Marjorie Shaw is an adoptee in a closed domestic adoption and author of the book,  “A Legitimate Life: A Forbidden Journey of Self Discovery" published on Adoption Under One Roof.

As I review my adoptive brother’s records from his birth in Chicago, Ill., in 1941 there are many details I missed thirteen years ago when I bought his records for $450 from the adoption agency. Today after rereading the pages of information I discover to my surprise his bio mother only put her first name on the Health Department-Laboratories Section---Serolog—Syphilis test. It states she is 20, white, single and a Scottish last name is hand written in small script on the report under Negative on The Laboratory Findings:

On another blood report the last surname was the same for the Negative Kahn and when I turned the document over an English last surname was written in for the x-ray report of his spine. They gave him two last names!

The background information from the adoption agency states that his nursery name is the same Scottish one that appeared on most of his records. The agency stated that his bio mother was of French and German descent and they didn’t state the name or nationality of his maternal grandparents. The 20 year old birthfather is said to be of Polish descent. So it a total mystery as to where the Scottish and English surnames come from that are listed on all the medical papers from the hospital?

Our Guestblogger today is Marjorie Shaw an adoptee in a closed domestic adoption. This is the autobiography of her search for her lost self as an adoptee in a closed adoption. We are delighted that she has given us the opportunity to post her manuscript on our website. The manuscript will be presented in chapters twice a week – Monday and Friday. © 2006 All rights reserved - Marjorie Shaw 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: “Blood” Ties (continued from here)

Another letter to The Cradle was my last attempt to get them to tell me more. I wanted to know who might have looked like my blue-eyed son in my natural family. Jerry thought Tim was another man’s baby because he didn’t recognize the Aryan features and neither did I. I had been brainwashed to think I was English without ever thinking about what I looked like as a newborn. The only picture I ever saw of myself was when I was sitting on Gaga’s lap after being adopted.

A letter from the adoption agency arrived October 8, 1981.

“My Dear, First of all, let me make this comment that we have been writing to you since 1970. Believe me; we enjoy hearing from our “Cradle Children.” You are the one who told us that “Lumley” is the name of your birthmother. You must have your adoption decree to get the name or maybe your parents told you. If Lumley was on the decree, she did not use an alias. Attached is the letter we sent you with the descriptions of your natural parents. You could have a blonde haired child with blue eyes. What about your father’s family?

If I failed to tell you of your birth mother’s education, you can know now that she had one year of schooling after she finished high school. Truthfully, I have given you all that I can, practically all that we have. If you read your letters carefully, you will know that we cannot give you names and locations. Should you want more, you will have to go through court under our present legislation. We understand your curiosities.

Why don’t you enjoy your family and make life for all of you not only happy but also meaningful? You are so gifted.”

Sincerely, Mrs. Jean McGill, Social Worker.

I didn’t want to believe that my parents knew who my parents were all along and didn’t tell me or that this woman from The Cradle was lying to me.

“Let’s check to see if Dorothy is listed in the LaCrosse phone directory,” Jerry said and picked up the phone for information.

Our Guestblogger today is Marjorie Shaw an adoptee in a closed domestic adoption. This is the autobiography of her search for her lost self as an adoptee in a closed adoption. We are delighted that she has given us the opportunity to post her manuscript on our website. The manuscript will be presented in chapters twice a week – Monday and Friday. © 2006 All rights reserved - Marjorie Shaw 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Worlds in Collision (continued from here)

“Don’t you see the French in him?” Jerry asked me over and over.

“I don’t recognize him at all. I have no male biological relative to compare him to. He has your dark hair and brown eyes and looks nothing like me.”

Jerry and I slept in separate rooms because his snoring and constant movements kept me awake.

“I can’t live up to any of your expectations. In all honestly, I never travel except to the track or to Mommy’s house,” he confessed one morning.

“Mommy’s house? You call your mother Mommy?” I asked realizing he was a real Mama’s boy.

What was one more disappointment? Jerry was no woodsman. He was afraid of moths and wouldn’t let me even kill one ant even though he loved nature like I did. His obsession with the bloodlines of race horses and Off Track Betting became apparent when I found a huge box full of his betting slips and came to the realization that he was gambling away all our money. He knew more about the genealogy and pedigree of the racehorses he was betting on than I knew about my own or his bloodlines.

 Our Guestblogger today is Marjorie Shaw an adoptee in a closed domestic adoption. This is the autobiography of her search for her lost self as an adoptee in a closed adoption. We are delighted that she has given us the opportunity to post her manuscript on our website. The manuscript will be presented in chapters twice a week – Monday and Friday. © 2006 All rights reserved - Marjorie Shaw

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Worlds in Collision

“You’re Joni Mitchell aren’t you?” a woman said to me as I sat at a table with Jerry. I told her I wasn’t but she insisted and said, “Bye Joni” as she left.

“Jerry, If you don’t marry me I’ll leave. I’m two months pregnant. You have to ask my father’s permission,” I said slurring my words from the vodka in my Bloody Mary.

“To hell I do,” he answered defiantly.

I got up from the table and ran across the street into the woods crying hysterically knowing then that I would never have a father to walk me down the isle of a church or be able to wear a beautiful white wedding dress at my own wedding. Jerry bolted from the table running to catch me but I was already across the road in the darkness of the woods when he tripped and fell over a low historic handmade stonewall into a creek breaking his wrist and chipping a front tooth trying to stop me. The Justice of the Peace married us three days later wounds and all. My Aunt Dorothy, Father’s oldest sister, stopped sending me a birthday check because I married a Jew. Well that’s what Mother told me.