What does an adoptee's obituary have to do with anything? Read this Chicago Sun obituary and you will find out.

The two developed a friendship, and over coffee one day, she delivered the most famous line of her life: "Does the date Sept. 20, 1917, mean anything to you?"

Margaret M. Skerrett, discovered when she was 10 years old that she was adopted. While working at a dentist's office when she was in her twenties, she was told that she looked a great deal like a neighborhood woman. Her name was the same name as the name on her birth certificate listed for her birth mother. The woman turned out to be a patient of the dentist that Ms. Skerrett worked for.

Ms. Skerret and her birth mother developed a relationship that continued until death separated them. Yet, she never told her adoptive parents about finding her birth mother. Nor did her children her birth mother's true identity until they were adults. They thought she was just a friend of their mothers. All these details about Ms. Skerrett's adoption included in her obituary.

You rarely hear much in obituaries about adoption. Not that I am an expert on this; I don't read obituaries on a regular basis. However, I do know that some adoptees like to be included as part of the family in an obituary. Many adoptees may not care whether they are included or not. I suppose it depends on if they feel like part of their birth family or not.

I wonder how many adoptees would want information included in their obtituaries about their adoption, and their relationship with their birth mother? My guess is that this is pretty unusual. I also am curious as to how this obituary came to be written with all the details of the adoption. Do you think the adoptee told her children that she wanted the information included about her adoption?

For some birth mothers of my generation, I can imagine adoption being mentioned. There are some truly courageous birth mothers that I know who have been involved in adoption reform for decades and it surely has become part of their life story.