10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

NOVEMBER 2006 TRUCKER TALK
IN SEARCH OF YOUR ROOTS
By Writers and Owner Operators Rod & Kim Grimm

When someone asks you, “Where did you come from?” do you really know? I don’t mean what cute little town you grew up in or might live in now, or where you made your last pickup or delivery – who are your parents? And who is your family? Those of us who know our “natural” parents don’t have all the questions that people who are adopted have. Today, more and more adopted people are actively seeking out their biological family – and many are finding them.

This summer at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree, Fred Chittum of Boone, Iowa met Harvey & Karen Zander for the first time. Over the years, Fred has had several people mistake him for Harvey. These confused people would start talking to Fred like they’d just seen him last week. One Dart driver once asked him what he was doing in Oklahoma, knowing that wasn’t Harvey’s normal area to run in. Another driver asked him how he got on the cover of Trucker’s News and who was that woman with him. Fred was baffled.

Fred knew he was adopted and his search for his biological parents started when he filled out an application for Coors Transportation. He didn’t have any answers for the medical questions. That was back in 1972, and since then it took him down some interesting paths that ultimately became dead ends. But a little creativity got him some information on the people who were his “real” parents.
The hospital Fred was born in on Mother’s Day in 1952 was closed three years later and turned into a nursing home. He went there to see what he could find out and while talking with a man in the office, he learned that some of the old records were down in the basement, and that some others were at a nearby Catholic Girl’s School. The man couldn’t believe that Fred would even want to dig up this information. Thank goodness this closed-minded attitude has changed over the years.

Being creative, Fred went home and put on a suit and tie, got a clipboard, and headed back to the nursing home. This time he went to the back door – the kitchen. The old woman cooking was happy to let in the man from the Water Department doing an inspection. This oblivious woman even turned on the lights in the basement for him, and then down he went. Taking out his flashlight, he found lots of junk and some boxes of old records, but they were billing and medical records, not the birth records he was looking for. His “inspection” didn’t take long.

His next stop would be the Catholic Girl’s School. Telling a nun what it was he was looking for, she was excited about what he wanted. She took him into the records room and they found the admittance records for the day he was born. One girl and one boy had been born that day. James and Ilene Zander had a baby boy. There was no name, just baby boy Zander. But now he had a name and something to go on. The nun gave him that page out of the book.

He went to the city office where they kept the adoption decrees. The man there got more receptive about giving out information when offered $100. He went back in a room and when he came out he sent Fred back into the room. On the table was the record he was looking for. Fred used their copier and made a copy of the file, and then he left. Now he had information on his mother, father and grandparents.

A place called Junglewood Farms in Inglewood, Colorado was mentioned in the file, so Fred headed out there to check it out. When Fred arrived, the man and woman who worked there said that they knew who his parents were as soon as they saw him standing there. “You look just like your mother,” the woman said. His father Jim had been a caretaker and his mother had been pregnant with him while working as a housekeeper. Junglewood Farms was a big nursery and commercial landscaping business. Fred’s parents were there until her water broke, and then the couple never saw them again. This woman told Fred that his mother played piano at almost a concert level and that she had another son from a previous marriage. But she had no name for him to go on.

After further investigation, Fred learned that his father had worked at the Denver Country Club. His source was not sure if Fred’s father was part owner of the country club, part owner of the bar and restaurant, or if he was just the bartender. His mother worked at Denver Dry Goods for a while, and then she worked for Joseph Minasali’s Wedding Dress Shop. Fred actually found Mr. Minasali in New York City, and when he called him he was 92 years old and still sharp. He remembered Fred’s mother and told him that he’d tried to convince her to go with him to New York. Mr. Minasali told Fred that his mother was the best person and hardest worker he ever employed at his shop – and that she played the piano rather well.

Fred found the house his mother had lived in, and when he knocked on the door, again, he was told that he looked like his mother by the woman that answered. The woman was kind enough to take him through the downstairs apartment that was once occupied by his mother. And once again, Fred was told that she played the piano beautifully.

Fred couldn’t find divorce records, and if they had divorced, his mother had kept his name. Looking through phone books, Fred found a James Zander in Boulder, Colorado. When he called the number and told the old man who answered what he was looking for, the old man screamed into the phone, “Don’t you ever call here again.” It was two weeks later before Fred was able to drive to Boulder to check out this lead. James was gone from the apartment he’d lived in two weeks before, and nobody knew where he went. So close, but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be for them to meet.

