I always thought about the ending of the story was supposed
to be, you know, I'd met my father and I, you know, all
these things. And it's like, no, it's that I
had this story that's now 74 years old, and I went through
all these things. But look at all the roadblocks I
had and all the barriers that I had to come through and all of
the the hurdles that I had to go through and all the people that
weren't there. Welcome to DNA Surprises, a
podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA
discoveries. I'm your host, Alexis ourselves.
In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out
that I'm an NPE, a person who has experienced a non paternal
event. In other words, my biological
father isn't who I thought he was.
Join me as we explore the stories of NP, ES, adoptees and
donor conceived people and their families.
Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin
with a simple DNA test. This is DNA surprises.
What happens after you take a DNA test, after you make contact
with new found family, after you write that letter or e-mail or
hit send on a text? You wait and wait and wait.
In this week's episode, I'm joined by Devin, who spent
almost the entirety of her 70 plus years waiting.
From being raised by an aunt to life with her mother and a man
whom she never felt biologically related to.
Devon shares the decades long journey she went on before
discovering the truth and making a shocking discovery about her
biological father and her mother.
Thank you for sharing your story, Devon.
My name is Devon and I'm 74 years old and I was born in
Topeka, KS and I'm now retired living in Costa Rica.
My DNA surprise story started in 1950 when I was born.
I was born in Topeka, KS and although I was born in Topeka,
KS I was raised until I was six years old by my aunt who lived
in Detroit. I never really wondered how I
got from Topeka to Detroit because I was really young.
So it was just that I was living in Detroit with my aunt and with
raised by my aunt and my uncles. My mother had seven brothers and
I think about five of them lived in Detroit and they worked in
the auto industry and I was very happy there.
Really happy little kid. I was the apple of their eye.
They took me everywhere, bought me all kinds of clothes, doted
on me and everything. So I was very happy.
I used to call my aunt my mother, and she would correct me
and tell me that she wasn't my mother, that I had a mother, and
she would tell me my mother's name or whatever.
And I do remember my mother coming around, I guess from time
to time, but I never really associated her with actually
being my mother. To me, my aunt was my mother.
Anyway, from 1950 to 1956, I lived with my aunt.
And I remember when I was four years old, all the kids in the
neighborhood were already going to school, and I was so looking
forward to going to kindergarten.
And so in 1955 I started kindergarten.
But you know, when you go to kindergarten, you only go for
like half a day. So I was really looking forward
to the next year, which would be 1956 when I was 6, so that I
would be able to stay at school all day.
And I remember going to school and being so happy about being
in school all day long. And then all of a sudden it was
September 30th, 1956. My real mother, my biological
mother, came back to Detroit and picked me up along with a
gentleman that I had never seen before.
And they whisked me away from Detroit and my uncles and my new
school and we moved to Columbus, OH.
And because my brother was born on September the 13th, he
obviously was already there by September the 30th, but I don't
really remember him being around.
But at any rate, I went to live with them in Columbus, OH, and I
used to call them by their first names because to me they were
kind of both new to me, especially the man, my mother.
Like I said, of course I knew and I knew her name, but I had
never called her mom. When you were growing up, did
you seek your mother, want your mother, or did you just kind of
accept that you were raised by your aunt and that was just your
life? No, I never really had any
questions about seeing my mother being with my mother because to
me, my aunt was my mother and I was very happy in that
environment and so I never really questioned it.
I think the problem started when I actually moved away from my
aunt and all of a sudden I was with my mother and with this man
who for all intents and purposes now just refer to him as my
father. My mother and my father living
in Columbus, OH. I lived with them and I called
them by their first name. And I think it was probably
around 1960, when I was 10, I remember my father coming to me
and saying that it was time for me to stop calling my mother by
her first name and I should call her mom, you know, mother, mommy
or whatever. I wanted to, but I didn't have
to call him dad or dad, dad or daddy or anything like that, but
I needed to start calling her mother or mom.
