The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

by Ann Fessler

  I came to really resent the language that was used to describe me and my experience. Everyone who would talk about adoption in general, or about adopted people or mothers who had lost their children, seemed to all use the same sort of jargon, what I would call “loaded language,” that’s emotionally charged. It’s very judgmental and biased to one side of an issue. Calling young expectant mothers “birth mothers” or any kind of mother other than just simply the mother simply serves to put distance between that mother and her baby. That serves a real purpose. It makes everybody comfortable with the fact that she’s not a “real” mother. You have terms such as “first mother,” “life mother,” “birth mother,” “natural mother,” “biological mother,” like she was just this surrogate receptacle that carried this child to the real family. So there is a lot of language surrounding adoption which is very disentitling, disenfranchising, marginalizing to both the child and the mother, and in favor of the industry and the potential adoptive parents.

  Every mother is inexperienced the first time she is pregnant. Somehow, whether they’re married or unmarried, thirty or eighteen, they learn to be a mother. I can only speak from my experience, but as a seventeen-year-old woman I was educable, I was trainable, I was looking for guidance in every facet of my life. I was very resourceful. I was very loving and gentle. I would have made, I believe, an excellent mother. Unfortunately, that opportunity was taken away from me. If I’d had support and mentoring, I would have made a wonderful mother for my son.

  I think there should be opportunities to mentor young expectant mothers in established homes, to see how parents act in a healthy home, to learn from that. A mentoring experience and classes in parenting—all of these things could help a young woman who is single at the time of giving birth. She may eventually get married and maybe have more children. But I think that these young women just need some guidance and education. They have all the natural inclinations to be the mother to their child and most want to be, and would be, if given the opportunity.

  LINDA I

  I grew up in Waco, Texas, and we were raised very strict Baptist. There was right and wrong and you didn’t stray. That’s more or less the way I’d lived my life. Then right after I graduated from high school, things were getting bad in Vietnam. We lived just outside of James Connolly Air Force Base. A lot of the boys in my high-school class were drafted. My cousin was drafted and my other cousin was killed there in 1968. I was a fairly good nursing assistant and I wanted to be a nurse but didn’t have the money for school. So I joined the army. I thought this would be a way I could help the army and our country and also get a good education.

  I went to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where I was on the receiving end when they brought the wounded in. So many men were being killed. We were told to never tell how many men were brought in, because the U.S. didn’t want to alarm the general public. We weren’t to talk of the wounds or anything we saw. I worked with the men who were brought back with contagion due to their wounds, or jungle diseases that there was no cure for—things of that sort.

  They trained us to be combat medics. We learned how to crawl on our tummies and pull the stretchers. We were sent out in the field with little plastic things to make tents out of. The Air Force tried to kill us. They would drop bombs on us. They were teaching us not to get shell-shocked. Only one person in my class had a nervous breakdown. They sent her back home, but all the rest of us went right on through that. We were trained and ready in case they needed us. As far as I understand, no woman ever went to the lines; they were at the field hospitals. A friend of mine went and she came back and committed suicide. She couldn’t deal with what she saw.

  I had lived, I guess, a fairly sheltered life. I didn’t know it at the time. I thought I was typical of the sixties, but I guess I wasn’t. I hadn’t ever had sex or anything like that. Like I said, I grew up in Waco and the Baptist headquarters is there. But during the war everything was going fast. A day then was like a month now. It was terrible pressure, taking care of the wounded. Men died in my arms. I was their mother, I was their priest, I was their sister, whatever they needed. I would talk to them and I’d pray with them. I’d hold them in my arms and tell them that they were a hero and that I’d never forget them, and I haven’t. I still dream of that. They say that’s post-traumatic stress syndrome and I should go to the VA. No, what that is, is just caring for people.

