December 23, 2023 • 40 mins
When Edward Di Gangi sat down with us, we knew we were about to embark on a journey unlike any other—a quest for identity that turns the pages of the past to illuminate the present. He mesmerizes us with his narrative, one that began with his adoption during a time known as the baby scoop era and flourished into an idyllic upbringing by his loving adoptive parents. His story, detailed in "A Gift Best Given," unravels the complexities of adoption experiences and society's evolving views on the practice, punctuated by his own positive outlook and the warm embrace of family bonds that extend beyond genetics.
The heart of Edward's tale lies in the artistic legacy of his biological mother, an aspiring professional ice skater with a story that could fill novels. With the scant details of an old document and the digital troves of Ancestry.com, Edward pieces together a rich tapestry of a life once hidden from him. It's a narrative punctuated by serendipitous encounters—from a photograph that finally puts a face to a name, to a visa application shedding light on her dreams and aspirations. As Edward reveals the intricate details of his mother's journey and the discoveries that led to his poignant book, our listeners are invited to witness how the convergence of past and present can enrich our understanding of self.
Our conversation culminates in the emotional resonance of family reunions and the revelation of long-held secrets, as Edward recounts his encounter with an elderly woman named Isabelle, who unknowingly held the missing pieces of his lineage. Through a treasure trove of memorabilia and the endearing discovery of a half-brother, Edward's personal history becomes a kaleidoscope of shared experiences, heartfelt connections, and the enduring question of what truly makes us who we are. This episode isn't merely about tracing lineage; it's a testament to the power of human connection and the relentless pursuit of one's story, which can bring unexpected closeness and a profound sense of belonging.
When it comes to the amplification of male adoptee voices, it is crucial to recognize the unique experiences and perspectives they bring to the table. Each male adoptees has a valuable role to play in helping to shape the narrative around adoption by providing insights into their own personal journeys. This last episode in the series which has us on a spectacular journey of meaningful conversations, were male adoptees have been empowered to share their stories, break down stereotypes, and contribute to a greater understanding of the adoption experience as a whole.
Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.
#adoptee #adoptees #adopteevoices #adopteestories #adopteestrong #adoptionreality #adopteejourney #adoption #wanderingtreeadoptee
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Am.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm going to start seeing if I can find anybody.
And you said you don't need towrite it down.
I just pushed the cart andacross the table at me and said
we've just been holding this foryou, that's all yours.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to today's episode.
It's a pleasure to have with meto author and adoptee Edward
DeGangy.
He has penned a book named theGift Best Given and he's going
to share a little bit about hisstory with us.
It's really interesting.
The message around today isit's never too late to search
(00:56):
and find things out aboutyourself.
So welcome to the show, Edward.
How are you today?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm well.
Thank you, Lisa.
Thank you so much for invitingme.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, thank you for joining us today.
Why don't you go ahead and diveright in, get started with your
story and tell us all the greatand interesting points of?
It's never too late to getstarted on your search.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, it's actually I come from probably a little bit
of a different place than mostof your listeners in in that, um
, yeah, I'm now 75 years old.
I was adopted in New York Cityin May of 1948.
So I guess that was probablyright in the beginning of what's
you know, what's come to beknown as the baby scoop era, and
I I was very, very fortunate inthat I my discovery later on
(01:40):
was to find out that I was bornto a woman who had a career and
had resources and was able tomanage her pregnancy and then
the subsequent adoption.
I guess the closest I couldcould equate what she did is to
open adoption these days, inthat she sat down and wrote down
(02:02):
a list of what she hoped thepeople who adopted me would be
able to provide me, and she hitit right on the head and it's a.
It's a remarkable story in inthose terms.
So, in terms of it's never toolate, I, you know I was, I was
adopted into a family that couldnot have loved an adopted child
(02:22):
any more than they would haveloved a natural born child.
And I, you know, and I I'veheard some people say oh, you
know, you're, you're doing theunicorn and balloons type of
thing, and and I, I, I don'taccept that, you know it's.
We all have differentexperiences and I had a very
idyllic childhood.
I discovered somewhere early I'mthinking seven, eight years old
(02:44):
that I was adopted and again,different than the current times
is, it seemed like the themethod back then was to not tell
your child.
And I was told eventually, ormy wife was told by my birth, by
my, by my adopted mother, thatshe was instructed to hold me
(03:07):
and say you are a beautifuladopted child and we love you.
And she obviously did thatright up to the day where I had
any memory of her doing it,because I don't recall that.
But going through some papers,you know and I was very
fortunate, my mother ismeticulously organized person
when she passed away she had afireproof box with with
(03:28):
documents in it and it was thedeed to the house and the
insurance policies and all ofthose things.
And it was another envelopewith my mother's name
handwritten on it.
And when I was a young child Ilooked in there and it wasn't
until way later that I realizedit was a copy of my adoption
decree and that adoption decreewas signed by both of my
(03:49):
adoptive parents, by theirattorney, whose name, remarkably
, I remembered for years andyears and years and years, and
then another signature of aperson who I didn't recognize, a
woman, and it didn't mean a lotto me at the time.
But I put the papers away and Ithink my you know, my eight
year old mind was saying if myparents aren't talking about it
(04:11):
to me, then it's not for me togo and ask them about it.
And so I.
I went through the rest of bothmy parents natural lives, never
asking the question and, to thebest of my recollection, they
they never brought it up.
I certainly know my father didnot and I'm certain my mother
(04:31):
did not either.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
And I find that interesting because you don't
really fall in the category of Ididn't really know.
You've expressed, you had someindicators, you kind of really
knew deep down and at the sametime, you're not really late
discovery but you have some latediscovery type traits
associated with that.
It is very unique and you knowhow we approach these stories
(04:55):
and these journeys and theseexperiences I also want to touch
on I don't think there'sanything wrong with also being
happy with who you are and howyou got to where you are.
With whom you got to where youare.
We can all have a differentexperience and I think that we
have to start embracing a littlebit of that side of our
community as well which says,okay, you're, you had a great
(05:18):
one and how fortunate.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Thank you, I think that's.
That's quite the fact.
And you know, when you and Italked previously, we talked
about the fact that there is a,the community which is online
and you know, with social media,with the podcast, and
essentially you know it's a,it's a.
It's a community supportingitself and supporting individual
stories and and sadly, not allof them are happy stories.
(05:43):
I would say the majority ofthem are not.
By the same token, I know for afact there are, there are
countless of them.
There are countless adopteesout there who don't even know
that social media and podcastsfor adoptees exist and they're
just kind of plodding along withtheir lives.
Yeah, I spoke with them.
Man, I went to a literaryfestival last week and there was
(06:05):
a gentleman who read from hisbook and was there was quite a
touching book, was not about hisadoption but just about, you
know, his family life and such.
And at the end he said you know, he said I'm 73 years old and
I'm unique because I startedwriting when I was old and he
was 50.
(06:25):
I started when I was 69.
And he said and I was adoptedat the time I was born.
So afterwards, you know, I wentand grabbed one of his books
and I went to get it signed andI said I, you know, I'll
challenge you when you're beingold.
I said I started writing at 69.
And he kind of laughed and youknow, and I said and I was also
adopted at birth and you know,so we've we'd begun a
(06:48):
conversation now and he's yeah,he just he's a very accomplished
academic.
He's now retired and you know,and we talked very briefly about
the adoption he said it wasjust, it was a fact of my life.
He said I went to good peopleand I just went on with my life.
So I don't feel like I'm uniqueand I don't feel like that's a
(07:09):
unique situation out there.
So, to kind of get forward alittle bit, you know, I had this
.
I had this idyllic childhood.
I my parents passed away.
My father passed away in the1970s, when I was 28,.
My mom passed away in the 1980s, when I was just about to turn
(07:30):
40.
But I just sort of plotted onand I never really had any kind
of strong impetus to to gosearching for anything to do
with my, you know, biologicalparentage.
But in 2017, my wife and I hadmoved her parents down here to
North Carolina from New Jerseyand they arrived in compromised
(07:51):
health and in in fairly shortorder.
Her mom had passed away and thensix months later her dad passed
away and we were up in NewJersey to enter his ashes and,
coincidentally, this cemeterywhere we were doing this was
very close by to a RussianOrthodox cemetery where my
adoptive mother's family wereall entered and, thinking it may
(08:15):
be the last time we were everin that area, we went over to
the cemetery and you know, and Isaw the people who I knew as
aunts and as uncles these areall adopted family and I was
standing over the grave of myadopted grandfather and adopted
grandmother and something saidif you're ever going to do this,
you know, start now.
