Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Is Anyone Looking For Natalie Ann

Being a search angel can be either totally rewarding or extremely frustrating depending upon the day and what's going on. Today, it's been frustrating.

Natalie Ann, (the name given her by her birth mother)was born at Brady Hospital in Albany, NY pretty much during a blizzard in February of 1958. There were many women having babies at that time and it was difficult, according to stories we've heard, to get doctors to and from the hospital. One mom (not Natalie Ann's) giving birth on the very same day, related how women were given some drugs to slow their labor down because they were short staffed.

Natalie Ann is looking for her birth mother and twin brothers. She's not angry or upset that she was given up...after all, raising twin boys who were about two years old had to be difficult enough. She understands how hard it would have been for her mother to keep her...Natalie Ann has children of her own now, so she can relate.

It's tough to know how accurate the information we got really is. I guess, since it's all we have to go on, we have to assume it's the truth. So acting on that, we set out to find a woman who was about 21 in 1958 and we don't even know her name.

We certainly are touched by her situation. She was orphaned when she was just sixteen and having no other relatives she could live with, she left Iowa and went to live with her brother in Albany, NY. We don't know the brother's name either, but he was married and may have been a few years older than Natalie Ann's mother.

From what we've been told, the brother's wife was not thrilled to have her mother living with them. She did finish high school, wanted to be a nursery school teacher and probably got lots of practice and had to have a great deal of patience in raising twin boys.

We've tried Classmates hoping to find pictures of young women who resemble Natalie Ann. She's even scanned hundreds of photos from old yearbooks, hoping to see a face that she will recognize as someone who looks like her. And, while she not much of a political gal, she lobbied in Albany for open adoption records. Finding her mother and her twin brothers is important to her; otherwise she is reading the book of her own life starting with Chapter 2. Chapter 1 is totally missing and that missing chapter leaves a hole in the heart of every adoptee I've ever met.

Natalie Ann (who is not named Natalie Ann today) does not want to disrupt anyone's life and she isn't looking for money. She is happily married, has a good job, a nice home and family and she is an artist. She wonders who she looks like; she wonders if she shares her talent with her mother and in what other ways they may be alike.

She's basically healthy but having her own children knows that family medical history is an important thing to have. She doesn't have it but hopes one day she will.

We've been busy looking for twin boys who may have graduated in the Albany area, knowing full well that they could be anywhere in the world by now. They were born in either 1955 or 1956.

So, stop and think a minute. Maybe you will become another angel who is willing to help. We are looking for a young woman who delivered twin boys in Albany, NY and then a baby girl about two years later in 1958. Her parents lived in Iowa, where we believe Natalie Ann's mother was born. Her father died of a heart attack when he was only 41 years old and her mother died when she was only 16 years old, leaving her an orphan. That's when (or soon after) Natalie Ann's mother went to live in Albany with her brother and his wife.

If this sounds familiar or rings a bell with you, please get in contact with me.
I'm Aunt Patty; I'm not related, I'm just a search angel hoping to reunite families.

Last year I reunited my sister-in-law with her daughter who had been named Donna at birth, hence my screen name lovesdonna2@yahoo.com.

Peace to you and those you love,
Patty