On April 14th of 1945, I was five years old. I came in from playing and was met by my mother who was sobbing. "Your other mother is dead," she said. I felt very sad, but for my adoptive mother. I never knew who my birth-mother was and never even considered the fact that I had another mother somewhere. I later found out that all the records associated with my adoption were supposed to have been sealed. So how could Mom have known that?
I had a little bit of information about my birth. One such fact was that I suffered from hypopladia, "a condition I inherited from my father." It turns out that means that the opening of my penis was at the bottom rather than at the end. Of all the things to inherit! I also knew that I was born at General Hospital in Minneapolis, and that Mom and Dad were listed as the parents.
That was all I knew for more than forty years. Mom died in 1985 and Dad in 1987. I was named executor of his estate. When I went through the papers I found a baptismal record for Richard Allen Hemmingsen, born on my birthday! Three names were listed as witnesses. After fighting with myself for a week I looked one name up in the phone book and called. A woman answered and I asked if Lloyd was there. The woman said he wasn't, but she would have him call me. I never heard from him and in the meantime, my ardor to find my birth family had subsided.
Evie's father died a day after my mother on Christmas Day in 1985. When her mother died in 1987 she decided that she wanted to find out about her birth mother. She didn't have any feelings of betrayal. Nor did I. The laws that sealed the records in the early 1940s had been changed, and it was now possible to contact birth relatives, if both parties agreed to the contact. She wrote a long letter explaining all the things that had happened to her in her life and her views about politics and religion. To her delight, she got a response! Her mother was now living in Michigan and wanted to meet her. They did at the Minneapolis airport. An aunt was with her. In a long conversation, Evie learned that she had two half-sisters, a half-brother, and several aunts and uncles who were all very anxious to meet her. One aunt looked exactly like her. Her siblings were thrilled, and so was the man her birth-mother had married. He was a retired minister and had known about Evie for as long as they were married. We have had a warm relationship with the whole family for nearly twenty years. Unfortunately it has been shrinking because of deaths, but Evie still meets with a favorite aunt at least once a month. Her experiences finding her birth-family became a feature article in the Minneapolis Sunday paper.
My path was a bit different. After Evie connected with her family, I again decided to try to find mine. Lloyd was still unavailable, but there were two other names on the baptismal certificate. I found one of the names in the Minnneapolis phone book. When I called him, he said, "You must be one of Hilma's twins."
I told him that I was born in 1940. No, my uncle said. "The twins were born in 1944."
You can imagine how excited I was to hear that! He said that she had died of internal bleeding one day after giving birth to twin boys. Ironically, my half-sibs were born on the same day as my adoptive sister, but a year later. I found out where Hilma was living when the twins were born and immediately placed a personals ad in the local newspaper asking whether anyone had information about the whereabouts of twin boys born in April of 1944.
No one responded.
In the meantime my new uncle arranged for me to meet with the rest of the family. It was huge; Hilma had had 10 siblings. An aunt threw a potluck lunch and the thirty some relatives all showed up. One was the other signer of the baptismal certificate. I asked her about my twin brothers. "They aren't brothers," she said. "They were a boy and a girl. Everyone called them Jack and Jill."
From that point, everything came together. We were able to locate the adoption agency and they located the adoptive mother. She said that both children were alive and well. Later that night I got a call from my brother, and a few days later, my sister. Bro looks like me, but a bit heavier. We met my sister in Montana and visited Yellowstone Park together. We were both delighted. I have kept in contact with my Minnesota family. I have yet to visit my brother but I get regular letters from my sister.
One of my aunts gave me a photo album of my mother. One, showing her on a bicycle with a friend, looked so much like me that we showed it to one of Evie's buddies. "That's John in a dress," Evie said, smiling. "Oh," said our friend. "Who's that with him?"
My last words are advice for others who may be in our situation. Things don't always work out as well as they did for Evie and me, but if they do, it's like stepping into a different world, the alternative universe you always wondered about.