(08:36):
But but where I went I was, Iwas reading a book and I had
read it a couple of timesalready, a book by Daniel
Mendelssohn called the Lost andit's the search for six of six
million.
And Mendelssohn went on aworldwide journey.
He went around the world twicelooking for people who knew the
precise circumstances of thedeath of six distant relatives
(09:00):
in the Holocaust.
He was not satisfied knowingthat they died in the Holocaust.
He wanted to know where theywere, when they were and how it
occurred.
And he wrote this fabulous,fabulous book and I recommend it
to everybody with a with aninterest in genealogy, if it
doesn't stir you and nothingever will.
But I had read that book and itwas.
(09:21):
I was still kind of digestingand standing over my
grandparents graves and I I saidthis is a good time.
If he could do that, I could dosomething similar, even though
nobody was going to fund twotrips around the world to do
that.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Wasn't going to happen for you, huh.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
No, that wasn't.
That wasn't taking place, that,you know, not that weekend.
So when we got back here toNorth Carolina, I went to our
local library, I got on the ontoancestrycom and I put in my
adoptive grandparents names andgot a wealth of information that
came back, things I never knewfrom family stories.
(09:57):
And I was sitting there and Iwas thinking, okay, if it's this
easy, I wonder how hard itwould be to find out where I
came from biologically, what myheredity was.
And I knew that piece of paperwas still sitting at home in
that same metal box.
So I folded up my notebook,drove home, got out that
envelopes, pulled it out andthere was the name you know, and
(10:19):
I looked at it and by then Iknew that that name had to be
the person who, who hadsurrendered me for adoption.
So I wrote it down, I got backin the car, went back to the
library and I typed it in, youknow, and it was a.
It was a Polish name, genevieveNarowski, and I had always
assumed that my birth mother wasa high school girl who got into
(10:41):
trouble and, you know, gotpregnant and her parents found
out and sent her someplace andthe baby was taken from her, and
that was that's what I alwaysassumed.
So I plugged her name intoancestry and I kind of sat there
with my finger over the entrybutton and said how far do you
really want to go with this?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, it's a tough decision, right?
I mean it really is.
You had an aha moment.
You started and enacted andstarted moving, and then you're
now here.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, I'd got 69 years and it hadn't mattered,
and yeah.
So suddenly today was going tobe the D day, so I pressed the
button on it and I got a screenfull of information.
You know, there were those, the1930 census and the 1940 census
and some other various things.
(11:29):
That kind of went down with myfinger and I looked at you and
because everything had dates onit, and I found a document that
was dated 10 months after mybirth, I thought that was
interesting.
What was even more interestingis it was a visa application to
travel from Miami, florida, toRio de Janeiro, and that just
absolutely puzzled me.
You know, I couldn't imaginewhat the high school girl who
(11:52):
got into trouble and got sentaway was doing in Rio, unless
they were really sending heraway.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
She was really getting the punishment and you
know yeah they were banishingher, so you know.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
So I said, let me do that one first.
I said that's the one closestto my birth date and I was
amazed.
This application came up andit's written in Portuguese,
which is a language in Brazil,but it was all completed in
English and it had her name andher birthday and I found out
that she was.
She was 23 years old, not 20,not a high school girl, and it
(12:26):
showed her parents' names and itshowed her birth date and such
and it also listed as heroccupation or her prophecy that
she was an artista.
And that puzzled me because Ididn't know what kind of an
artista.
And by the time I came home andtalked to my wife, we had like
a list a mile long of what kindof artista she might have been
(12:47):
going to Rio.
But you know, the otherremarkable thing was is, you
know, one sheet was theapplication, the other sheet was
her photograph, and I just satthere and I looked and I looked
all around me like I wonder ifanybody is looking at this and
nobody would have cared, but itwas.
It was fairly amazing and Isent that photograph back via
email to my email account and Ihustled home and I got home and
(13:12):
I told my wife I said do youwant to see a picture of my
mother?
And she said we've got lots ofpictures of your mother.
I said no, not this one.
And that's kind of where thewhole process began, the whole
journey, and the journey went onfor the better part of three
years, from 2017 into 2020, andthen the subsequent publication
(13:32):
was a gift best given.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, I think you realize in this, edward, that
you are one of the fortunatepeople that had access to
records, and how fortunate youwere that your adopted parents
kept all that material in a firesafe box.
That's phenomenal.
A lot of us do not have those.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Oh, that's a gold mine.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yes, yeah, and it just kind of accelerated what
you were able to accomplish in ashort time, as it relates to at
least the identification ofyour birth mother.
So tell us a little bit abouther, tell us a little bit about
the artista.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Well, it took a little bit of searching because
I found that she had left NewYork City, where she was born
and she lived as she grew up asa teenager, and probably a
15-minute bus ride from where Ilived growing up as a preteen.
So we were really very closeseveral times.
(14:27):
What I learned is she had beenan ice skater and her dream was
to become a celebrity performer,professional performer, and she
traveled from New York CityGrand Central Station in
November of 1942 alone acrossthe country by train in the
midst of World War II to join anice skating troop in Vancouver,
(14:50):
in Vancouver, british Columbia,and for the next five years she
kind of crisscrossed thecountry with different
organizations and performing indifferent places before she
unexpectedly became pregnant andreturned home where she
essentially hid out.
She came from a conservativeCatholic family and nobody in
(15:12):
the family knew, with theexception of her eldest sister
and her sister's husband and Ithink I said it earlier, I was.
So she was gifted with the factshe she had had a quickly
accelerating career.
She had resources, so she wasable to sublet an apartment from
a friend and basically hide outthere and manage her pregnancy
(15:35):
at a hospital that catered toindividuals trying to maintain
discretion in their privacy.
And I remember as a kid askingmy adoptive father where was I
born, where's the hospital?
And he kept on sort of saying Isaid it's a little hospital in
New York.
It's not there anymore.
And my thought as a kid wasthere is nothing little in New
(15:58):
York and hospitals just don't goaway.
What I ultimately found out isit was a little hospital and it
didn't go away, but that'sthat's where she managed her
pregnancy and she, for thecouple of weeks prior to giving
birth, remained in the hospitalthere and what was, you know?
It's almost like a guest suite.
And then ultimately was thereuntil she gave birth.
(16:20):
My adoptive parents arrived onthe scene the second day of my
life.
She remained there a couple ofweeks afterwards and then went
home, went back to her privateapartment and then ultimately
went back and reunited with her,with her brother and sisters
and mother and father andgrandparents, and started
managing the secret.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, I think that that's a perfect way to segue
into another really interestingcomponent of your story.
You spoke earlier of having apicture from the library during
the search on ancestrycom, butyou also stumbled on some
(17:02):
additional, I'd say, memorabilia, yeah right Material regarding
your birth mother, and thisstory, when we talked previously
, fascinated me.
From the perspective of youcan't make this stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Okay, you just can't.
This has been a succession ofyeah, it's serendipity a
succession of coincidences andkindness from total strangers.
As I said, my mother went toVancouver, british Columbia.
When she got there, the peopleshe was skating with insisted
(17:38):
that, for simplicity, in thenewspaper, she adopt a stage
name.
So Genevieve Norowski, the17-year-old girl, turned into
Genevieve Naras, and I wouldsearch for Genevieve Norowski,
couldn't find her.
Genevieve Norowski couldn'tfind her and ultimately I came
across two blogs online,coincidentally, both of them
(18:01):
from Antiques dealers.
One of them was in SouthCarolina and she talked about
how she had attended an auctionin 2012.
And she had pictures of thesehuge objects you know, giraffes,
elephants, an eagle with a10-foot wingspan and she and her
(18:21):
partner bought these all upbecause they were highly sought
after as folk art.
But in this blog post, whichwas actually an online Antiques
magazine, she explained thatGenevieve Norowski had become
Genevieve Naras and, along withher husband, who she married
several years after I was born,been professional ice skaters
(18:44):
and ultimately, after retiring,had opened a company that
created props for ice skatingshows and theatrical events and
commercial purposes, and that'swhat this auction was of of
items that they had created.
But now I had something new Ihad Genevieve Naras Ice Skater,
and I also had her husband'sname, which was MESA, so I had
Genevieve Naras Norowski, mesa.
(19:06):
In a common.
