Family Ties

Today will begin a series of posts. They may be spread out over weeks or months. They will not be a daily occurrence. You will still have those days where I talk about stuff that drives me crazy, or annoys me or politics.

I've written a bit about family in the past and I want to recap so anyone new can understand why I want to write about it again. Family to me is about two things. Love and biology. It is a great thing when they both are present. I grew up in a home with a loving mother and father. My father, his mother and my wife were all adopted. They all had families who loved them and in all likelihood had two families who loved them. The family that provided their biology but for reasons at this time not entirely known to me could not keep them. So, in as much as it is possible, we are going on a journey of discovery. Who were these people who provided DNA? What happened? Many of the participants are no longer here to be asked questions. My grandmother Byrdis Sutor would not have allowed the questions. She was adopted by George and Byrd Oyler when she was a little girl. We have pictures of her with them when she was about 4 years of age. She considered them her parents and had no desire to know anything about her birth family. She and my grandfather John J. Sutor adopted my father and aunt Sally in the 1930's. My father never seemed to be interested in finding his birth family. My aunt Sally was somewhat obsessed with the search. She is an interesting story that I will tell when I can flesh out more of what I have heard. My grandparents are all deceased. My father has also passed on, so there are fewer and fewer people who can fill in the blanks that are not contained in public records.

You may wonder what brought this quest to the blog. My niece Kate was contacted by one of her friends. This young lady had seen a note on social media indicating that someone was looking for relatives of John Sutor. The message got passed on to Kate and she contacted the woman who was looking for relatives of my father. My dad, late in his life, had the opportunity to meet his birth mother and be reunited with all his siblings. My dad was adopted by the Sutor's in the mid 1930's. He was reunited with his mother and his siblings in the 1990's. My aunt Sally had done all the digging and leg work to find everyone. In the intervening years all of them have passed away except for my dad's sister Barb. The woman who was looking was a sister to my biological grandmother Dora. She had pictures of my father, his siblings, his biological mother's parents and all of her siblings. This is the spark that started this fire of discovery. Who were these people? What happened?

My father was the oldest of four siblings. They were John, James, Barb and Judith. You may ask, what about Sally? Another interesting part of the story. Sally is Judith. Why was her name changed? When? Who made the change? Her biologic family calls her Judith. The family who loved her and raised her as their own called her Sally. The four siblings were adopted. John, the oldest, and Sally the youngest by the Sutor's. They were raised on the farm near Wataga. James and Barb were adopted by a family in the suburban Chicago area. Why were the siblings separated? What happened? I've heard in the past that Dora had what we would likely call now post partum depression after Judith's birth. She was placed in an institution for a period of time. By the time she had regained her mental health the children had been placed and adopted. Her husband John was apparently incapable of raising the children by himself. No one so far has been willing to talk much about him other than to refer to him as "a bad man". At some point we will try to figure out what that means.

My biological grandmother Dora was one of ten children born to Grace and Nicholas Porter. Their children were Brooks, Dora, Ruth, Harry, Margret, Judith, Harriet, David, Kermit and Wanda. On this journey we are going to try to figure out what happened to all of those folks. At this time only two of the ten are still alive. Kate and I are going to go visit one of them next month and try to get enough information to do some internet research. I need to know where they were born and when if that is possible to determine. I need some additional information on my biological grandfather John. The blog will be full of Johns. My son, brother, father, grandfathers (biologic and adoptive), great grandfather and great great grandfather are all Johns.

I tried doing a some research the other day and one of the problems is going to be timing. My father was born in 1929. His siblings were born in the 1930's. Why is this significant? My father may have been counted in the 1930 census. His siblings had not been born. By the time of the census in 1940 all four of them are adopted. The census records will provide virtually no information on where they were in the interim. I have heard clues that my biologic grandfather was a bit of a law breaker and rascal. Not the type of person, living the type of life that would want to be found by a census taker or any other government official. We will see if anyone will be willing to say much more than "he was a bad man."

The search is going to include my grandmother Byrdis and her adoptive parents George and Byrd Oyler. We will from time to time make a visit into the life of my wife and her birth parents James and Mary Loman and her adoptive parents Larry and Jackie. I ask for your patience. The story will be told in bits and pieces over a long period of time. You will know what I know. I will share what I find. The good, the bad, the ugly, the sad, the tragic, the happy, the joyful. When we are done I hope we know how we got where we are today. Time and chance? Karma? The invisible hand of an all knowing god? Biology? Nature of nurture?