So I remember thinking, well, if I have to call her mom, I might
as well just call him dad. So I started calling them mom
and dad, but I never really felt that they were my mother, my
father, either one of them. And I remember telling my mother
and my father that I did not believe that they were my real
parents. And so they brought this birth
certificate out and gave it to me and it had my name and it had
my mother's name and my father's name on it.
And I was really confused. But I was only 10.
I really had never seen a birth certificate before.
And I thought to myself, I don't know how this could be.
Now by this time, I, I did realize that my mother was
probably really my mother. So it was more the that my
father that I had the question about, but I didn't understand
how he got on my birth certificate.
But I really like I said, I didn't really understand what
birth certificates really were. So I just kind of accepted it.
But I always felt something was strange because I just knew that
he could not be my father because I had never seen him
before. And so this went on all through
high school. And I remember thinking that it
appeared to me that everything started from age 6, meaning that
there was never any sharing of information about either of
their backgrounds. Like, for instance, why was I
born in Topeka, KS? Where did that come from?
You know what I mean? And never had any information
about how they met, what they used to do when they were in
school, or any of that. There was no celebration of
anniversaries. There was no, this is our
anniversary, we've been married this many years, nothing.
It was just everything started from 1956 and there was no
before. So basically that's the way I
lived my life. My father was in the Air Force,
so we moved around a lot and I just went on with that all the
way through college. But I do remember that when I
would have close friends, girlfriends or whatever, I would
always tell them that I didn't think that my father was my
father. And they would say, why do you
think that? And I would say, I don't know
because I just know. But you know, I had no answers
to it or anything like that. So that's kind of the way I went
along with my life, just knowing that something was wrong, but
not knowing what it was or what I could do about it.
What was your relationship like with him?
I would say it was poor and that's one of the reasons why I
did not think he was my father because by this time I actually
had two brothers. One brother was born in 1956, as
I mentioned right before I moved to Columbus, OH, and he was born
in Columbus, OH. And then I had another brother
who was born in 1960, and he was also a born in Columbus, OH.
And to me, my father treated me differently than he treated
them, but I sort of chalked it up to the fact that they were
boys and I was a girl. And what was your relationship
like with your mother after, you know, five years with your aunt
who was more of a mother to you? She she was OK.
I didn't have any like beef with her or anything like that.
It's just that she wasn't very ever very affectionate and she
wasn't very talkative. She wasn't the kind of mother
that you could sit down and talk to.
She would never tell me about her life or anything like that,
and I just didn't ask. I figured something was going on
and I really wasn't sure what it was.
As a matter of fact, one time when I was in high school, I
said something about I don't think you're my mother, my or my
father. Because when I would get mad for
whatever reason, sometimes I would just throw that up.
My mother just kind of left the room.
But my father said, if you want to know the truth, don't ask
your mother. Ask me because I'll tell you the
truth. And it was the way that he said
it, he scared me so much. I thought to myself, maybe I
don't really want to know what the truth is.
So I didn't bring it up anymore after that.
But I was kind of sure after that that he probably really
wasn't my father. But again, you know, there
wasn't anything I could do about it.
I just let it go. And I was pretty miserable
because most of my life growing up, I thought that I was crazy
in a way, because why was I thinking that this life and this
person who was supposed to be my father wasn't my father when
everyone else was saying why do you think that?
Why do you think that? And I didn't have any proof.
That went on until about 1984. So I was 34 years old and I went
to Detroit. I used to go to Detroit when I
was growing up. Every summer from the time that
I left in 1956 until I was 18, every single summer I would
spend in Detroit with my aunt and my uncles and my brothers
would stay with my mother and father in Columbus or wherever
we were. So I was pretty happy part of
the year. And then the other part of the
year I just would think I was crazy.
But, you know, I didn't really have any proof of anything, so I
just figured, well, this is just the way my life is going.
By 1984, I was married, and I had told my husband the whole
story about my life and how I didn't think my father was my
father and growing up with my aunt and all of that.
And we went to a funeral in Detroit in 1984.
And I was standing outside and my uncles were like, a little
bit ahead of me talking in another area.
And I don't think they were paying any attention to where I
was. And I heard one of my uncles
say, refer to me and then say something about her real father.