In trying combinations, I put inGenevieve Naras Ice Skater and
a second blog post came up.
This one had about half a dozenphotographs of my birth mother.
It had a copy of her middleschool diploma.
It had a copy of her firstprofessional contract, and the
blog post basically said youknow the the woman who had
(19:29):
posted this was at anantisoction in Atlanta in 2012,.
So the same auction had seen acarton of memorabilia you know,
just photographs and a scrapbookand some other documents and,
knowing nothing about who theybelong to, just said it was a
glamorous age and a glamorousperson.
(19:52):
I'm gonna buy it and I wouldthink she probably paid very,
very little for it.
It was just a carton of stuff.
So I, you know, I saw that now,this 2017, as I'm viewing this,
so it's five years after theauction and I'm thinking, you
know, she's an antiques dealer.
These things are a long gone.
I had already contacted thepeople with the big pieces and
they were long gone Because Ihad a vision of that 10-foot
(20:15):
eagle.
They went bang.
My wife is very thankful Inever found it.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I could just see it right now behind place.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I've got the place, but I I Located this woman, the
second dealer, online onFacebook and I sent her a
message saying I'm exploring apossible family Relationship.
I saw your blog and I'd be veryinterested to know if you still
have those items, and I didn'tthink there was a prayer and I
(20:44):
was hoping she would answer meat all.
Within 10 minutes she sent me amessage back and she said I'm
really very busy now, but yes, Ido have them.
I'd love to talk to you.
I'll call you later.
One day went by, two days, threedays, four days, and after a
Week I sort of had the feelingthat you know, later was going
to to not come.
So I sent her another messageand this time I said the photos
(21:07):
you have in the documents, allare of my birth mother, I was
adopted in 1948 and within fiveminutes she called back.
She you know, this time shedidn't message.
She called and she apologized.
I said I just forgot.
She said but you need to cometo Atlanta right now and you
know we're in North Carolina.
But a better week later my wifeand I drove to Atlanta and this
(21:29):
woman and her husband camewalking into the hotel lobby,
the woman carrying the cartonand the husband Coming in
carrying a sword and shield sortof Allah mutant ninja turtles.
You know, and everybody's kindof looking at him.
And I've got that.
I wish I could do somethingwith a camera.
I've got the sword and shieldhanging outside, you know.
(21:49):
So we sat down, we went throughthis carton and and there was a
stack of photographs of otherice skaters and all of them were
autographed to my birth motherand saying, you know, to the
greatest partner ever and youknow, good luck.
And and the last one I foundwas from a woman, a really
really beautiful woman, and shewould have been in her early 20s
(22:10):
at that point.
She said to the best roommateever love Izzy.
And I said if anybody's and beable to tell me anything about
my mother, and if anyone couldtell me who my father might have
been and I hadn't, I'd neverhad any interest in who my
father was I Said it's Izzy.
But I was yeah, I was takingnotes and you know, and the, the
(22:31):
dealer's husband, said what areyou doing?
And I told him.
I said you know, just writingdown these names and I'm gonna
start seeing if I could findanybody.
And he said you Don't need towrite it down.
He just pushed the cartonacross the table at me and said
we've just been holding this foryou.
That's all yours and they justgave it to us and you know.
So at the very bottom of thecarton was a picture of my
(22:52):
mother skating with some otherteenage girls in 1942 as
amateurs to raise money for thefor the World War two bond
effort.
And then that's where sheEssentially was discovered, and
they, you know, and her iceskating career started right
there.
And again, it was interestingbecause all the Margins had been
clipped off the paper, so Ididn't have any clue where,
(23:15):
where it came from.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Ultimately I found that I found her right to the
paper and right to the date well, what I love about this story,
edward, is the fact that themost random thing brought you to
a treasure trove of informationand To just meet people who
picked up something because itkind of looked interesting.
(23:37):
But more importantly, I lovethe fact it just kind of warms
my heart a little bit that theygave it to you.
They weren't asking you to buythis material, and you know just
what a heartwarming Componentto have a the husband of the you
know this a couple to say we'vebeen holding it for you.
I know there's a little bitmore to that story about you and
(24:00):
that couple.
So it's not like you guys justding dong, ditch, like we're in
the hotel here.
You go away, we go.
You guys are still, stillconnected, correct?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, we've remained.
We've remained good friends.
You know, with COVID we've notbeen able to, to you know, to
travel as much as we had, butlast year I traveled from North
Carolina to Texas to talk with abook club.
That's a long way to go to talkto a book club, but this was
kind of special circumstances.
But we, we purposely routedourselves through Atlanta so we
(24:34):
could overnight there on the wayback and meet them for dinner.
And yeah, I think the thing Ishould really point out is,
after you push the carton overto me, and so we've just been
holding this, they then took usout to dinner.
Yeah, I said, and I want to,yeah, I wanted to pay.
He had already gone, sort ofsnuck off.
I thought he went to the men'sroom.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
He went me paid, gave somebody his credit card so
there wouldn't be a, wouldn't bea discussion what I like about
your story is that yourcommunity Extended outside of
the adoptee community as welland you've had such a positive
experience Associated with that,which will give others some
hope, that it doesn't always gothat way.
And I get in your circumstance.
(25:13):
It's almost this is almost likeyour uniform and you know some
of the things that went down andand I know you know that and
and you're sensitive to that forother other adoptees let's move
forward a little bit in yourstory because it does not end
with.
You know you get all thismemorabilia.
You actually start going thenext level and trying to find
(25:35):
Living, living relatives and Iwant to know did you actually
connect up with Izzy?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
We did.
I, yeah, I went through thatstack and I went through it name
by name and you know, and giventhe ages and number of the
women were Deceased, some otherswere just just couldn't find
them.
And when I got to Izzy, youknow I searched and I did is a
Isabelle Smith ice skater, and Ididn't find her directly.
But I found an obituary for,you know, for men who is like a
(26:04):
very, very prominent officerduring World War two and and
occupied Italy and all sorts ofthings, but kind of almost in
small print at the bottom of theobituary he survived by his
wife, isabelle.
Yeah, his wife of 50 years,professional ice skater.
We shipped that in Johnson'sice follies.
So I still couldn't findIsabelle but I knew, at least up
(26:25):
to a certain date, that she wasalive.
And it gave the name for twosons.
I Randomly picked one.
One was, I think, somewhere inIowa perhaps, and the other one
was in many in Minnesota, whichsounded like ice skating country
to me.
So I reached out to him, I senthim a letter and one of the
things I did with all of theletters that I sent to people is
(26:46):
I hand wrote them just Becauseit.
I thought it would look lesslike some sort of crazy man or a
scam.
And to this letter I attached apicture of photo stata of my
mother and a photo stata of thepicture of his mother.
So I was happy because theletter didn't come back as
undeliverable or anything.
And a week or so later the phonerang and it was him and he said
(27:06):
mama's alive.
I showed her the pictures andshe was tickled to death.
She's really excited, she wantsto talk to you.
And I was tickled to death andreally excited and wanted to
talk to Isabelle.
And he must have since myelation because he said I just
need to caution you about onething.
And then, yeah, then he had tohear the sigh and he said you
know, he said mom is in a memorycare facility, but the good
(27:29):
news is mom doesn't know whatshe had for breakfast this
morning, but she can give you arecitation of every minute of
1947.
He gave me mom's contactinformation, he gave me the
switchboard number for the forthe facility and you know.
And then when you get thatperson Asked for the nurse, and
you know in such and such aplace and they'll go and get mom
, you know.
(27:49):
So we went through the processand I'm waiting and all of a
sudden there's mom on the phone.
There's is about right in alertand I kind of introduced myself
and she said this is soremarkable.
I saw those pictures.
She said it brings back so manymemories and I said well, I
said I would like to ask yousome questions, but I know it's
kind of unfair to ask somebodywho's 92 about what happened to
(28:11):
them in 1947.
And there is a pause.
She said who told you on 92?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
the things we care about right.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, I kept.
I sort of just sat quietly andshe said I'm 88 and I'm quick,
doing Math on my fingers, sayingif she was 88, she was 12 years
old when she was skating, whichI learned is not impossible.
But then she said, as a matterof fact, I'm 85 and I just left
it there.
You know, we we kind of left itthat way and we had a
(28:41):
conversation that went onprobably the better part of an
hour.
I guess the key to it is, shesaid I didn't realize your
mother was pregnant.
