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 Max:
November 1995
Family
Reunion: Searching for Roots
By:
Mary Stack
A
quick flick through any issue of Yankee magazine reveals the
national obsession with tracing one's roots. There are endless
lists of inquiries requesting details about this person or
that. But you don't have to claim ancestry on the Mayflower
to be intrigued about where you came from and who you look
like. It's a very human need which we all have, according
to Al Phinney, a Marshfield genealogist, who is only too familiar
with the lengths to which people will go to investigate their
origins.
"Everybody
has the right to know their past, to fill in that missing
space - as I did," he says, as he relates the story of
his own life, which began as a search too.
Back
in 1953, Al Phinney's family split up - he didn't know it
then, but it would be forever. His parents had divorced in
'52 and, the following spring, Al went to live with his grandfather
in Waltham while his four-year-old sister, Dorothy, was adopted.
Al was almost six years old, and though he would not realize
it at the time, he would not see or hear of Dorothy's whereabouts
for the next 36 years.
In
1960, Al's father returned, moving to Marshfield with his
new wife. Al went to live with them, but remained close friends
with his grandfather until he died in 1971. During these years,
Al constantly sought information about his missing sister
to no avail "I asked everyone and no one knew anything.
That was the system in the 50s," he explains.
After
his grandfather's death, Al was shocked to discover amongst
his possessions a photograph of his sister, Dorothy, dated
1959. "I thought, that son-of-a-gun knew where she was
all these years! Right there and then, I resolved to come
back with the answer even though I had no idea of how to go
about it and even less knowledge of how to hunt."
Years
passed and throughout his "hell-raising youth,"
Al made frequent trips to his more remote relatives in Nova
Scotia. He liked Cape Breton and Jessie, his aunt, who always
made a big deal about family connections and where one stood
in the genealogical hierarchy. Roots and family links were
important contacts to maintain, according to Aunt Jessie.
It was not till years later that Al would appreciate the deep
impact of these messages on his teenage psyche.
During
this time, Al had developed a keen interest in history, particularly
the Civil War period, which he liked to research. In 1989,
during one of his trips to the archives in Boston with his
friend Gail, a genealogist, he suddenly thought about looking
up his sister's records.
"I
figured if I could do research on the Civil War, I should
be able to do the 50s," he concluded. Knowing only his
sister's name, date and place of birth, Gail showed him how
to trace preliminary adoption records at Cambridge Court,
in Middlesex County. Since true adoption papers are sealed
by law, this was the first clue as to what his sister's new
name was and where she might be.
On
April 20, 1989, Al found himself aboard a train bound for
Churchville, Maryland, in search of the "A" family.
Upon his arrival, he searched through high school yearbooks
and two cemeteries to confirm that Dorothy was still alive,
before trying to contact the family.
A
chance meeting with a Mrs. Molloy in Smith Chapel, Churchville,
gave him the final pieces to his puzzle. As the two discussed
the Akehurst family, the fact that Dorothy played the organ,
that she was married and had three children, Mrs. Molloy told
Al, "Dorothy had a brother in Massachusetts and nobody
knew whatever happened to him." Al said, "I am the
brother." Subsequently, Mrs. Molloy showed him photographs
of his sister from the church records, and the two became
instant friends.
Within
24 hours, a family reunion was organized. There was much to
talk about and a certain amount of disbelief to get over before
they could really grasp the facts. It appeared that Dorothy
had actually gone to Massachusetts looking for her brother
some 15 years earlier, and had met with no success. Everyone
told her it couldn't be done - just as they had told Al.
Al's
success with conducting his own genealogical search spawned
his interest in doing the same work for others. Initially
he helped friends, and then their friends, until he decided
to set up his own business, Marshfield Resources, which specializes
in "People Search." Of the 70 or so cases he has
taken so far, about half have been adoption traces. "Adoption
searches often occur after the adoptive parents are dead.
Many people wait till [then] so as not to hurt their feelings.
But it's a piece of you that you have to resolve, and it just
depends on when that particular item surfaces in your life."
Al
emphasizes that tracing people is a very delicate business,
and that the person initiating the search must be prepared
for rejection or other unhappy discoveries in the process.
For this reason, he recommends that all his clients read "Birthright"
by Jean A.S. Strauss before they embark on any adoption search.
"The book breaks it to them gently - sometimes they can
set themselves up for disappointment, and all the things you
haven't thought about are in there. You can trace history,
but you cannot change history I tell them."
Al's
work brings him an unusual level of personal satisfaction,
he says, since he has the rare opportunity to affect lives.
He admits that not all his stories have happy endings but
"there are more pluses than minuses. I get just as much
satisfaction as the person I am working for when I accomplish
something. And I'm not just interested in the dollar and cents
aspect of my work. People's lives are a touchy subject and
you have to tread softly." Despite the subtle approach,
he has had a high success rate with cases. "People are
out there …they're not hiding, dead or missing,"
he says, "they've just lost contact".
Nan's
Story
In
1955, at the inquisitive age of 10, Nan discovered she had
been adopted. Unlike her half-brother who had been adopted
from the Home for Little Wanderers, Nan had been adopted through
the black market. A deal had been arranged between physician
and family, money changed hands, records were altered and
Nan's true history was to remain a dark secret for almost
50 years.