  There at Fort Sam Houston, I met a soldier who had been injured. They brought him back to recover and I fell in love with him instantly. He looked like Dean Martin. He said that he fell in love with me at first sight and he asked me to marry him. I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Before we were supposed to marry, I became pregnant. I wasn’t even worried. Of course, I knew my family would be counting the months.

  I knew I could get pregnant, but I never even thought about it. Some way or another, falling in love with him just erased my mind. I had been putting him off for a good while, but I was in love with him and we were going to get married soon. So I went ahead. Two weeks later, I was pretty sure I was pregnant. So yes, I knew better, but reason left my mind.

  When I told him I thought I was pregnant, he told me that he was married. It just broke my heart. Later I found out—and this makes me really furious—that there are many military men who propose marriage to women who are not very worldly. They will give you a ring and say they’re going to marry you, with no intentions. I had a ring. I was already wearing it and I had made plans for the wedding.

  Several times during my pregnancy I thought of suicide. I didn’t see how I could go on. I knew I didn’t dare confide in my family or close friends. I knew my days in the army were short. I was about to be kicked out. I heard a lot of sermons from my commanding officer about how I had dishonored the whole army. It wasn’t bad enough to dishonor myself; I had gone after the whole U.S. government. I cried. I wasn’t acting like a trained combat soldier, I can tell you that. I was sobbing and apologizing and saying how sorry I was. I had to write something on it and I wrote how sorry I was that I had dishonored the army.

  They gave me an honorable discharge but they told me the reason they did was because of the child. If she were to see my records someday she would feel guilty because I had been kicked out of the service due to her. I didn’t know it at the time, but the law said after she was born I could go back. They didn’t tell me. Since they were talking about how dishonorable I had been, I didn’t think they wanted me back. The father got a pension. He got a pension that he still draws to this day. So the whole thing was much harder on me than it was on him.

  My mother let me stay at home for a few weeks, then she said, “You don’t look pregnant now, but you will soon. I want you out of this house.” She told me that if I kept my baby I could not come back. She also said, “You’ll never be able to find a job with a baby. All you’re going to find is more trouble like you’ve had. No decent man will want to marry you and if you keep your child people will call her a bastard and they’ll be mean to her. Who do you love the most, you or your child?” She said, “You go to that maternity home and you give that baby up.”

  Being that I really didn’t have any resources, that’s what I did. At that time, people were talking about it being a sexual revolution—free love and Woodstock—but it didn’t happen in Waco, Texas. There was no way that I could have had my daughter with me. I lived in the maternity home for six months and I gave birth at Fort Sam Houston. I heard helicopter after helicopter landing outside my window. I would crawl over and look out and cry because they were bringing in wounded soldiers. Fort Sam is the burn center of the world, and some of these young men were burned so badly. I thought, “I’m supposed to be down there helping these men into this hospital. I’m supposed to be saving lives.”

  I saw her after she was born. I couldn’t believe she looked just like me. They let me hold her and I told her I don’t want to do this but I have to. I swore to her that when she was eighteen years old I was going to find
her. I said, “I love you and I don’t want to do this.” When I did find my daughter she told me, “I never worried, I knew you’d find me and I knew you loved me.” So her soul remembered what I said.

  I returned to the maternity home and stayed until I was considered healed. While I was there, I put together a baby book for my daughter. I didn’t put in names or anything, just things about me and her father. I was hoping that she could use this to avoid the mistake I made. I also bought her a christening dress. I had changed my religion to Lutheran. I didn’t have any use for those Baptists because they were rather condemning. They didn’t give her the book. They just told her that I was in the army and that I was musical. I had sung backup on some of the sixties music. It was enough to make me sound a lot more interesting than I am.

  I never let the people at the home see me cry. From then on, I put a face on for the public, but I grieved. It was like a child had died, and I have lost some babies since then, so I know exactly what I’m talking about. It was very difficult for me to sign those papers. One of the things that hurt me desperately was that where it said “Father” they put “unknown.” I knew who my baby’s father was and he knew she was his child. I thought, “If she ever gets this birth record, what is she going to think of me?”

