I introduced you in a previous post to my good friend Fred, aka Farmer Boy. Fred is the first adoptee that I really had the opportunity to know well. As I may have mentioned in my previous post, Fred was over 40 years old before he began his search.

He was fortunate to be connected with others in the adoption community who were able to give him some good direction in his searching. He carefully put together the pieces of his puzzle, and finally found his birth mom’s name. One of the essential bits of information that cracked his search was a detail on hospital records that he had obtained. Eventually, he sought some help from a private investigator who was able to locate his birth mother.

Fred decided that their first contact should be via a letter. Therefore, he carefully crafted a letter and ceremoniously mailed it to her. Then he waited. Next, he waited some more. His birth mom lived in a rural, very conservative part of the Midwest. She was ultra religious and believed our son’s birth outside of marriage was a sin that carried great shame.

As I mentioned in part 1 of this story, Fred had a natural love of the land and kept planting corn in his Southern California side yard as he grew up. Finally finding his birth family explained a lot for him.

Needless to say, receiving that first letter from Fred was a brutal shocker for his Maude, his birth mom. After relinquishing her first born son, she married within a few years and gave birth to three more sons. However, neither her husband, nor sons knew about Fred. Maude wracked her brain trying to decide how to respond once she received that first letter. She was terrified how her husband, sons and her community would react once they knew about her long lost son.

Finally, after one very long agonizing year for Fred, she mailed a response to his letter. After she finally responded, she and Fred began to talk on the telephone. Their calls were took place late at night after her husband was asleep. She was quite reluctant to tell her husband about Fred. Months went by until finally late one night, her husband “caught” her and the secret was out.

To be continued………