I don't know who she dated, soI learned some more about my
mother and her nature and thekind of person she was.
And as we came to the end of theof the discussion, yeah, I.
I said you know what I saidI've got some airline miles and
(29:02):
I've got some hotel points.
And I said, yes, I said let melook into this and maybe at some
point we'll come to visit.
And she said, well, that wouldbe wonderful.
And then she like paused againand she said now, how old did
you say you were?
I said, well, I'm 16.
I'm 69.
She said, well, I'm 65, youknow.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
She got younger every hour.
Yes, oh, she was.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I should have skipped on the phone.
She would have been a newborn,but we did go out there, we did
visit with Isabelle and we spentthe better part of four and a
half five hours with her.
That's fantastic she had somereal scrapbooks with her and we
had a wonderful time.
She's the kind of person if youknow, if we live nearby.
She's the kind of person youwant to go and visit on Sundays,
because she'd be the closestthing you could have to a
(29:46):
grandma.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Oh, that's so sweet, that really is a nice story.
Well, let's fast forward now alittle bit, because it certainly
doesn't end there.
So you take the informationthat she has you kind of hit a
wall.
You don't have, you know,anything really to move forward
on the paternal side.
What was your next step?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I found my mother's name at several different
addresses in a, in a specificarea of Georgia, south of
Atlanta, and I would hand writea letter and I send it off and
letters are all coming back asundeliverable Not at this
address, never at this address,will never be at this address.
And I eventually found a manonline and I very distant
(30:24):
relationship to a, to a womanwho I learned later that my
maternal half brother hadmarried in the early 1980s and
he's you know.
I found him and he was onancestry and I reached out to
him and he was.
He again came back, veryhelpful and he said to the best
of my knowledge, your mother isno longer alive and I think your
(30:46):
brother.
There's a brother and I thinkhe was in an accident.
I don't know where he is.
This is not terribly helpful,but via that that second antique
Steelers blog I found a name ofsomebody who said he had been a
neighbor and a friend to theperson who turned out to be my
maternal half brother.
So I reached out to him and hecame back and he said you know,
(31:09):
no number one, your, your motheris not alive.
I sang at her memorial memorialceremony and two year brother
was in a calamitous fire and isin a rehab facility but will be
getting out soon.
He gave me an address for therehab facility where my brother
was.
So I again wrote letters.
Never got a response to theletter.
(31:30):
I explained that to him.
I said I sent a letterexplaining.
It didn't get anything back.
If you could get him to call me, I'd really appreciate it.
You know, within the week thephone rang and there's this
person who turns out to be myhalf-brother and we had a very
nice conversation.
He kind of explained to me hismother had died in 2014.
And then he said well, tell meagain, what kind of kin are we?
(31:54):
You and I have the same motherand there was kind of a moment's
silence.
He said well, I have to go now.
He said but I'll call you back.
I have to go and I take my wifefor a walk, kind of like the,
the antique dealer.
I'll call you later.
Turned into weeks.
So I got back to his friendagain, said I haven't heard from
Ted.
Could you give him a nudge?
And he called back again.
He said I'm getting out of herein the next two or three days
(32:17):
and I said yeah.
I said I would really like tocome down and meet you at some
point once you're moved.
He said that's a good thing, hesaid, but I just wanted to ask
you again what kind of kin arewe?
And once again, I explained it.
So you know, to jump forward alittle bit, we ultimately, in
September of 2017, we met himand it was good.
You know, he was obviouslynervous and we were a little bit
(32:37):
, and we were staying in anearby hotel and before I left I
brought a copy of my adoptiondecree and by then I seen enough
of my mother's things to knowthe signature was hers and to
know that he would know when hesaw it.
So I handed it to him.
I said this is the documentwhere your mother gave me up to
these other people as theirchild.
(32:58):
And he kind of looked at it andthe friend who had put us
together was there as well andyou know, my brother handed him
the paper, you know, and Kevin,god bless and looked at it and
just didn't know what to say,just sort of shrugged his
shoulders and handed it back andmy you know my brother was
going to hand it back to me.
I said it's a photo stat and Isaid so, keep it if it means
anything to you.
(33:18):
You know his, his thing waswell I guess every woman has a
secret, and you know his.
His mama had a secret and Ithink he he's so idealized his
mother.
He had her on a pedestal, whichI think is a beautiful thing.
Just could not initially fathomthat she could have had a child
and then kind of gone on withthis carrying the secret through
(33:40):
life.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I like when we talk about the reunions and some of
the aspects of when we firstmeet a family member, and I find
it very interesting that whenwe do that we are also talking
about their reactions to meetingus, how that may come across to
us as rejection or secondaryrejection and that happens, that
(34:00):
absolutely happens.
But I'm empathetic to the otherside of that conversation, who
you just spoke of, a woman whoyou know had really quite a
fabulous life and, in the grandscheme of things, some great
stories that went with that andhad a son, and you know she was
up on a pedestal.
And now here you are.
(34:22):
I'm just thinking through myhead what it's like to be on the
other side of that conversation.
I mean through it all.
Even though he was hesitant, itsounds like he kept coming back
for just a little bit more.
He just really needed someaffirmation somewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, you know, it wasn't until later and I looked
at it.
I had thought over and over, ifmy mother is still alive, how
would I approach her?
With an eye toward beingdelicate and just realizing 70
years later it becomes quite theshock.
When I found that that she wasnot alive, I stopped quite
(34:58):
thinking that way and just kindof barged into my brother's life
.
I just kind of stepped in andthere was no rejection.
He just could not wrap his headaround it.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, just such a different perspective.
Yeah, absolutely.
You talked a little bit aboutyour adoption decree.
I believe you've kind ofmentioned that you had some
information associated with youroriginal birth certificate at
some point in time, and so inany of that material was there a
(35:33):
recognition of who the fatherwas there?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
was not and that was, I think in the era was very,
very typical.
I was a summer romance.
I was the product of a summerromance.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
So I do want to ask though did we make a connection
to your paternal family?
I don't know if we've chattedabout that.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
No, we have not and as little as I thought about who
my birth mother had been.
I gave virtually no thought towho my father might have been.
Yeah, when I was still in themode where she was a high school
girl, I had him as the guy whopumped gas at the gas station,
and that turned out not to bethe case either.
Before I got on to this search,before that February, when I
(36:11):
decided I'm going to go lookingat that, previous Christmas I
bought two DNA kits, one formyself, one for my wife and I
just wanted to know.
You know what my background was, and I got my pie chart back
which said I was probably about70% Eastern European and then
kind of random slices ofNorthern European.
(36:31):
And then I went over and Ilooked at my living up my
thousand closest relatives thatthey sent me.
The one at the top of the listwas listed as first cousin,
close family, and I knew youknow from all my research by
then that he was not on mymother's side, that was not a
maternal name, and they had afamily tree with that 600 people
(36:53):
on it.
His father was an only child.
His mother had five sisters anda brother.
So I said, okay, if he is my.
If this man who I match on DNAis my cousin, then this one last
person who's his uncle, must bemy father.
So I'm pretty excited, you know,really, you know, hadn't having
gone from never thought of itto well, look what I found and
(37:14):
the logic with uncle Harrisseems, seems to hold water.
So I thought I'd done all thisgreat logic and I made a
discovery.
And it wasn't a spit in a tube.
And look what I found.
That's the price you pay forwaiting until you're 69 to go
looking for your parents.
So you know, I found a brother,and and which was what a, yeah,
what a sweet thing to tellsomebody you don't even really
know.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, but as we wrap up here a little bit, I think
that your real message and andjust to continue to articulate
that is, you didn't have aboundary based off of the age
and you, granted, may have hadone of the more well-faved
golden path roads to gettingyour information, and I know you
recognize it's not the norm,but I do know you also want to
(37:58):
encourage people to look in thenot so obvious places for
information.
Do you want to give us a littlebit more on that as well?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Well, yeah, there's a lot of material that's online
and certainly you know you're atan advantage if you know
anything.
If you don't know anything,that's really you don't know
what to search for.
If you can pick a little pieceand go to work on it, they, it
starts to get bigger.
You know that the littlesatellite turns larger.
You know, I think, askquestions and you know and it's,
(38:27):
if you don't ask the questionsyou won't find any answers, and
so I guess that's that's the onething I can really put out
there.
If you, if you've got a name towork with google, the hell out
of it.