And I was like, oh, that was the first inkling that I had that I
was right, that there was a real father somewhere.
And I poked my husband, and I said, did you hear that?
Did you hear that? And he said, yes.
So after I had a chance to be alone, I went to my aunt and I
said, can you tell me, because I know that this man that I'm
calling my father isn't my father, can you tell me who my
real father is? And you could tell she was
really nervous and she said, no, I, I don't remember.
I, I think I remember her mentioning his name once, but I
don't really remember what it is.
And I said, well, tell me this was I born in 1950?
Was I born in Topeka, KS and is she my mother?
And she said yes and I said OK so I just left it went back
home. Now I'm thinking I'm really
crazy. So I was going to a therapist to
see if she could help me figure out how I was supposed to deal
with this. And she said, well, you have
every right to know who your father is, and you should just
tell your mother that she has to tell you.
And if she won't tell you, then you just tell her that you're
not going to have anything else to do with her.
My mother called one day and I said, you know, I need to know
this information and I need you to tell me who my father is.
And she said, well, if I tell you, what are you going to do
with the information? And I said, well, I don't know
because you haven't told me the story yet.
I suppose if you told me that he didn't want to have anything to
do with me or he didn't want me to contact him or anything like
that, I wouldn't. And she thought about it for a
minute and she said, well, I'm not at liberty to give you that
information. Oh, how frustrating.
And I said, well, then I guess I won't be talking to you anymore.
And I hung up the phone and I didn't hear from her.
We didn't speak for about two years.
And then one day, just out of the blue, she just called me,
just like we had talked yesterday.
And she just started talking to me.
She said, Oh, well, we want to get a house in Houston and you
know, if you want it, you can live in it and all that and you
can go pick it out and everything.
So I thought about it and I thought, well she's not going to
give me the information and it looks like I might get a house
out of this so. You sound so patient and and
calm and collected. How were you feeling when your
mom basically admits this man who raised you is not your
biological father so confirms what you have thought for
decades at this point, but she will not tell you who?
I know, but I kind of felt validated in a way because then
I knew I wasn't crazy. Yeah.
Because up until this time, I thought I was crazy because I
had this birth certificate and how did he get on my birth
certificate is what I was thinking.
I'm like, how did this happen? So when she finally said, you
know, I can't give you that information, I was like, oh,
great, at least I wasn't crazy. And then I thought, and I'm
going to get a house. So she got a house and I lived
in the house. And that's kind of the way
things went. But after I moved from the house
back to California, I said, well, maybe there's something I
can do about this now it's been confirmed.
And I thought, well, I must have been adopted because I figured
that's the only way someone else's name could get on my
birth certificate without them actually being my biological
parent. So because I was in Columbus, OH
when they first took me away from Detroit, I thought I didn't
really know how to start. So I contacted, I think it was
like children's services or something like that, just 'cause
I didn't really know where else to write to or who else to
contact. So I wrote them a letter and I
gave them all the information. I think I even probably sent
them a copy of my birth certificate, whatever.
And I asked them if they had anything on file about me being
adopted because I figured it must have happened in Columbus.
And then they wrote me back and they said, no, we don't see
anything that says you're adopted, but there's such a
thing as an original birth certificate.
And you can contact the Vital Statistics or whatever in
Topeka, KS, and get a copy of your original birth certificate.
And I was like, oh man, there's such a thing as an original
birth certificate. So I wrote to Topeka, KS, and lo
and behold, they sent me back my original birth certificate and
my original birth certificate. I just had my first name on it.
I didn't have any middle name. It had no father's name.
It had my mother's signature. And it said that I was born in
the Florence Crittenton home for unwed mothers.
So I started kind of putting two and two together because I
started trying to make my story right.
And I knew that my mother had gone to Fisk University and I
figured, oh, she must have gotten pregnant when she was in
in college. And then she gave me to her
sister to raise. So then I tried to contact
Florence Quinton in Topeka, KS, and they told me that the home
had burned down and there were no records.
So I was like, OK, back to the drawing board.
