Part 2: The Buffalo News 3-Part Series Search for Yesterday (Natural Mothers) 1984

In the early 1980s, because of my participation in local adoption reform support groups and writing numerous Letters to the Editor, I was contacted by a reporter to be a part of this newspaper series. I will highlight one article per day of this series as each was written on a different day. Copies of these articles, along with these notes, will be posted in My Archives Pages in this website.

The first in The Buffalo News series “Search for Yesterday” is the following article.

Of note is natural mother and author Lorraine Dusky (Birthmark, 1979). The fictitiously-named Ms. Higgins is a natural mother who was not known by any members of the local adoption group in Buffalo at the time.

Times have changed. With the Internet, underground searches are not necessary as anyone can search for just about anyone they want to find, with or without adoptee access to their original birth certificates, and with or without Mutual Consent Registries.

It must be stated that there are many facets of adoption, search and reunion. This newspaper series focused mainly on the emotional aspects. The real civil rights aspects — sealing and falsifying adoptees’ birth certificates and denying us access — was not a high priority in the news media back in 1984. Is it really a priority today?

 

 

 

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, born Doris M Sippel, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.