newspaper. I found nothing there. I had to move on to something different, and to do it quickly, for I was due back in Winona Lake the same evening to attend homecoming activities with our kids. 

Looking for keys to my past at the library and courthouse

Checking out city directories, I found listings for Jack E. Byr