So I'm thinking, OK, that's. So that's all the information
basically that I have. What I was thinking to myself
was that if I can't get the information from my mother, I
figure I'll just have to wait when my father passes away.
Then I could probably get my mother to tell me because I
figured maybe it was the fact that she was married to him or
something is the reason why she couldn't give me the
information. So there went my life all the
way up until 2004, from 19 to 84 to like.
This is just so much time going by.
It is, but there wasn't anything I could do because there.
There was nothing you could do, but but how are you feeling?
Are are you just in acceptance of like, OK, this is kind of
where I'm at and there's not much I can do it.
Are you hated it I. Hated it and I was miserable,
but there wasn't anything I could do because my aunt had
already told me. I knew that she probably did
know, but I figured what what my thought patterns were, that my
mother was the youngest of nine children and she was very smart.
And she had won a double scholarship in 1947 as a black
lady to Fisk University. And my aunt and my uncles were
all very proud of her. And I tried to put myself in
their shoes because if I know that if I had a child and I had
a sister and I didn't want my child to know anything about who
their father was as the sister, I wouldn't tell because my
allegiance would be probably to my to my sister that it's her
business, it's her life. And if she wanted her child to
know, she should tell her child, not me.
So I knew that I wasn't going to get any information from my
uncles and I wasn't going to get any information from my aunt.
And the home had burned down. I had a birth certificate with
no names on it. And that was just the way it
was. So in 2004, my father passed
away and I thought, OK, now I should, I should be able to get
some information. Well, first of all, I couldn't
ask right after he passed away because that would be rude.
So I didn't say anything right after he passed away, like in
December 2004, in 2005, she got sick.
And so I thought, well, this is not a good time to ask.
And in 2000 and 2006, she got diagnosed with cancer.
It was pancreatic cancer. So she was getting, she was
really sick and she got really thin.
And I went to visit her and everything, but I just figured
that wasn't really the time to bring it up either.
So in 2007, she got really bad and we got a phone call saying
that she really wasn't going to make it and that we should come.
She lived in Hawaii. That we should come to Hawaii.
So we went to Hawaii. And I thought to myself, my
brothers were there and everything.
And I thought to myself, now she'll tell me because she's
going to be passing away. My father's dead.
You know, my stepfather is dead and there's no need to keep the
secret anymore. So every time my brothers would
go out to do something, I would stay at the hospital.
And I thought, OK, I'm going to stay here because she's going to
tell me, right? And she kept getting worse and
worse and I would stay there and everything, but she never really
told me anything. And then she got so bad that
they would put her in the Hospice and she was kind of just
going in and out, in and out. And I couldn't stay because I
was working. And you never know how long
someone's going to be in the Hospice.
And I also had a child in back in California.
So I left. She never told me.
I stayed there, you know, as long as I could before I caught
my flight and everything. I stood, you know, I sat by her
bedside and waited for her to tell me and she didn't.
And I left and about a couple of weeks later, she passed away.
So no answers, no answers. But I thought, well, maybe,
maybe now some of the some relative will tell me.
Well, by then just about every one of the relatives had already
passed away because my mother was the baby and there was only
one other relative who was as the wife of one of my uncles.
And I said I'll ask her. So I called her up and I was
going to ask her and she was so distraught about my mother
passing away she was crying. So guess what?
I couldn't ask because how do you ask a question like that
when somebody's grieving? So I thought, well, I'll just
wait a little while and I'll give give her like a little bit
of time and then I'll ask her. So the next time I was going to
ask her, I tried to contact her and no one answered the phone.
And I googled her name and she was deceased and she was the
last person left in the family that could give me any
information. What's going through your mind
at that point? I was so sad and I was mad and I
was just like, why? Why is this happening to me?
There must be some way. So I spent most of my time
trying to figure out how I could figure out what had happened.
And so that was about 2008 or something like that.
So I think it was or 2009 or 2010 I contacted Florence
Crittenton and I thought let me contact Florence Crittenton and
tell them my story and maybe they can help me figure out what
I can do or maybe they could just give me some information.
So I sent an e-mail off and lo and behold, I got an an e-mail
back from the president and she was like what is happening here?
