This week I received the sad news that someone who was once
very close to me has passed away just three weeks shy of her 59th
birthday. Ruth has not been in my life for many years now but she’s never been far
from my thoughts and always has a place in my heart.
The summer of 1967 I was living in Hallstadt,
Germany, with my husband,
Mike, who had been drafted into the Army about nine months after we were
married. Against all recommendations I joined Mike in Bamberg
in March of 1967 where we lived “on the economy” because Mike’s low rank did
not qualify him for military housing on the base at Bamberg.
At church one Sunday on base the priest announced there were
three young children, siblings, who needed permanent homes. Their father was an
American soldier and their mother a German national. At the present time they
were in a German orphanage but could not stay there long. Mike was not at
church with me that day as his unit was out on maneuvers in the field so I
acted on my own when I met with the priest after Mass and told him I was
interested in these children. They were twin girls, about two years old, and
their baby brother. A young, newly married couple joined me there and because
the young woman had suffered a ruptured appendix which necessitated the removal
of her ovaries the priest offered them first choice. They chose the baby boy,
Curtis. I said that I was interested in the twin girls. Within a short time the
priest arranged for the three of us to travel to the orphanage to meet these
children.
I remember that day when we sat in a small room and met for
the first time, the timid little girls taking turns sitting on my lap. The nuns
did not speak English and my German was limited to the names of my favorite
pastries so communication was spare, and a serious mistake occurred. I was told
the children’s names were Ruth and Carolyn but somehow I left there believing
Ruth was Carolyn and Carolyn was Ruth. It wasn’t until ten months later when I
was out shopping in Bamberg with
the girls and a woman came running up to them, hugging them and speaking
rapidly in German that I learned that mistake. She was their birth mother. We
never corrected their names; too much time had passed.
There is a lot more to this story and someday I want to tell
it all but now there are too many people who might be hurt by the details. This
story is about saying goodbye to Ruthie.
Mike and I returned to the States the summer of 1968, proud
parents of a baby boy we named Patrick John after President John Kennedy’s two
sons, and temporary parents of Ruth and Carolyn. We planned to finalize the
adoption in Illinois but when our
marriage started to fail the judge refused to participate in any adoption.
Within a few short, troubled months the girls went to live with a minister and
his wife in Aroma Park, Illinois.
At their request we agreed to step back out of their lives and not play any
role. Then we moved to Colorado
in 1970 and tried to make our marriage work.
Fast forward to 1999, almost 30 years since I had seen Ruth
and Carolyn or had any updates on how they were doing. I saved many photographs
of them which I hoped to share, and if they didn’t know about their early beginnings
in Germany I
wanted to tell about that, too. Having kept the handwritten letters from their
paternal grandmother in Indiana
and using the Internet, I called that kind lady and she agreed to contact the
girls and give them my phone number. Within hours I received a phone call from
Ruth in Florida, and it began
with “Ma?”
Soon Carolyn called from Michigan
and with my husband Bob’s encouragement we put together a plan for the girls to
both fly in to Denver and spend
some time with us. We planned a big party to introduce them to our friends and
family, an outdoor affair at the A-B sports and picnic grounds adjacent to the
brewery. But the morning of the party it snowed! Bill West rescued us by
sponsoring our last-minute use of the Moose Lodge where a much smaller party
was held. Ruth, Carolyn, and I took long drives up Poudre
Canyon and out onto the prairie
lands while we talked and talked about our lives over the past 30 years. The
girls met Patrick and kinda fought over who got to sit closest to him, hold his
attention. And they asked me to try to locate their other baby brother, Curtis,
whom they only vaguely remembered but had never forgotten. That took years but
I did find Christopher, nee Curtis, in Pennsylvania
and they reunited with him, too.
Ruth and Carolyn were my daughters for only 21 months in the
sixties but they had a profound impact on me and probably taught me much more
than I taught them. I was not happy with the way I was parented and thought I
could read books and follow instructions on how to be a really good parent to them. But
it is not that simple. No matter how many books I read I often lost my temper
and reverted to yelling at the kids and spanking them, full well knowing that
was not helpful, not the mother I wanted to be. That’s what led me to seek
psychiatric treatment and I believe it saved my life.
In March of 2021 Ruth lost her only son Carlos, age 31, to a
motorcycle accident. When Carlos was a young boy Ruth described him in emails
we exchanged as an outdoorsman who loved to go barefoot and preferred time in
the swamps to school. Her pride was obvious. His death broke her heart and probably
led to Ruth’s own early death. She leaves two daughters, Ashley and Sarah, several grandchildren,
and her twin sister, Carolyn, along with many friends, family and co-workers I
never knew.
Goodbye, Ruthie. You were a cute, intelligent, and loving
little girl. You didn’t talk much when you came into my life but you did call
your sister “Woodie” and I wish I had understood you were saying “Ruthie”. We
could have straightened out that name mixup early on. I hope you forgave me,
too, for not being your forever mom like I intended. My heart hurts for you now, and for those you left behind.