Nan's
shock at this discovery was understandable, but the pain of
not knowing who she was haunted her for years. "I underwent
a series of identity crises; by the time I had reached the
age of 27 I had collected five different stories about my
background. One such rumor was that I was bright owing to
the fact that my father had been a graduate student at M.I.T.
On the basis of this, my aunt paid for my mortgage and tuition
while I went to graduate school. It was all hokum of course!"
In
April 1995, Nan's adoptive mother died and in her papers Nan
found a letter from the doctor who had organized the "swap,"
inquiring about the welfare of the new baby. For Nan, it resurrected
the idea of doing a search. She had tried several times in
the past, to find out more about her roots but never met with
any success. Her adoptive mother appeared to know little more
than Nan's birth date, time and place. So those were the details
that she had given to her friend, Al Phinney, at the end of
1994.
On
January 18, 1995, Al presented Nan with the perfect gift for
her 50th birthday - the information that had eluded her for
decades. Al was sure he had found the name and address of
her birth mother - in Maine. Nan was stunned and decided to
sit on the issue for a while. The letter she eventually penned
to "Bunny," her birth mother, took four months to
write. At the end of June, Nan gave Al the completed letter
and a collection of photos herself, from infancy to the present,
to hand-deliver to "Bunny's" home in Maine.
By
July 4th, Nan was on the highway heading north, to meet her
mother for the first time. Bunny's first words were, "I
have prayed every day of my life for this, that some day I'd
find you." The reunion was tearful and painful. By the
close of the day, Nan found out that Bunny had been forced
to give up her illegitimate child. The stranger irony was
that Bunny had gone on to marry Nan's father, and that they
had three more children together - two daughters and one son.
Nan was astounded and delighted to learn that she had inherited
an entire family!
Thankfully,
for Nan, the story has a beautiful ending. She has already
made plans to meet her two sisters from Washington.
"I
grew up all my life in a family where nobody was like me -
I felt like an odd shoe. My main purpose in doing all this
was to meet my mother and relieve her anxieties and guilt
from the past. Without knowing the details, I just knew she
must feel as I did - so I took the chance." The outcome
has far outweighed her expectations, it seems "It's like
being born again."
Karen's
Story
Karen
had absolutely no memory of her real father. Her parents had
separated in 1948 when she was four years old; two years later,
they were divorced. Afterwards, any time Karen raised the
question of who or where her father was, her interest was
met with fierce hostility by her older half-brother and total
disinterest by her mother. Her sibling's description of her
father as a "cruel and miserable man" frightened
her and succeeded in dampening her desire to seek him out,
for many years. "I was afraid of rejection, but he always
remained in the back of my mind," she explains.
Curiosity
got the better of her fear, however, and when she was 18,
Karen made an attempt to trace her father once more. Her mother
gave her the contact name of a man who would act as emissary
and take a message to her father. Two days later the bad news
came back, "He doesn't want to see you."
Karen
was completely devastated. She had lived through her mother's
bitter, abusive, interim marriage and this was an additional
dose of battering to an already fragile ego. The pain of rejection
branded Karen for many years, she says, "I had a hard
time dealing with it all my life and it damaged every relationship."
Karen
has known Al Phinney for many years, and it was during a friendly
chat in January 1995, that Al asked for Karen's father's full
name. On St. Patrick's Day, he told Karen that he had traced
the details to a town in New York, and looked up her father
in the phone book. But after obtaining the number, Karen lost
her nerve, the old fear of rejection returned and she made
her way back home to Massachusetts.
Shortly
thereafter, she was told that a man named Albert had called
her niece in Connecticut, looking for Karen. No information
was given, but he had left his phone number. Karen was "terrified
to pick up the phone," she recalls, but Al assured her
that this time the ball was in her court. For the first time,
Karen's father was looking for her. Armed with this information,
Karen found the courage to call. When Albert answered, father
and daughter talked for two hours or more. "It was,"
she says, "the easiest conversation I ever had."
Incredible
information about their lives poured out. It appeared that
Albert had never received the fateful message that Karen had
conveyed to him some 32 years earlier. He had issued no such
rejection. The dreadful pain that Karen had suffered as a
consequence, for so many years, had stemmed from a rebuff
that had never occurred. When Karen and Albert finally met
in New York a little while later, they spent "a beautiful
day together. There was an immediate chemistry between us."
Still
more amazing details followed when Albert came to visit Karen
in Marshfield, and asked if he could see her mother, Bertha.
Dumbfounded though Bertha was, she agreed to meet with him.
Supposedly bad communication had fueled the divorce proceedings,
and Albert, who had received his "surprise" divorce
papers along with his belongings, at the Y.M.C.A. in Brooklyn
where he resided during the week, said he had never understood
the rejection.
So
Karen made the arrangements and her parents reconnected. They
have been dating ever since. Karen says that she has witnesses
a total transformation in her mother, who is now 75 and legally
blind. "She has gone from being a lonely miserable old
woman to being a person of great joy. Albert really dotes
on her and seeing them so happy together is unbelievable,"
she says.
Despite
the magic of the metamorphosis, Karen remains cautious about
the future. "I am taking it one day at a time, and still
feel aware of the need to protect myself. I have a tremendous
fear of Albert leaving and of my mother getting hurt - I resent
the fact that he wasn't around all the years that I was growing
up, so in some ways I feel he has to earn my love."
The
flip side to that equation however is very positive. "It's
so weird - I look just like him," she says. "I always
had this sense of not belonging, but now that I've met my
father it all makes sense. I think I'll keep him."
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