And if you know, if you haven'tdone DNA and you're really
interested, do it now yeah, Iwould agree yeah, because more
and more people are doing it andif, if you can't figure out
(38:50):
your results, but you seesomebody who even looks remotely
like a close relative, go getsome help with it.
There are all sorts of searchangels, you know.
So it's, it's certainly doablethere.
You know, dna has just broughtus to a place.
There are very few secrets leftout there anymore, like it or
not yeah, yeah, I would agreewith that.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I would absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I think pretty much everything matters, everything
really does, and you know, youjust hear the stories and you
know, one little piece opens thedoor and it goes from there
well.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I have found our conversation to be very
encouraging for others.
I want to thank you for beingon today's episode.
It has been a pleasure.
Before we sign off, I want torestate the name of your book.
It is called the gift bestgiven, so go out and check that
out.
It has been a fantasticconversation with you today here
(39:41):
on the podcast.
I just want to say thank you somuch for joining us and opening
up to other adoptees, but alsoopening up as a a gentleman in
our community it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Thank you so much for having me thank you for
listening to today's episode.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Make sure to rate, review and share.
Want to join the conversation?
Contact us atwanderingtreeadoptedcom.
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Am.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm going to start seeing if I can find anybody.
And you said you don't need towrite it down.
I just pushed the cart andacross the table at me and said
we've just been holding this foryou, that's all yours.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to today's episode.
It's a pleasure to have with meto author and adoptee Edward
DeGangy.
He has penned a book named theGift Best Given and he's going
to share a little bit about hisstory with us.
It's really interesting.
The message around today isit's never too late to search
(00:56):
and find things out aboutyourself.
So welcome to the show, Edward.
How are you today?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm well.
Thank you, Lisa.
Thank you so much for invitingme.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, thank you for joining us today.
Why don't you go ahead and diveright in, get started with your
story and tell us all the greatand interesting points of?
It's never too late to getstarted on your search.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, it's actually I come from probably a little bit
of a different place than mostof your listeners in in that, um
, yeah, I'm now 75 years old.
I was adopted in New York Cityin May of 1948.
So I guess that was probablyright in the beginning of what's
you know, what's come to beknown as the baby scoop era, and
I I was very, very fortunate inthat I my discovery later on
(01:40):
was to find out that I was bornto a woman who had a career and
had resources and was able tomanage her pregnancy and then
the subsequent adoption.
I guess the closest I couldcould equate what she did is to
open adoption these days, inthat she sat down and wrote down
(02:02):
a list of what she hoped thepeople who adopted me would be
able to provide me, and she hitit right on the head and it's a.
It's a remarkable story in inthose terms.
So, in terms of it's never toolate, I, you know I was, I was
adopted into a family that couldnot have loved an adopted child
(02:22):
any more than they would haveloved a natural born child.
And I, you know, and I I'veheard some people say oh, you
know, you're, you're doing theunicorn and balloons type of
thing, and and I, I, I don'taccept that, you know it's.
We all have differentexperiences and I had a very
idyllic childhood.
I discovered somewhere early I'mthinking seven, eight years old
(02:44):
that I was adopted and again,different than the current times
is, it seemed like the themethod back then was to not tell
your child.
And I was told eventually, ormy wife was told by my birth, by
my, by my adopted mother, thatshe was instructed to hold me
(03:07):
and say you are a beautifuladopted child and we love you.
And she obviously did thatright up to the day where I had
any memory of her doing it,because I don't recall that.
But going through some papers,you know and I was very
fortunate, my mother ismeticulously organized person
when she passed away she had afireproof box with with
(03:28):
documents in it and it was thedeed to the house and the
insurance policies and all ofthose things.
And it was another envelopewith my mother's name
handwritten on it.
And when I was a young child Ilooked in there and it wasn't
until way later that I realizedit was a copy of my adoption
decree and that adoption decreewas signed by both of my
(03:49):
adoptive parents, by theirattorney, whose name, remarkably
, I remembered for years andyears and years and years, and
then another signature of aperson who I didn't recognize, a
woman, and it didn't mean a lotto me at the time.
But I put the papers away and Ithink my you know, my eight
year old mind was saying if myparents aren't talking about it
(04:11):
to me, then it's not for me togo and ask them about it.
And so I.
I went through the rest of bothmy parents natural lives, never
asking the question and, to thebest of my recollection, they
they never brought it up.
I certainly know my father didnot and I'm certain my mother
(04:31):
did not either.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
And I find that interesting because you don't
really fall in the category of Ididn't really know.
You've expressed, you had someindicators, you kind of really
knew deep down and at the sametime, you're not really late
discovery but you have some latediscovery type traits
associated with that.
It is very unique and you knowhow we approach these stories
(04:55):
and these journeys and theseexperiences I also want to touch
on I don't think there'sanything wrong with also being
happy with who you are and howyou got to where you are.
With whom you got to where youare.
We can all have a differentexperience and I think that we
have to start embracing a littlebit of that side of our
community as well which says,okay, you're, you had a great
(05:18):
one and how fortunate.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Thank you, I think that's.
That's quite the fact.
And you know, when you and Italked previously, we talked
about the fact that there is a,the community which is online
and you know, with social media,with the podcast, and
essentially you know it's a,it's a.
It's a community supportingitself and supporting individual
stories and and sadly, not allof them are happy stories.
(05:43):
I would say the majority ofthem are not.
By the same token, I know for afact there are, there are
countless of them.
There are countless adopteesout there who don't even know
that social media and podcastsfor adoptees exist and they're
just kind of plodding along withtheir lives.
Yeah, I spoke with them.
Man, I went to a literaryfestival last week and there was
(06:05):
a gentleman who read from hisbook and was there was quite a
touching book, was not about hisadoption but just about, you
know, his family life and such.
And at the end he said you know, he said I'm 73 years old and
I'm unique because I startedwriting when I was old and he
was 50.
(06:25):
I started when I was 69.
And he said and I was adoptedat the time I was born.
So afterwards, you know, I wentand grabbed one of his books
and I went to get it signed andI said I, you know, I'll
challenge you when you're beingold.
I said I started writing at 69.
And he kind of laughed and youknow, and I said and I was also
adopted at birth and you know,so we've we'd begun a
(06:48):
conversation now and he's yeah,he just he's a very accomplished
academic.
He's now retired and you know,and we talked very briefly about
the adoption he said it wasjust, it was a fact of my life.
He said I went to good peopleand I just went on with my life.
So I don't feel like I'm uniqueand I don't feel like that's a
(07:09):
unique situation out there.
So, to kind of get forward alittle bit, you know, I had this
.
I had this idyllic childhood.
I my parents passed away.
My father passed away in the1970s, when I was 28,.
My mom passed away in the 1980s, when I was just about to turn
(07:30):
40.
But I just sort of plotted onand I never really had any kind
of strong impetus to to gosearching for anything to do
with my, you know, biologicalparentage.
But in 2017, my wife and I hadmoved her parents down here to
North Carolina from New Jerseyand they arrived in compromised
(07:51):
health and in in fairly shortorder.
Her mom had passed away and thensix months later her dad passed
away and we were up in NewJersey to enter his ashes and,
coincidentally, this cemeterywhere we were doing this was
very close by to a RussianOrthodox cemetery where my
adoptive mother's family wereall entered and, thinking it may
(08:15):
be the last time we were everin that area, we went over to
the cemetery and you know, and Isaw the people who I knew as
aunts and as uncles these areall adopted family and I was
standing over the grave of myadopted grandfather and adopted
grandmother and something saidif you're ever going to do this,
you know, start now.
(08:36):
But but where I went I was, Iwas reading a book and I had
read it a couple of timesalready, a book by Daniel
Mendelssohn called the Lost andit's the search for six of six
million.
And Mendelssohn went on aworldwide journey.
He went around the world twicelooking for people who knew the
precise circumstances of thedeath of six distant relatives
(09:00):
in the Holocaust.
He was not satisfied knowingthat they died in the Holocaust.
He wanted to know where theywere, when they were and how it
occurred.
And he wrote this fabulous,fabulous book and I recommend it
to everybody with a with aninterest in genealogy, if it
doesn't stir you and nothingever will.
But I had read that book and itwas.
(09:21):
I was still kind of digestingand standing over my
grandparents graves and I I saidthis is a good time.
If he could do that, I could dosomething similar, even though
nobody was going to fund twotrips around the world to do
that.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Wasn't going to happen for you, huh.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
No, that wasn't.
That wasn't taking place, that,you know, not that weekend.