  Every July 3, I would remember. Usually I was sick. One time I had a heart attack on July the third. I had a whole list of illnesses. I had ovarian tumors that came out one time in July. If you go back and look at my medical records, I was always physically ill around that time. I spent a lot of those days in the hospital. I know it was nothing except the stress and the sadness. There’s no way that I can describe the sadness that was in my heart. It was like she was born again on that day.

  I went on to nursing school and halfway through I started seeing a friend who was a Green Beret. He had actually been in the same company at Fort Bragg as my cousin who was killed. We began corresponding and later we were married. I always liked him but I don’t think I loved him. I didn’t ever want to be in love with anybody in that way again. He was a POW for a short time and was wounded. He had scars, you know, and he became very mean. When my daughter was two we were divorced. Later, I met my husband that I’m married to now. It was love at first sight. We’ve been married, I think, thirty-five years; I have to add it up. So there is life after doing everything wrong.

  I always wanted to know where my daughter was but I knew that it was against the law for me to even think about looking for her until she was of age. I kept counting down the years. Every birthday was one year closer to eighteen. I thought about it a lot, but I was afraid. I thought she might hate me, like the doctor had told me in the army. Every July 3, I would put a birthday greeting in the San Antonio Light for my daughter. I’d say, “Born 7/3/66, Happy Birthday, your mom loves you.” When I located her, I sent a letter and she called the day she got it. She said, “I know you’re my mother. I don’t have to investigate. When you answered the phone, I thought I was talking to myself.”

  I found out later that she played violin. We both participated in musical programs. She has a beautiful voice and did many professional appearances. She was also in the army and was a trained combat medic for Desert Storm. Her military pictures look just like mine. We were both EKG technicians, we work with hearts.

  And she’s interested in history like I am. I was able to tell her about our ancestors, like the ancestor who was the youngest man killed at the Alamo. I belong to the Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas, Missouri. My great-grandmother was Cherokee and she was born on the Missouri River. My father’s grandmother was Chickasaw, so I have ancestry on both sides. My daughter’s father is also Cherokee. I think he has more Cherokee blood than I do. She didn’t know she was part Native American. She wasn’t told. I don’t think she was told anything about her heritage, just things like…I played the French horn. I think it meant more to her to know some of her background. She said knowing made her a whole person.

  I’m a Texas Search Angel and every person that I have reunited I’ve done it in honor of my daughter, because it’s made a difference in her life. She felt there was always something missing. She says it doesn’t take away from her other family; she just has two families, and she loves them both.

  Finding her and becoming close to her did not end the pain. I took a lot of psychological counseling and I don’t think it helped. I just wasted my money. The only thing that helped was time and honesty. I had to become honest and say, “I gave my child up for adoption.”

  After the reunion, my mother told me that if I was going to have my daughter in my life, then I couldn’t have her in my life. She said, “I will not be embarrassed by you having this illegitimate daughter. You’re going to have to make a choice.” And I did. I chose my daughter. My mother wrote letters and I put “Return to sender” on them. I told her, “I made the wrong decision in the first place. I should not have given up my child, I should have been able to find a way.” Back then I chose my family, today I’m choosing my daughter.

  My father became ill and I took care of him until he died. I did the same, more or less, with my mother. My father wanted my daughter in his life and would ask about her when my mother wasn’t around. He would say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” It broke his heart. I blamed my mother for not helping me. I was angry and, to be honest, I never got over that completely. I took care of my mother and did everything I could for her, but it left resentment in my heart.

  I am an activist for open records. Any adoptee who is eighteen years old should have their original records if they want them. Adopted people need to have their medical history, know their genealogy, their ancestry, that’s their right. My daughter has inherited a genetic disease from her father. Someday she will be paralyzed. Without those records, she wouldn’t have known and without early treatment she would have had serious problems. With the right medication, the disease is progressing slowly. So I’m one of the people that you see down in front of the capitol building with my signs. There’s no reason for any state, any court of law, to withhold that information.