And she said first of all, the home didn't burn down.
And I was like, really? And she's like, no, the home
didn't burn down, she said, but it merged because in 1950, in
the 50's, the homes were segregated.
And I was born in the Florence Crittenden Home for Colored
Girls. And they combined the homes
because she couldn't find any information on me at at the
home. And then one day she called me
up and she said, can I ask you a question?
And I said sure. She said are you black?
And I said yes and she said that's why we couldn't find any
information because they were looking in the white home.
But the records had been consolidated by then and there
still wasn't much information. I think there was only like
about 6 girls in the colored home and my mother was there.
But at least she said we have some pictures of what life would
have been like. And there's another lady that
handled one of the other homes and she's still alive.
Maybe I could contact her and see if she remembers anything or
if she could give us any information.
So she said, I'm going to fly you up to Portland where the
offices were, and we're going to give you a tour and we're going
to just give you all the information, answer any
questions that you might have, even though they didn't have my
particular information. So they flew me up there and it
was great. I had a really great time and I
came back and OK, I had this information.
I felt a little bit better. I'd seen what the homes were
like and all of that. And that's all the information I
had on that until 2019. And now this is the time when
DNA tests are coming on. So I took the 23andMe and I took
the family tree DNA test and I got all these DNA matches.
But I you, you know, they give you like a million of them.
And it was just too hard. I couldn't begin to try try to
figure out what side they were on and I couldn't investigate
everybody. But I had the DNA test and in
2000 and also in 2019, I got an e-mail from another person who
said that they had done their dnathroughancestry.com and that
their mother was a match to my half brother.
So he was asking me, is there a way that your mother could be my
mother's mother is the way he put it.
I said, well, when was she born? And he said she was born in 1951
or whatever. And I'm like, no, because I'm, I
was born in 1950. So if I had somebody that was
after me, I would know, right? I said, or it could be some of
my, you know, my, the uncles or something like that.
So I gave them all, he would ask me all these questions and I
would give them all this information on all the uncles
and everything. And he would say thank you.
And you know, that was that. And we went, I went on down the
road. So in 2021, my niece, this is
the niece to the brother who was born when I was six.
So the older brother, so that the younger brother had already,
that's where he had already taken his DNA test.
And now my other brother's daughter was going to take DNA
test@ancestry.com. So I said I'm going to, I think
I'm going to go ahead and take the test at Ancestry because my
half brother is on there. I'll have my half niece on
there. And what I'll do, I still won't
be able to figure out who my father is.
But what I'll do is whatever doesn't match with me, I'm just
going to attribute that is from my father.
Just to kind of clarify for anyone listening, so you're
testing on the same ancestry site, which is where your
brother and your niece were testing.
My half brother and and my niece half niece right?
Yes, were testing. And anything that overlapped
with them, you could safely assume would be from the
maternal side because you shared the same mother, or your niece,
the grandmother. And then anything that didn't
overlap, you're thinking that's going to take you to your
father. Right.
And and what I was more interested in, I really didn't
think that I would find a father.
But you know how they tell you your ancestry is in England and
Africa and all these places. I figured, well, I'll be able to
figure out where the DNA is from on my side and I'll just
attribute that to my father and that's probably the best thing
that I'm going to be able to do, right.
So I, I took the test and I'm in Costa Rica.
They sent it the test to me and I did this, the spit test or
whatever it is and I took it to send it back.
I went to DHL to send it back and they said, well, what is it?
And I said, well, it's my ancestry thing.
And they said we can't take it. And they said because they don't
take live biological specimens, I guess.
So they said they they weren't going to be able to take it.
And I'm like, well, how am I going to get it back?
They're like, I don't know. So I came back, I'm like, boy,
everywhere I go, there's like a dead end.
So I was went home and I was like, OK, I don't know what I'm
going to do. So we had a friend that was
going to be going back to the States and he would be happy to
take the test back for me. So I said, OK, he took the test
and took it back. And I got a message from
Ancestry saying, you know how you can trace it?
We've got it. We're doing this.
We're, you know, stand by, stand by.