So when we got back here toNorth Carolina, I went to our
local library, I got on the ontoancestrycom and I put in my
adoptive grandparents names andgot a wealth of information that
came back, things I never knewfrom family stories.
(09:57):
And I was sitting there and Iwas thinking, okay, if it's this
easy, I wonder how hard itwould be to find out where I
came from biologically, what myheredity was.
And I knew that piece of paperwas still sitting at home in
that same metal box.
So I folded up my notebook,drove home, got out that
envelopes, pulled it out andthere was the name you know, and
(10:19):
I looked at it and by then Iknew that that name had to be
the person who, who hadsurrendered me for adoption.
So I wrote it down, I got backin the car, went back to the
library and I typed it in, youknow, and it was a.
It was a Polish name, genevieveNarowski, and I had always
assumed that my birth mother wasa high school girl who got into
(10:41):
trouble and, you know, gotpregnant and her parents found
out and sent her someplace andthe baby was taken from her, and
that was that's what I alwaysassumed.
So I plugged her name intoancestry and I kind of sat there
with my finger over the entrybutton and said how far do you
really want to go with this?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, it's a tough decision, right?
I mean it really is.
You had an aha moment.
You started and enacted andstarted moving, and then you're
now here.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, I'd got 69 years and it hadn't mattered,
and yeah.
So suddenly today was going tobe the D day, so I pressed the
button on it and I got a screenfull of information.
You know, there were those, the1930 census and the 1940 census
and some other various things.
(11:29):
That kind of went down with myfinger and I looked at you and
because everything had dates onit, and I found a document that
was dated 10 months after mybirth, I thought that was
interesting.
What was even more interestingis it was a visa application to
travel from Miami, florida, toRio de Janeiro, and that just
absolutely puzzled me.
You know, I couldn't imaginewhat the high school girl who
(11:52):
got into trouble and got sentaway was doing in Rio, unless
they were really sending heraway.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
She was really getting the punishment and you
know yeah they were banishingher, so you know.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
So I said, let me do that one first.
I said that's the one closestto my birth date and I was
amazed.
This application came up andit's written in Portuguese,
which is a language in Brazil,but it was all completed in
English and it had her name andher birthday and I found out
that she was.
She was 23 years old, not 20,not a high school girl, and it
(12:26):
showed her parents' names and itshowed her birth date and such
and it also listed as heroccupation or her prophecy that
she was an artista.
And that puzzled me because Ididn't know what kind of an
artista.
And by the time I came home andtalked to my wife, we had like
a list a mile long of what kindof artista she might have been
(12:47):
going to Rio.
But you know, the otherremarkable thing was is, you
know, one sheet was theapplication, the other sheet was
her photograph, and I just satthere and I looked and I looked
all around me like I wonder ifanybody is looking at this and
nobody would have cared, but itwas.
It was fairly amazing and Isent that photograph back via
email to my email account and Ihustled home and I got home and
(13:12):
I told my wife I said do youwant to see a picture of my
mother?
And she said we've got lots ofpictures of your mother.
I said no, not this one.
And that's kind of where thewhole process began, the whole
journey, and the journey went onfor the better part of three
years, from 2017 into 2020, andthen the subsequent publication
(13:32):
was a gift best given.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, I think you realize in this, edward, that
you are one of the fortunatepeople that had access to
records, and how fortunate youwere that your adopted parents
kept all that material in a firesafe box.
That's phenomenal.
A lot of us do not have those.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Oh, that's a gold mine.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yes, yeah, and it just kind of accelerated what
you were able to accomplish in ashort time, as it relates to at
least the identification ofyour birth mother.
So tell us a little bit abouther, tell us a little bit about
the artista.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Well, it took a little bit of searching because
I found that she had left NewYork City, where she was born
and she lived as she grew up asa teenager, and probably a
15-minute bus ride from where Ilived growing up as a preteen.
So we were really very closeseveral times.
(14:27):
What I learned is she had beenan ice skater and her dream was
to become a celebrity performer,professional performer, and she
traveled from New York CityGrand Central Station in
November of 1942 alone acrossthe country by train in the
midst of World War II to join anice skating troop in Vancouver,
(14:50):
in Vancouver, british Columbia,and for the next five years she
kind of crisscrossed thecountry with different
organizations and performing indifferent places before she
unexpectedly became pregnant andreturned home where she
essentially hid out.
She came from a conservativeCatholic family and nobody in
(15:12):
the family knew, with theexception of her eldest sister
and her sister's husband and Ithink I said it earlier, I was.
So she was gifted with the factshe she had had a quickly
accelerating career.
She had resources, so she wasable to sublet an apartment from
a friend and basically hide outthere and manage her pregnancy
(15:35):
at a hospital that catered toindividuals trying to maintain
discretion in their privacy.
And I remember as a kid askingmy adoptive father where was I
born, where's the hospital?
And he kept on sort of saying Isaid it's a little hospital in
New York.
It's not there anymore.
And my thought as a kid wasthere is nothing little in New
(15:58):
York and hospitals just don't goaway.
What I ultimately found out isit was a little hospital and it
didn't go away, but that'sthat's where she managed her
pregnancy and she, for thecouple of weeks prior to giving
birth, remained in the hospitalthere and what was, you know?
It's almost like a guest suite.
And then ultimately was thereuntil she gave birth.
(16:20):
My adoptive parents arrived onthe scene the second day of my
life.
She remained there a couple ofweeks afterwards and then went
home, went back to her privateapartment and then ultimately
went back and reunited with her,with her brother and sisters
and mother and father andgrandparents, and started
managing the secret.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, I think that that's a perfect way to segue
into another really interestingcomponent of your story.
You spoke earlier of having apicture from the library during
the search on ancestrycom, butyou also stumbled on some
(17:02):
additional, I'd say, memorabilia, yeah right Material regarding
your birth mother, and thisstory, when we talked previously
, fascinated me.
From the perspective of youcan't make this stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Okay, you just can't.
This has been a succession ofyeah, it's serendipity a
succession of coincidences andkindness from total strangers.
As I said, my mother went toVancouver, british Columbia.
When she got there, the peopleshe was skating with insisted
(17:38):
that, for simplicity, in thenewspaper, she adopt a stage
name.
So Genevieve Norowski, the17-year-old girl, turned into
Genevieve Naras, and I wouldsearch for Genevieve Norowski,
couldn't find her.
Genevieve Norowski couldn'tfind her and ultimately I came
across two blogs online,coincidentally, both of them
(18:01):
from Antiques dealers.
One of them was in SouthCarolina and she talked about
how she had attended an auctionin 2012.
And she had pictures of thesehuge objects you know, giraffes,
elephants, an eagle with a10-foot wingspan and she and her
(18:21):
partner bought these all upbecause they were highly sought
after as folk art.
But in this blog post, whichwas actually an online Antiques
magazine, she explained thatGenevieve Norowski had become
Genevieve Naras and, along withher husband, who she married
several years after I was born,been professional ice skaters
(18:44):
and ultimately, after retiring,had opened a company that
created props for ice skatingshows and theatrical events and
commercial purposes, and that'swhat this auction was of of
items that they had created.
But now I had something new Ihad Genevieve Naras Ice Skater,
and I also had her husband'sname, which was MESA, so I had
Genevieve Naras Norowski, mesa.
(19:06):
In a common.
In trying combinations, I put inGenevieve Naras Ice Skater and
a second blog post came up.
This one had about half a dozenphotographs of my birth mother.
It had a copy of her middleschool diploma.
It had a copy of her firstprofessional contract, and the
blog post basically said youknow the the woman who had
(19:29):
posted this was at anantisoction in Atlanta in 2012,.
So the same auction had seen acarton of memorabilia you know,
just photographs and a scrapbookand some other documents and,
knowing nothing about who theybelong to, just said it was a
glamorous age and a glamorousperson.
(19:52):
I'm gonna buy it and I wouldthink she probably paid very,
very little for it.
It was just a carton of stuff.
So I, you know, I saw that now,this 2017, as I'm viewing this,
so it's five years after theauction and I'm thinking, you
know, she's an antiques dealer.
These things are a long gone.
I had already contacted thepeople with the big pieces and
they were long gone Because Ihad a vision of that 10-foot
(20:15):
eagle.
They went bang.
My wife is very thankful Inever found it.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I could just see it right now behind place.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I've got the place, but I I Located this woman, the
second dealer, online onFacebook and I sent her a
message saying I'm exploring apossible family Relationship.
