I always thought I was Swedish
Commentary by JoELLEN COLLINS
In addition, I adored my family and often thought how
inconceivable it was to think of being raised by anyone else. I felt
blessed, fortunate and possessed of a true sense of belonging.
I was raised in a Swedish home. As her parents were both
Swedish emigres, my mother couldn’t speak English until she went to
kindergarten. I learned my first prayers in Swedish, my home at Christmas
could have been transplanted to Stockholm, and my mother’s cooking left
me with a taste for Swedish pancakes filled with lingonberries and for
light, tender meatballs flavored with allspice.
Just a few weeks ago, however, I discovered that by
genetics I am not Swedish: in fact, my progenitors were small-town Texans
of English heritage. In short, I learned some of the facts about my
history up until the time of my adoption more than 60 years ago. As usual,
I want to share this part of my personal pilgrimage with my readers.
For all of my early life I was contented with what I
thought was the true story of my adoption. According to that version, my
19–year old birth mother was a student at U.C. Berkeley, where she
married a young man her family disliked. She died giving birth to me, and
her young husband, grief-stricken, left the state. Because records were
(then) sealed forever, I accepted that tale and, indeed, had little
curiosity about my ancestry.
In addition, I adored my family and often thought how
inconceivable it was to think of being raised by anyone else. I felt
blessed, fortunate and possessed of a true sense of belonging.
After my mother (the beautiful woman who adopted me) died,
and my first daughter was born, I admit to an awakening of some curiosity
about what my birth parents looked like. Still, I assumed that sealed
records and a deceased birth mother made the process moot. In the 70s I
even appeared on a segment of "60 Minutes" as an oddball in a
panel of adoptees who were somehow discovering their birth information and
calling up unknown women to spill the beans. I remembered thinking that
this was unduly disruptive to the lives of many of those women, who had
made a sacrifice, been given the assurance of secrecy, and gone on to pick
up the pieces of their lives. Was it right to violate their confidence?
I swore I would never do that, even if, by some miracle my
birth mother had lived.
Adoption laws changed through the years, but I still didn’t
push for more knowledge. Finally, at the urging of my grown daughters, who
wanted to know more about their genetic heritage, I was able to obtain
non-identifying information (a lot, but with the names withheld) from the
Children’s Home Society in California. I also signed a waiver agreeing
to release my address to anyone who ever had inquired about me or still
might. I found out that no one had searched for me in all these years, at
least through this organization.
I pored through the information I was given, but one line
most assuredly shocked me. It confirmed that my birth mother was a
19-year-old college student in Berkeley. However, she experienced a normal
delivery and did not die in childbirth. She had briefly married the
father, but they soon separated, and then mutually decided that, as the
letter so well put it, "allowing you the opportunity of an adoptive
family was the best plan."
So all these years there may have been a young woman who
survived into adulthood and perhaps a long life, who may, indeed, have
harbored a sense of loss. Perhaps she even wished to know what ever
happened to the baby she signed away. Like me, she thought the records
were forever sealed.
In retrospect, I am not surprised that I was told that
fable; I understand that my loving adoptive family wanted to spare me from
the unkind attitudes that prevailed at that time about
"illegitimate" babies. Also, they probably didn’t want me to
feel abandoned. Surely, I imagine them reasoning, only death could have
prompted my being given up and placed in an orphanage, where I spent some
time before Helen (Johanson) and Ted Gifford took me home.
So I harbor no dismay. Both of those dear people are dead,
and I will never know their reasons. But I am frustrated at the thought
that I might have siblings. I can certainly imagine that young woman
returning home, getting married, and raising children.
Also, of course, I’d like to hear her story and see what
she looked like at various times in our lives to see if there is a
resemblance or if either of my daughters has any of her features. But most
of all, I wish I could thank that woman, probably deceased by now, for my
truly wonderful childhood, one where I was surrounded by a loving family
who fully nurtured me. I did fine, and so did she. She gave me a rich
life.
Actually, I feel Swedish, and I consider myself part of
the extended family into which I was brought. I claim as my own my
sea-captain Grandpa Carl Johanson, who met my grandmother Valborg Sundborg
by rescuing her in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. I am still my
brother's sister, my cousins’ cousin, still in my soul the child who was
shaped by Helen and Ted. So to them and to those who gave me up, skoal!
