Finding Out

It was March of 2008 and we were cleaning out my mother’s apartment - we being my wife Jane and I and my daughters, Amanda and Leah. It wasn’t anything we were looking forward to doing, but given the circumstances it was something that was necessary.

For a year and a half my mother had been in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centers and although she had made several remarkable recoveries, the accumulation of a long list of ailments had reached a tipping point and it was clear she would never live in her apartment again. She couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t feed herself and required round the clock care only a long-term facility could provide.

About an hour after we started my daughter Amanda called out from the bedroom. “Dad, were you adopted?” “Not that I know,” was my response.

Coming out of the bedroom she showed me a document she had found buried in a packed dresser drawer under, photos, credit card receipts, cancelled checks, clothing and old newspapers, including the Daily News front page announcing JFK’s assassination.

It was a revised birth certificate for me from 1950 that described a family name change and clearly identified me as adopted. Subsequently we found another document, a 1949 order of adoption from the New York State Surrogate Court that made the adoption official a year after I was born. Later I confirmed the adoption with my closest relatives and also my mother who blithely said, “Oh I thought you knew. Didn’t Daddy tell you?”

Now giving birth being what it is: the most natural and wonderful of life’s events but also one fraught with danger, most births have stories attached to them. You were early, you were late, it was a long labor, you were a Caesarian, you were breach etc. etc, etc. My birth was no different.

My story was about the weather.

I was born on August 18^th on what I was told, by my mother, on numerous occasions, in the company of my closest relatives, was a hot day. Not just any hot day, the hottest hot day during one of the hottest Augusts on record. And, as if to add to the difficulty, I was a big baby, about 8 pounds.

The clear implication here was sacrifice, a mother’s sacrifice for her son. Yes Larry you’re a wonderful son whom I love very much, and she did and so did my father, but always remember how I suffered to bring you into the world.

That’s the story I lived with. A story I even repeated to others, to girlfriends, to my wife and to my daughters who accepted it as another sacrifice made by Grandma on my behalf.

Now both my parents were wonderful people and I had a terrific childhood growing up in Brooklyn in the 50’s but something about being an only child always bothered me. I cherished my privacy but always envied friends with siblings. So the prospect of being part of a larger family set me on a search for my birth family.

There were clues on the documents we found. I was born Louis Roth. And according to dim family recollections my birth family lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn not far from Bensonhurst, where I grew up in.

So I joined an adoptee group, and wrote to the NY State Department of Health Adoption and Medical Information Adoption Registry for whatever information they could provide. According to the non-identifying information report I was sent, I was the fifth of five children and my parents were both 39 when I was born. My mother was listed as a homemaker and my father as a truck driver. My father abandoned his family and failed to provide for my support.

That’s where the trail ran cold.

The Adoption Registry would send no more information. Non- identifying information is all they provide. Somewhere there’s a file with the names of my birth parents, and possibly other critical information that could lead me to my lost family but under NYS law it’s unavailable to me.

Rules governing the disclosure of adoption information vary from state to state. In some states it’s relatively easy to find out identifying information. In NY that information is only revealed when it’s needed to remedy a medical emergency, like a bone marrow transplant that might require the intervention of a close relative.

Without more information it’s been nearly impossible to find out the identities of my parents and that of any siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews I may have. I tried to hire a private investigator that specializes in connecting adoptees with direct relatives but even he said it was too hard and not worth the effort - too many Roth’s in Brooklyn in the 40’s and 50’s and too much time passed.

So I’m stuck. Will I ever find the family I lost and my siblings who may not even know that I’m here? Probably not. Will my life be damaged for loss? No, although my daughters would love to connect what’s likely to be dozens of relatives. But the secrecy does seem to be out of place considering that more than 60 years has transpired. Maybe it’s time for a statute of limitations or a loosening of regulations to cover cases like mine.

Larry Dell