Sarah's Story
I was born in Minneapolis, MN in 1962 to an 18-year-old girl. She met a man who was 32, married with a wife and a 5-month-old baby at home. My birth mother had me in May, I was taken care of in foster care for a couple of months, and then adopted in July 1962. My adopted parents were educators, and I was brought up in a Lutheran home and provided a good education.
I always knew I was adopted and always wondered about my birth mother, so when I was 18, I wrote Lutheran Social Services to provide any info they had. I received a two-page letter written about my mom and her family, with one paragraph about my birth father. It said he was German, tall, handsome, had blue eyes, dark curly hair, and he liked fast cars.
Fast forward to 2008, my adopted dad passed away. While I was at their house, my adopted mom had started reading a book called The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler. I started reading it, and by the 2nd chapter, I knew my birth mother deserved to know what happened to me.
So I wrote again to Lutheran Social Services and paid the fee. They found her, we met, and had a relationship (didn't see each other much, but it was good) until she passed away in 2017.
Fast forward again, to 2025. My daughter suggested doing the Ancestry DNA, so we did. Wow, ok, this is where it gets interesting. Apparently, my birth father went around having as many babies as he could, leaving the mothers when he felt like moving on. He was a charmer, they all said. So, I found out through Ancestry that I have about 15 half siblings!
All I was hoping for was a sister, and I found a lot of half sisters and brothers around the country! I'm sure there are more, so if you wonder who your father is, you may want to try Ancestry. We think there may be many more half siblings out there.
He was shot to death in Idaho in 1979 by an estranged, angry husband. He was 53. I am going to meet some of my half siblings in person in the next month. One lives in Las Vegas, one in Minneapolis, one in Texas, three in Des Moines, Iowa, and another in Pennsylvania. They all grew up with their birth mothers. In 2018, the siblings that knew about each other got together in Texas, where my birth father is buried. They are wonderful people, with an interesting story. Now I am part of that story.
They had an article written in 2018 in the Des Moines Register called Gone, Daddy. It has 3 parts. The sister from Minneapolis wants to write a book and make it into a movie. They all hope to find more siblings as well. I am not super surprised I have so many half siblings. I am surprised how the piece of the puzzle that was missing turned into so many puzzle pieces!