I'm waiting and waiting. I'm, I'm actually sitting at my
computer. It's January, like January 15th
of 2022. I'm sitting in my computer and I
got the little message that my results were in.
So I click on and I'm looking because I'm thinking, OK, so the
first thing I'm going to see is my half brother and then I'm
going to see my niece. And then I'm going to see and I
click on and the first thing I see is a sister who's a full
sister. We had like 50 some odd percent
DNA match. And I'm thinking to myself now,
how can this be? So then I'm thinking that they
made a mistake. I'm like, well, now what do I
do? Because they've obviously made a
mistake because I don't have a sister.
And then I saw the next person after my sister was the
gentleman that had contacted me in 2019 to ask me if my mother
could be his mother's mother. And I'm like, Oh my God.
So I sent him a message back and I, I said oops.
And I sent him a copy of, you know, the list and everything,
right? So now I have a sister and I, we
hired A genealogist and Florence Crittenton referred me to
someone that was the genealogist that was also a private
investigator. And they could help me go
through all the matches and everything and help me figure
out, you know, what they could to help me figure out if I could
find my father, right? I don't even know if it took a
week. I get a message back.
We found your father. I was like down my father.
They made a family tree for me and had like about 80 something
people on it, all these different people and told me
where the family was from and all of this stuff.
Now, in the meantime, my sister, after she's finding out what,
who I am, they send off for her birth certificate and everything
and her birth certificate comes back.
Well, first we're trying to figure out how this happened.
And my husband's like, wouldn't it be funny if she was born in
Florence Crittenton home too? And I'm like, she couldn't have
been born there because I was born there in 1950.
I'm not my, you know, my mother didn't go back one year.
We're one year and two months apart.
I'm like, I know she didn't go and then turn around and go
right back again. So my sister sends off for her
birth certificate and lo and behold, she's born at Florence
Crittenden Home for Colored Girls too.
She was born in the one in Kansas City, MO and I was born
in Topeka, KS and I think they're about 45 minutes apart
because if you get pregnant, you can't go back to the same home
twice. Then we get adoption papers that
my sister, my mother put my sister up for adoption and she
put her up for adoption as soon as she was born.
So we're like, OK, so we got the redacted information from her
intake form or whatever it is when they do the adoption.
All the names were redacted, but it gave us a little bit of
information about how tall the father was and everything you
know, and all about the family and all that.
So we had that information. And then when the genealogist
got finished and the private investigator, he put the family
tree together and he said that he had found our father.
So I but he didn't have any information on him.
He all he knew was that my mother was born in 1928.
He was born in 1929 and he died that he went to school.
It said that I think he went to school like till he was like 11
or something like that. And they did this by process of
elimination because, you know, they take all the family and
then whoever doesn't have an alibi, you know, then they they
weed them out like that. Like he didn't have an alibi.
He was around my mother's age and I was in the family because
there were a lot of people whose like cousins and whatever, whose
DNA that I matched so closely that it had to be along that
line. So now I know who my father is,
or so they say. That's who my father is.
But again, I wasn't buying it. I'm like, I don't see my mother
being with someone who only went to school until they were 11 and
no information on them at all was like nothing.
Why would she be keeping that a secret?
You know what I mean? It's like, that's not that.
That just didn't seem like worse a secret.
And also knowing my mother, that she was so educated and so
smart, I was like, I couldn't even see her being with somebody
like that. I don't know.
He's the genealogist. You know, he's doing the work.
So I said, OK, so there was going to be a family reunion the
following year in 2023 near Pittsburgh.
And my sister was in Kansas City.
So I wrote, wrote to my sister. My sister had two strokes and
she had had cancer, so by the time I met her, she was in a
wheelchair and she could talk, but it was very difficult for
her to talk. So it wasn't like I just had a
sister and I could call her up and start asking all these
questions. And so most of the things I had
to go through my nephew, who I had a pretty good relationship
with since I had been leading him down the wrong path since
2019. So I would get all this
information from him. But I, I arranged to meet him
'cause he was in Atlanta and one of my other nieces were in
Atlanta. We did like a family reunion
there. I had my daughter and my son and
another cousin that was from one of my uncles.