I saw your blog and I'd be veryinterested to know if you still
have those items, and I didn'tthink there was a prayer and I
(20:44):
was hoping she would answer meat all.
Within 10 minutes she sent me amessage back and she said I'm
really very busy now, but yes, Ido have them.
I'd love to talk to you.
I'll call you later.
One day went by, two days, threedays, four days, and after a
Week I sort of had the feelingthat you know, later was going
to to not come.
So I sent her another messageand this time I said the photos
(21:07):
you have in the documents, allare of my birth mother, I was
adopted in 1948 and within fiveminutes she called back.
She you know, this time shedidn't message.
She called and she apologized.
I said I just forgot.
She said but you need to cometo Atlanta right now and you
know we're in North Carolina.
But a better week later my wifeand I drove to Atlanta and this
(21:29):
woman and her husband camewalking into the hotel lobby,
the woman carrying the cartonand the husband Coming in
carrying a sword and shield sortof Allah mutant ninja turtles.
You know, and everybody's kindof looking at him.
And I've got that.
I wish I could do somethingwith a camera.
I've got the sword and shieldhanging outside, you know.
(21:49):
So we sat down, we went throughthis carton and and there was a
stack of photographs of otherice skaters and all of them were
autographed to my birth motherand saying, you know, to the
greatest partner ever and youknow, good luck.
And and the last one I foundwas from a woman, a really
really beautiful woman, and shewould have been in her early 20s
(22:10):
at that point.
She said to the best roommateever love Izzy.
And I said if anybody's and beable to tell me anything about
my mother, and if anyone couldtell me who my father might have
been and I hadn't, I'd neverhad any interest in who my
father was I Said it's Izzy.
But I was yeah, I was takingnotes and you know, and the, the
(22:31):
dealer's husband, said what areyou doing?
And I told him.
I said you know, just writingdown these names and I'm gonna
start seeing if I could findanybody.
And he said you Don't need towrite it down.
He just pushed the cartonacross the table at me and said
we've just been holding this foryou.
That's all yours and they justgave it to us and you know.
So at the very bottom of thecarton was a picture of my
(22:52):
mother skating with some otherteenage girls in 1942 as
amateurs to raise money for thefor the World War two bond
effort.
And then that's where sheEssentially was discovered, and
they, you know, and her iceskating career started right
there.
And again, it was interestingbecause all the Margins had been
clipped off the paper, so Ididn't have any clue where,
(23:15):
where it came from.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Ultimately I found that I found her right to the
paper and right to the date well, what I love about this story,
edward, is the fact that themost random thing brought you to
a treasure trove of informationand To just meet people who
picked up something because itkind of looked interesting.
(23:37):
But more importantly, I lovethe fact it just kind of warms
my heart a little bit that theygave it to you.
They weren't asking you to buythis material, and you know just
what a heartwarming Componentto have a the husband of the you
know this a couple to say we'vebeen holding it for you.
I know there's a little bitmore to that story about you and
(24:00):
that couple.
So it's not like you guys justding dong, ditch, like we're in
the hotel here.
You go away, we go.
You guys are still, stillconnected, correct?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, we've remained.
We've remained good friends.
You know, with COVID we've notbeen able to, to you know, to
travel as much as we had, butlast year I traveled from North
Carolina to Texas to talk with abook club.
That's a long way to go to talkto a book club, but this was
kind of special circumstances.
But we, we purposely routedourselves through Atlanta so we
(24:34):
could overnight there on the wayback and meet them for dinner.
And yeah, I think the thing Ishould really point out is,
after you push the carton overto me, and so we've just been
holding this, they then took usout to dinner.
Yeah, I said, and I want to,yeah, I wanted to pay.
He had already gone, sort ofsnuck off.
I thought he went to the men'sroom.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
He went me paid, gave somebody his credit card so
there wouldn't be a, wouldn't bea discussion what I like about
your story is that yourcommunity Extended outside of
the adoptee community as welland you've had such a positive
experience Associated with that,which will give others some
hope, that it doesn't always gothat way.
And I get in your circumstance.
(25:13):
It's almost this is almost likeyour uniform and you know some
of the things that went down andand I know you know that and
and you're sensitive to that forother other adoptees let's move
forward a little bit in yourstory because it does not end
with.
You know you get all thismemorabilia.
You actually start going thenext level and trying to find
(25:35):
Living, living relatives and Iwant to know did you actually
connect up with Izzy?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
We did.
I, yeah, I went through thatstack and I went through it name
by name and you know, and giventhe ages and number of the
women were Deceased, some otherswere just just couldn't find
them.
And when I got to Izzy, youknow I searched and I did is a
Isabelle Smith ice skater, and Ididn't find her directly.
But I found an obituary for,you know, for men who is like a
(26:04):
very, very prominent officerduring World War two and and
occupied Italy and all sorts ofthings, but kind of almost in
small print at the bottom of theobituary he survived by his
wife, isabelle.
Yeah, his wife of 50 years,professional ice skater.
We shipped that in Johnson'sice follies.
So I still couldn't findIsabelle but I knew, at least up
(26:25):
to a certain date, that she wasalive.
And it gave the name for twosons.
I Randomly picked one.
One was, I think, somewhere inIowa perhaps, and the other one
was in many in Minnesota, whichsounded like ice skating country
to me.
So I reached out to him, I senthim a letter and one of the
things I did with all of theletters that I sent to people is
(26:46):
I hand wrote them just Becauseit.
I thought it would look lesslike some sort of crazy man or a
scam.
And to this letter I attached apicture of photo stata of my
mother and a photo stata of thepicture of his mother.
So I was happy because theletter didn't come back as
undeliverable or anything.
And a week or so later the phonerang and it was him and he said
(27:06):
mama's alive.
I showed her the pictures andshe was tickled to death.
She's really excited, she wantsto talk to you.
And I was tickled to death andreally excited and wanted to
talk to Isabelle.
And he must have since myelation because he said I just
need to caution you about onething.
And then, yeah, then he had tohear the sigh and he said you
know, he said mom is in a memorycare facility, but the good
(27:29):
news is mom doesn't know whatshe had for breakfast this
morning, but she can give you arecitation of every minute of
1947.
He gave me mom's contactinformation, he gave me the
switchboard number for the forthe facility and you know.
And then when you get thatperson Asked for the nurse, and
you know in such and such aplace and they'll go and get mom
, you know.
(27:49):
So we went through the processand I'm waiting and all of a
sudden there's mom on the phone.
There's is about right in alertand I kind of introduced myself
and she said this is soremarkable.
I saw those pictures.
She said it brings back so manymemories and I said well, I
said I would like to ask yousome questions, but I know it's
kind of unfair to ask somebodywho's 92 about what happened to
(28:11):
them in 1947.
And there is a pause.
She said who told you on 92?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
the things we care about right.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, I kept.
I sort of just sat quietly andshe said I'm 88 and I'm quick,
doing Math on my fingers, sayingif she was 88, she was 12 years
old when she was skating, whichI learned is not impossible.
But then she said, as a matterof fact, I'm 85 and I just left
it there.
You know, we we kind of left itthat way and we had a
(28:41):
conversation that went onprobably the better part of an
hour.
I guess the key to it is, shesaid I didn't realize your
mother was pregnant.
I don't know who she dated, soI learned some more about my
mother and her nature and thekind of person she was.
And as we came to the end of theof the discussion, yeah, I.
I said you know what I saidI've got some airline miles and
(29:02):
I've got some hotel points.
And I said, yes, I said let melook into this and maybe at some
point we'll come to visit.
And she said, well, that wouldbe wonderful.
And then she like paused againand she said now, how old did
you say you were?
I said, well, I'm 16.
I'm 69.
She said, well, I'm 65, youknow.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
She got younger every hour.
Yes, oh, she was.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I should have skipped on the phone.
She would have been a newborn,but we did go out there, we did
visit with Isabelle and we spentthe better part of four and a
half five hours with her.
That's fantastic she had somereal scrapbooks with her and we
had a wonderful time.
She's the kind of person if youknow, if we live nearby.
She's the kind of person youwant to go and visit on Sundays,
because she'd be the closestthing you could have to a
(29:46):
grandma.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Oh, that's so sweet, that really is a nice story.
Well, let's fast forward now alittle bit, because it certainly
doesn't end there.
So you take the informationthat she has you kind of hit a
wall.
