CHILDREN OF THE DAWN
I came across Bob Hartlen (R.I.P.) quite a few years ago. Back in 1999 I think it was. We texted back and forth and I sent him donations to help with the costs of his group and with his endeavor to keep the horrors of the Ideal Maternity Home (Butterbox Babies) alive in the public’s consciousness, similar to the Holocaust, so that “NEVER AGAIN” would refer to both. He founded a group seeking to locate and connect those who survived the Ideal Maternity Home (IMH).
Since his passing, maintenance of his group passed from person to person until it resided in the hands of unfeeling people who lacked empathy. That is sad, considering how many people Bob helped while alive. In true transparency, I was removed from the group’s records, kicked out and banned from their Facebook presence. That came as quite a shock because all those I met and chatted with were marvelous, caring people.
Then one day, I receive a message from a friend that the group received a note that was derogatory about me and the current people running the group decided to kick me out, erase all memory of me. The shock I felt was because these were people supposedly in tune with the adoptee community and all the trauma they inherited and experienced. Most spend their lives having doors slammed in their face, so these are the last people I expected to slam another door in my face. That hurt because I thought they were my friends.
This is the first time I am publishing my thoughts about this and welcome anyone to question the truth and validity of my recollection of the incident. You see, many of the babies who survived the IMH were sold to Jewish families in the New Jersey/New York/Connecticut tri-state area and brought up Jewish as I was. We grew up never knowing our true heredity nor the culture stolen from us at birth. That seemed not to bother most of the IMH survivors.
I learned through DNA tests that my birthmother was indigenous, Mi’kmaw. The Mi’kmaq are a part of the Wabanaki Confederacy and they formed an alliance with the Algonquin Nation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi'kmaq
I managed to contact my birth family and learned that my birth mother had passed away a mere ten months prior. So close yet so far. She had given birth to twelve other children who were not pleased to learn if my existence. In fact, a younger brother warned me not to contact any members of his family. One of his nieces contacted me with vulgar name calling and threats. The information she knew about me could only have been learned from that younger brother I opened up to naively, but that is who I have become. Not naive, but open.
It was that same niece who wrote that note to the IMH Survivors group trashing me. I thought her to be a child acting that way for her uncle, but subsequently learned she was actually a grown adult. I was also mistaken in believing those now running the IMH group were also adults. Oh, before I go too far afield, here is the note I received:
“While I was away on vacation, the following message was received on our website (IDEAL MATERNITY HOME SURVIVORS). We have removed your post under our Searching column…
E_mail…Message: My grandmother is on your list by fault, (she) was not at that establishment. She had 12 kids consecutively. This man named Sanford Schwartz is a con artist. He was already presented with the opportunity for DNA testing and has refused. He is only interested in obtaining his status card. Archived records clearly state that his
mother was…This is defamation of character on my grandmother and it will not be tolerated any more. The date he posted was June 9, 1945. Please remove my grandmothers name from this list or we will be forced to take legal action.”
The “…” indicates a rant about misspellings. I sent my brother copies of my birth and adoption records that I had obtained. On one out of many, my name was misspelled, my foster mother’s name was misspelled and my birth mother’s name was misspelled. How that niece got ahold of those records, well, you know. So she honed in on the misspelling of my birth mother’s name, ignoring the rest of the paperwork. What can I say!?!
I was informed that as a non-profit the group feared legal action being they would have to pay personally to defend themselves, such decision made by someone in the group who was an attorney. You would think an attorney would be the first one to give me the opportunity to respond. I let the matter drop because I was tired, not interested in taking legal action against friends or family for deformation of me and not interested in arguing with those uninformed.
There has not been anything uttered that would stand up in court as the truth. Everything I have said can be supported. That niece sent another comment:
“Do not add a man named Sanford Schwartz! He has never ever done a dna test. His percentage is less than… The math doesn’t add up. The elders in the family are saying it’s bullshit. He has been asked on numerous occasions to do a dna test and has not pursued it. It resulted back with something like…% Native American. His story first started with nan giving him away to now she was apparently told he died. This never happened. Sheet Harbour is a small village and stories spread, this would have been the news of the town. This man is not family until a dna test is done proved otherwise. I will also be protesting his status and pursuing a fraud case with membership and AANDC whenever this man agrees to a real dna test and not ancestry.com. For respect of my side on the family, I ask that this man not be added to this group or removed immediately. As of right now, it is defamation of my grandmothers character.”
What would I have told the IMH group had they allowed me to respond? First, read these rants again. She claims I refused to take a DNA test then quotes the results of the DNA tests I took. I found that family through an obituary I came across at the same time I received my DNA results. I contacted those listed as cousins through DNA and they were connected to this same family. Through those cousins I was put in contact with other relatives, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, all of whom welcomed me back to the family. That niece has since done her own DNA test and we matched, but she wrote me that it must have been some mistake. I have matched with a sister and a brother, yet the family still turns a blind eye.
I have learned the dates of birth of all 12 of my siblings. They were all born approximately two years apart, with the exception of an approximately five to seven year period during which my birth mother and her husband appear to have been separated. It was during that period of separation that I was conceived and born. Other than my name and birth date, there is no truth to anything this niece has uttered. I have submitted to DNA tests with 23andMe, FTDNA and Ancestry. Why would anyone believe another DNA test would show differing results to fit their narrative is beyond me.
What really hurt, was that the note I received about my removal was from someone I considered to be a friend, even met and had lunch, she mentioned that she as part of the group had been looking for me for years and even said she found my adopted mother’s signature in a bed and breakfast near the IMH that prospective adopters stayed at. Yet she matter of fact Ky told me I was removed from the records of the Ideal Maternity Home Survivors. I am biting my tongue.
I have since done much reading and research about adoption, child trafficking, black market babies, and the traumatic effect it has on the lives of those involved. I am slowly solving the many mysteries of my own life I have shouldered since conception. Learning about my beginnings, my true culture, was definitely a relief and comforting. That is all I really set out to find. The rest others can spend their time dwelling on. I just had to put this to paper while memories are still fresh.
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