We all met in Atlanta for like a reunion dinner and everything.
And then I was going to go to Pittsburgh for the family
reunion on my father's side that I didn't know any of the people
except I had contacted some of the people on the DNA matches
and. So they were, they were
welcoming. Yeah, they were very, they were
very welcome. Union.
Yeah. Like they invited me to the
family reunion. I thought, well, this is great.
I'll go to the family reunion. Maybe somebody can tell me about
the the guy that dropped out of school at 11.
And, you know, maybe I'll feel a little bit better about about it
and then I'll go see my sister. So she had you, your mother had
you, then took you to live with her sister.
Right. And then?
Pregnant. Again, with the same man, right?
Mystery man. Who you?
Eventually identify, right? And because she had very
recently had you, she couldn't go back to the home where she
gave birth to you, and I presume could not give your aunt
another. Baby to put.
Her for adoption. Right.
OK, OK. And so you said that your sister
had had cancer and some strokes. Was she aware of who you were or
was she excited to see? You very excited, OK, blood
relatives and knew nothing by this time.
I mean, I was 72. She was 71 by this time and she
never knew anything. She knew that she was adopted
and that's all. OK, wow.
I know I go to the family reunion and I'm going around it
so that they're introducing me and they call them Junior.
So they're like, it's his daughter and people are like,
really? We didn't know he had any kids.
Well, actually that made me feel better because it made me it
more like it was, it might have been true because I was a
secret, right. So I was talking to some of the,
a couple of the cousins, the older cousins.
Not many of the people knew anything because remember, I'm
like 72 and these guys are, you know, 30.
They don't know anything about this guy.
They don't even really know who he is.
But like a couple of the older cousins, so I was talking to
them because they lived close to East Palestine where they had
the train derailment and all the chemicals went out.
And a lot of people in the family, as I had been
researching, had died early, Like my father had died at like
63. And I was like, well, had
anybody ever thought of the fact that maybe it was some chemicals
or something that. And she said then they said,
well, that's the case for some of them, but some of them bring
it on themselves. And she said, like your father,
he was a drunk. I think he drank himself to
death. As soon as she said that, I was
like, Oh no, Nope, I'm not having this for a father.
After all of this, This could not be my father, my mother.
She just wasn't. You have to know my mother.
When you say this can't be my father, you don't mean like I'm
not claiming him. You mean literally like I do not
think that this is my. Exactly.
And I had been saying that ever since they told me who it was.
I was like, no, I even have a therapist since this whole thing
started. And I was talking to my
therapist and I was telling her I just don't think it could be
my father. And so that the when I thought
that my story had ended, I said I'll just have to accept it or
whatever till I heard this stuff right.
And I, I'm like, this can't be my father.
This can't be my father. What can I do?
I don't know what where else I can check.
I don't know what else to do. When I was talking to my
therapist and she was telling me all about the primal wound and
we were talking about adoptions and everything.
And I said, you know what? I actually was adopted because
that when I, when I went to see my mother, when she was passing
away, I found my adoption paper in the drawer.
But it didn't really prove anything.
It just had her name and the guy that.
I never thought was my father his name on there.
So that just proved that he adopted me and that was the end
of that. So I just had taken the paper
home. But when I was talking to her, I
said, you know, I was, I was adopted because I never really
thought of myself as being adopted.
But I thought if I could just get the papers from when I was
adopted, maybe there would be like a clue as to what happened
with the adoption. Because I I had been led to
believe that from Florence Crittenden since my mother had
not written down a father's name, that I probably would not
find it because the mothers did not have to write down their
names. My mother was actually 21 when
she had me, so she was an adult. And actually at the homes they
sometimes took fake names to shield the person from other
people ever finding out that they had been pregnant.
So they did everything that they could to conceal it.
So I figured pretty much I was not going to be able to find out
the name. And it was redacted on my
sister's copy. And I told them that they could,
you know, see if they could check further, whatever.
But it cost more money. And I don't think they were as
interested in finding out as I was because I think they were a
little more content with just finding out who her mother was
and finding me and me finding the family.