When Fred was transferred to Iowa and moved from Colorado, all the notes and information he’d collected over the years was lost. Possibly, someone helping them had mistakenly tossed them out, but he doesn’t know for sure what happened to all that work. After finding that all of his records and research were gone, he hired a woman in Denver through Adoptee In Search to try to find the records again, but what she found was that the records had been shredded.

In 1993, Fred posted a message on a message board that is still there – and still unanswered – seeking any information about his parents and his half brother, who all he knows about is the fact that he’s ten or eleven years older than Fred.

One day, Karen Zander got a message on her answering machine and the next day she received a couple pictures and a letter from Fred. Karen called him and they had a nice hour-long chat and arranged to meet in Walcott at the truck show. Fred finally got to meet the man he’d been mistaken for so many times over the years, and they hit it off right away. Both have been truckers for 35 years. Karen says she wouldn’t be surprised if they’re actually related, but they haven’t found a definite connection yet – but it looks like white line fever might be genetic for these two Zanders (see photo).

A case just the opposite of this was years ago when a nanny we had living with us named Sherry, who had been adopted, wanted to find her real mom. I told her that I’d help all I could, but we had no guarantees. We had no luck looking through old newspapers for birth announcements for the day she was born, but Sherry hit pay dirt soon thereafter. Confiding to an old friend of the family who had adopted her, she told this woman that she was searching for her real mom. This woman went to her cookie jar, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to Sherry. On the paper was her mother’s name. She had been keeping it nearby just in case this day would ever come.

It turned out that her mother lived just 30 miles from us and that Sherry had three little brothers and a little sister that looked just like her when she was their age. It was a good reunion. They had a lot of catching up to do, and ever since then, Sherry has been included in their family. That was a good ending, but not all of them come so easily.

Talking with my dispatcher Cindy Albrecht the other day, I told her what I was writing about this month and asked if she knew anybody who was adopted. Imagine my surprise when her answer was, “I am, and I’m in the process of finding my biological parents.” Even though she knows her birth name, it’s not going to be an easy path. She has an older sister who left a message on a message board three years ago, but when Cindy tried to respond to her, she found that the e-mail address wasn’t good anymore.

Cindy wants health history for her son and, being Native American, it might mean help with his college education. The twist of this for her is working with the Indian Tribal Council in Michigan where she was born. She told me it would be easier if she was full blooded from one tribe, but she isn’t. The council has to see what percentage of each tribe she is, and if there is enough of one to qualify her for any help. She even has to wait for the council’s okay before she can contact her sister. This will not happen overnight. I hope that when she gets to the end of her journey that she finds good news and a happy ending.

If you are looking for or thinking about looking for your biological parents, the website www.adoption.com has an enormous amount of information. Four states have “open records” (Alabama, Alaska, Kansas and Oregon). Start in the state that the adoption was finalized in and not the state the adoptee was born, if they are different. On the website, it says that your first steps may result in contact or it may take years and never produce results. Adoptions have changed so much over years – there was a time, years ago, when records were sealed and never to be opened. Now, there are open adoptions, the information superhighway and readily available health histories, which are so important.

I talked to one driver that told me about a couple who adopted two children and didn’t want to know anything about the parents, except for their health history. This couple was able get the health histories for both of the child’s parents and grandparents. Some people give up their child and never want to be found, and sometimes things change and they find themselves asking, “Did they turn out okay?” Others wonder, “Do they even want to know me?” Some kids want to know their “real” parents while others have no interest – the people that raised them are their parents, “real” or not.
Finding your biological parents can be complicated – from both ends – and there are so many scenarios of how these reunions can turn out. If you have been through this and have a happy (or a not so happy) ending or suggestions for others looking for their family members, please e-mail me through the magazine at 10-4@tenfourmagazine.com.

If you know your family but would still like to find out more about them, you can spend hours on the website www.ancestry.com (this is a website you have to pay for but it is very interesting stuff). For all of you out there looking for someone, I hope you find them. And when you do, I hope that the reunion is a happy one. Good luck.