  I had to do what I did because of the times. What you have to do is make that bad into something good. That’s why I’m a Search Angel and that’s why I’m always writing letters to the senators. I’m trying to keep others from suffering what I have suffered. I want everybody to have a chance to be reunited and to heal. Had I not been able to reunite with her, I think I’d probably be in an institution. I don’t believe I could have dealt with it all these years. I just don’t think I’m strong enough. I’ve had a lot of pain in my life, relatives and loved ones I was really close to who died. It hurt so bad, but there’s nothing that comes close to this. Death is not the same, because death is final. You know that loved one is in heaven. But with adoption it’s never final because that child is walking this earth somewhere, so it never ends.

  I also talk to teenagers about pregnancy. I tell them my story. They need to know in order to avoid the pain I suffered. I say, “If you have unprotected sex, this is what could happen to you.” So I put myself right out there on the firing line and, believe me, I’ve been fired at more than once. I’ve helped a lot of people and I wouldn’t have done that if it hadn’t been for my daughter. So I think that the Lord created my daughter to help others and to make this a better world. She’s done a lot for me. She has shown me that I don’t have to be a doormat. She says, “You don’t have to smile and say okay. That’s why you have an ulcer, Mom. You’ve got to be honest and truthful and stand up for what’s right.”

  Not only has my daughter done a lot for me, so has her family. We’ve all made changes. We’ve grown together. We might not be the all-American recognized family, but we’re one family and at the center is our daughter.

  11

  Every Mother but My Own

  AS I MET WITH WOMEN across the country and asked them to reveal the most intimate details of their lives, most asked me if I had met my own mother. “No,” I would always say, “but I know where s
he is.” I suspected it was an unsatisfying answer for many of them. After the tape recorder was turned off, the interviewees often took over the role of interviewer and pressed further. Some asked politely why I had not made contact, but the underlying question was: “Why are you traveling around the country collecting the life histories of all these surrendering mothers but not your own?” It was a legitimate question.

  Usually I would launch into the story that began, as this book begins, with the chance meeting with the woman in the gallery and ended with my journey through the farms and fields of the rural Midwest in search of my mother’s yearbook picture. I would tell the story in more or less detail, but it didn’t really answer their question. They were usually too polite to press further, but they would often encourage me to contact my mother and some would offer advice on how to go about it. Or they would simply give me a knowing look, perhaps identifying with an earlier point in their own measured progress.

  I have always approached important decisions slowly. I look at the options and potential outcomes from all sides. I circle around and around the central problem, seemingly covering the same territory while inching ever so slightly closer to a decision. Then one day I simply act. In fact, the conclusive action feels like a nonchalant move, impulsive even, as if I were acting on a whim.

  Perhaps the visual work I began fifteen years ago on the subject of adoption was the first step of the slow, spiraling path to my mother. If so, as with earlier decisions, I am thankful I took my time. A more direct path would not have encompassed all the mothers I met along the way.

  My rationale for waiting so long was my concern for my two mothers, but perhaps it was also my own fear of the unknown. My mother, Hazel, made it clear that she thought it was a bad idea for adoptees to seek out their mothers. She would always talk about it in the abstract, in response to a made-for-TV movie or talk show about adoption. Otherwise, it never came up. Her sweeping generalizations about all adoptees and her contention that “they should not look for their mothers because they never know what they might find” was a message clearly aimed at me. It was a warning meant to protect me, but I knew she was equally concerned about herself. She feared I might prefer my “real” mother to her; it is a common fear among adoptive parents. But for adoptees the adoptive family is their family. The bonds that develop over a lifetime together are not broken by the introduction of additional family members. Yet, knowing how my mother felt, I respected her wishes and waited. Hazel was seventeen years older than my natural mother, Eleanor. I calculated that there would be time enough.