You don't have, you know,anything really to move forward
on the paternal side.
What was your next step?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I found my mother's name at several different
addresses in a, in a specificarea of Georgia, south of
Atlanta, and I would hand writea letter and I send it off and
letters are all coming back asundeliverable Not at this
address, never at this address,will never be at this address.
And I eventually found a manonline and I very distant
(30:24):
relationship to a, to a womanwho I learned later that my
maternal half brother hadmarried in the early 1980s and
he's you know.
I found him and he was onancestry and I reached out to
him and he was.
He again came back, veryhelpful and he said to the best
of my knowledge, your mother isno longer alive and I think your
(30:46):
brother.
There's a brother and I thinkhe was in an accident.
I don't know where he is.
This is not terribly helpful,but via that that second antique
Steelers blog I found a name ofsomebody who said he had been a
neighbor and a friend to theperson who turned out to be my
maternal half brother.
So I reached out to him and hecame back and he said you know,
(31:09):
no number one, your, your motheris not alive.
I sang at her memorial memorialceremony and two year brother
was in a calamitous fire and isin a rehab facility but will be
getting out soon.
He gave me an address for therehab facility where my brother
was.
So I again wrote letters.
Never got a response to theletter.
(31:30):
I explained that to him.
I said I sent a letterexplaining.
It didn't get anything back.
If you could get him to call me, I'd really appreciate it.
You know, within the week thephone rang and there's this
person who turns out to be myhalf-brother and we had a very
nice conversation.
He kind of explained to me hismother had died in 2014.
And then he said well, tell meagain, what kind of kin are we?
(31:54):
You and I have the same motherand there was kind of a moment's
silence.
He said well, I have to go now.
He said but I'll call you back.
I have to go and I take my wifefor a walk, kind of like the,
the antique dealer.
I'll call you later.
Turned into weeks.
So I got back to his friendagain, said I haven't heard from
Ted.
Could you give him a nudge?
And he called back again.
He said I'm getting out of herein the next two or three days
(32:17):
and I said yeah.
I said I would really like tocome down and meet you at some
point once you're moved.
He said that's a good thing, hesaid, but I just wanted to ask
you again what kind of kin arewe?
And once again, I explained it.
So you know, to jump forward alittle bit, we ultimately, in
September of 2017, we met himand it was good.
You know, he was obviouslynervous and we were a little bit
(32:37):
, and we were staying in anearby hotel and before I left I
brought a copy of my adoptiondecree and by then I seen enough
of my mother's things to knowthe signature was hers and to
know that he would know when hesaw it.
So I handed it to him.
I said this is the documentwhere your mother gave me up to
these other people as theirchild.
(32:58):
And he kind of looked at it andthe friend who had put us
together was there as well andyou know, my brother handed him
the paper, you know, and Kevin,god bless and looked at it and
just didn't know what to say,just sort of shrugged his
shoulders and handed it back andmy you know my brother was
going to hand it back to me.
I said it's a photo stat and Isaid so, keep it if it means
anything to you.
(33:18):
You know his, his thing waswell I guess every woman has a
secret, and you know his.
His mama had a secret and Ithink he he's so idealized his
mother.
He had her on a pedestal, whichI think is a beautiful thing.
Just could not initially fathomthat she could have had a child
and then kind of gone on withthis carrying the secret through
(33:40):
life.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I like when we talk about the reunions and some of
the aspects of when we firstmeet a family member, and I find
it very interesting that whenwe do that we are also talking
about their reactions to meetingus, how that may come across to
us as rejection or secondaryrejection and that happens, that
(34:00):
absolutely happens.
But I'm empathetic to the otherside of that conversation, who
you just spoke of, a woman whoyou know had really quite a
fabulous life and, in the grandscheme of things, some great
stories that went with that andhad a son, and you know she was
up on a pedestal.
And now here you are.
(34:22):
I'm just thinking through myhead what it's like to be on the
other side of that conversation.
I mean through it all.
Even though he was hesitant, itsounds like he kept coming back
for just a little bit more.
He just really needed someaffirmation somewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, you know, it wasn't until later and I looked
at it.
I had thought over and over, ifmy mother is still alive, how
would I approach her?
With an eye toward beingdelicate and just realizing 70
years later it becomes quite theshock.
When I found that that she wasnot alive, I stopped quite
(34:58):
thinking that way and just kindof barged into my brother's life
.
I just kind of stepped in andthere was no rejection.
He just could not wrap his headaround it.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, just such a different perspective.
Yeah, absolutely.
You talked a little bit aboutyour adoption decree.
I believe you've kind ofmentioned that you had some
information associated with youroriginal birth certificate at
some point in time, and so inany of that material was there a
(35:33):
recognition of who the fatherwas there?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
was not and that was, I think in the era was very,
very typical.
I was a summer romance.
I was the product of a summerromance.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
So I do want to ask though did we make a connection
to your paternal family?
I don't know if we've chattedabout that.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
No, we have not and as little as I thought about who
my birth mother had been.
I gave virtually no thought towho my father might have been.
Yeah, when I was still in themode where she was a high school
girl, I had him as the guy whopumped gas at the gas station,
and that turned out not to bethe case either.
Before I got on to this search,before that February, when I
(36:11):
decided I'm going to go lookingat that, previous Christmas I
bought two DNA kits, one formyself, one for my wife and I
just wanted to know.
You know what my background was, and I got my pie chart back
which said I was probably about70% Eastern European and then
kind of random slices ofNorthern European.
(36:31):
And then I went over and Ilooked at my living up my
thousand closest relatives thatthey sent me.
The one at the top of the listwas listed as first cousin,
close family, and I knew youknow from all my research by
then that he was not on mymother's side, that was not a
maternal name, and they had afamily tree with that 600 people
(36:53):
on it.
His father was an only child.
His mother had five sisters anda brother.
So I said, okay, if he is my.
If this man who I match on DNAis my cousin, then this one last
person who's his uncle, must bemy father.
So I'm pretty excited, you know,really, you know, hadn't having
gone from never thought of itto well, look what I found and
(37:14):
the logic with uncle Harrisseems, seems to hold water.
So I thought I'd done all thisgreat logic and I made a
discovery.
And it wasn't a spit in a tube.
And look what I found.
That's the price you pay forwaiting until you're 69 to go
looking for your parents.
So you know, I found a brother,and and which was what a, yeah,
what a sweet thing to tellsomebody you don't even really
know.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, but as we wrap up here a little bit, I think
that your real message and andjust to continue to articulate
that is, you didn't have aboundary based off of the age
and you, granted, may have hadone of the more well-faved
golden path roads to gettingyour information, and I know you
recognize it's not the norm,but I do know you also want to
(37:58):
encourage people to look in thenot so obvious places for
information.
Do you want to give us a littlebit more on that as well?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Well, yeah, there's a lot of material that's online
and certainly you know you're atan advantage if you know
anything.
If you don't know anything,that's really you don't know
what to search for.
If you can pick a little pieceand go to work on it, they, it
starts to get bigger.
You know that the littlesatellite turns larger.
You know, I think, askquestions and you know and it's,
(38:27):
if you don't ask the questionsyou won't find any answers, and
so I guess that's that's the onething I can really put out
there.
If you, if you've got a name towork with google, the hell out
of it.
And if you know, if you haven'tdone DNA and you're really
interested, do it now yeah, Iwould agree yeah, because more
and more people are doing it andif, if you can't figure out
(38:50):
your results, but you seesomebody who even looks remotely
like a close relative, go getsome help with it.
There are all sorts of searchangels, you know.
So it's, it's certainly doablethere.
You know, dna has just broughtus to a place.
There are very few secrets leftout there anymore, like it or
not yeah, yeah, I would agreewith that.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I would absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I think pretty much everything matters, everything
really does, and you know, youjust hear the stories and you
know, one little piece opens thedoor and it goes from there
well.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I have found our conversation to be very
encouraging for others.
I want to thank you for beingon today's episode.
It has been a pleasure.
Before we sign off, I want torestate the name of your book.
It is called the gift bestgiven, so go out and check that
out.
It has been a fantasticconversation with you today here
(39:41):
on the podcast.
I just want to say thank you somuch for joining us and opening
up to other adoptees, but alsoopening up as a a gentleman in
our community it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Thank you so much for having me thank you for
listening to today's episode.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Make sure to rate, review and share.
Want to join the conversation?
Contact us atwanderingtreeadoptedcom.
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