Some pictures are links to their own page. Please be sure and visit.
| ALFRED BARTHOLOMEW CARANGELO | ANNA DOLCEACQUA CARANGELO |
| 10-14-1914 to 9-18-96 | 7-31-1904 to 1-21-1989 |
In 1987, when I was 23 and planning my wedding, my mother disclosed that she and my father had a child before they were married. My father was not free to marry at the time, but he went with my mother to a midwife who delivered my sister. This was in New Haven, Connecticut, about 1938. My mother saw the baby, a little girl. She was perfectly healthy. The midwife took the baby away and later told my parents that she had died, and asked for money to bury her. They never saw the baby again. The next week an article in the New Haven Register said the midwife had accidentally killed a woman during an abortion. It said that the midwife had also sold babies.
My mother became a victim of Alzheimer�s Disease. It caused her to forget the immediate past, yet memories of a distant past became as vivid as if in the present. She repeatedly called out for �her daughter�-not me but the daughter stolen from her so many years ago. She had requested that I never speak with my father about the baby, but in 1989, when it was evident that he was dying from emphysema, I made up my mind to ask him if he remembered any little detail that might help me find her. Every breath was an ordeal for him that evening, I decided to wait until morning. He died that night. My mother died seven years later.
I lost a son to adoption but located him when he was 18. I am so sorry my parents couldn�t have known the same joy, that of finding the little girl they lost so long ago. I fervently hope to be able to find her, for my parents, myself, and for my father�s two daughters by a previous marriage. I am very close to them, but a void remains in my heart that only my missing sister can fill. I am so sorry she missed our parents. I pray that my sisters and I will not miss her.
Mom, Dad, I�ll keep looking for her. And when I find her I believe you will know it.
Your loving daughter, Lori Carangelo, President, Americans for Open Records (AmFOR)
| Virgie Byrns | |
10-23-1919 to
12-01-1991 |
|
When Virgie Byrns lapsed into a coma after a traffic accident she had a husband and four children. When she awoke 3 months later her children had disappeared and her husband had divorced her. After 40 years of searching she found three of her children. She was told her baby, 1 year old Wayne Albert Bryan, had been sold to a doctor who arranged illegal adoptions. An Orange County, California adoption agency told her Wayne�s adoption had been legalized in 1954. But of course his new identity was sealed in a court file.
In 1991, now 71 years old and nearing the end of her life, Virgie petitioned 3 judges to open Wayne�s adoption record so that she might see him before she died. All three judges denied her petition. Fortunately, Americans for Open Records (AmFOR) was able to help locate her son, whose name is now James Cottam. James arrived at her bedside just a short while before she died. He told the four television networks and two newspapers that recorded the poignant reunion between the dying mother and her long-lost son, that he had always wanted to know his birth mother. And he could have had he known that California law would have permitted him to put a Waiver of Confidentiality in his file, giving the agency permission to reveal his identity to his mother. Mother and son could have had a lifetime together.
With deepest sympathy
Lori Carangelo
| Hawk Ramsey | |
| 2-16-1956to
7-14-1990 |
|
Brian Watkins was adopted by a relative. He joined the Navy and served on the USS Kitty Hawk. His fellow crewmen nicknamed him Hawk.Brian spent several months in the hospital with leg injuries he sustained in an accident. He contracted AIDS from one of the many blood transfusions he received while there. Not long after he was released from the hospital he lost his adoptive mother to cancer. A few months later his sister died in an auto accident. Then his adoptive father declared that he �had no son.�
Brian reunited with his birth mother and took back the name she had given him at birth, Hawk Ramsey. The name reflects his Cherokee and Choctaw roots. Hawk was greatly troubled by the fact that even though he was dying, information about his birthfather and contact with his birthfather was denied him. He wanted to look into his father�s face and feel the peace that adoptees feel when finally the struggle to validate their identity is over. Hawk never knew that peace.
Forgive them God, they know not what they do.
Lori Carangelo
| Cynthia Oka Perrett | |
| 10-20-1953to
12-30-1999 |
|
In 1975, twenty-one year old Cynthia Oka Perrett, impoverished, alone and unable to adequately care for her infant son, Tom Ralls, Jr. reluctantly relinquished him to an adoption services agency In Merced County, California. Eventually Tom was adopted, his name was changed to Tom McGee.
Later, Cynthia began a search for him but because of sealed adoption records could never get even a tiny lead. A year before her death from cancer, Cynthia and her seven other children pleaded with the agency for help in finding Tom. The agency would not help them. Tom had a Waiver of Confidentiality on file. Had Cynthia been told she could do the same the agency could have released his identity and location to her. The agency had neglected to inform Cynthia of this law.
About the same time Cynthia was desperately seeking information about Tom, he had begun experiencing an inexplicable urgency to find her. He requested more information from the agency but his calls and letters went unanswered for over six months.
Cynthia�s siblings located Tom, but too late. Cynthia was dying and slipped away before they could meet. Thankfully, she died knowing he had been found. Americans for Open Records (AmFOR) reunited Tom with his birth father and seven siblings. Together they grieved for the mother who should have been a part of their reunion.
We can only hope Cynthia is at peace knowing her family is at last together again.
Contributed by Lori Carangelo
To have your memorial posted, email Alice.
Please don't forget to sign the guestbook and let us know you were here.
Lovingly created by Alice, Paula & Dixie.