I think that was enough for them.
And I had given them a name of who the father was.
So, you know, it was fine. I was following the Cleveland
Adoption Network and I had I saw where the records were open in
Ohio for adopt, for close adoptions or whatever that the
records were open and I thought maybe I can contact Ohio and
least they could send me my records and I would have the
story right. I also had sent away for my
mother's military records because the genealogist said
that maybe my mother had written my father's name down because
maybe, you know, they get a lot of information from me because
my mother had gone into the Air Force.
That's where she was when I was with my aunt.
No one ever told me, but that's where she was.
So I sent for the military records and I didn't get
anything. So I contacted Cleveland
Adoption Network. I said, can you help me find out
how I can get the papers that go with my adoption?
And they said you have to know where you were adopted.
And so they gave me the number and I contacted the lady there
and I, I gave her the case number and everything.
She said here's the process, it's free.
She sent me all the information. I got all the paperwork together
and I sent it off. And two days later I got back a
packet from the Franklin County and it was 13 pages long.
And on the very last page, it named my biological father.
And it wasn't the guy who they said it was.
It was his uncle. So they were very close.
But the reason why they didn't get him is because he was 20
years older than my mother. He was also prominent in
Detroit. He was in politics.
He was of an alternate for the Democratic Convention, National
Convention and 1960. He was a a union Stewart.
He was very intellectual. And I was like, that's my
father. He was a snazzy dresser anyway,
So, you know, that made more sense to me.
And so, yeah. So he also was married in 1940
and had a son. So now I have 1/2 brother, too,
right. So I looked it up and he passed
away in 2021 so. No, no ABS brother.
Right. But his wife was still alive and
she was on Facebook. So 6° of separation.
I found somebody that knew somebody that knew somebody, and
they contacted her and told her that I was trying to contact
her, that I was a relative. That's all they said.
And would she, you know, be interested in speaking with me?
So she said sure. And she gave the phone number
and I said oh, I don't even know how I'm even going to get into
this story. And so I said, well I want to
tell you my story. And I was telling her how I
didn't know who my father was. And she stops me and she says,
oh, I am so glad you're telling me this story because my
husband, who is my half brother, always thought that his father
was hiding siblings somewhere and that it was a secret.
And I was like, yeah, well it was a secret and we're the
siblings. So I told her all about my
sister and myself. So before I even had told her
that I was contacting her because her husband was my half
brother, she already was saying, Oh my goodness it.
My husband had the same situation.
So she sent me pictures and everything of him and the
pictures that she had, but she was estranged.
My half brother was estranged from our father because he was
so secretive that they just stopped talking.
And my father was in Detroit and he, interestingly enough, one of
the relatives that I met at the picnic, the family reunion was
with my father when he passed away.
Now, at the time that I was at the picnic, I wasn't looking for
that guy, that is. So when you learn this
information now granted he was married and everything and and
he was older than your mother, were you more satisfied with the
outcome as to totally your biological father was?
Totally. I was so satisfied with that and
also it explained why she didn't give me the information right
then. I like I just forgave her
because it was like no wonder because I'm not even sure that
my adopted father even knew about my sister because they got
married in 1955 and you know, my mother had given her away in
1951. I don't know if this the truth
or not, but I'm thinking that my my mother probably married my
stepfather, adopted father, whatever in 1955 without telling
him about that and only telling him about me.
So I figure my mother could never tell me the story because
if she would have told me it would have opened a Pandora's
box and then I would have found out about my sister.
Or I guess she thought the best thing was just don't say
anything so she didn't and then I would.
I had told my my sister that I was going to come and see her
every year because we had never had any time together.
And I knew that. I mean to me she lived a long
time after having two strokes. So she had the strokes in 2011
and it was 2021 when I found out, 2022 when I found out about
it in 2023 when I went to visit her.
And I was so happy to have a sister.
They were so welcoming. And I met my other, my other
niece and my, my daughter met her and my my son met.
It was a grave. And so I said I was going to
come and visit them in Kansas City because she can't travel.
And so we made arrangements for me to meet for us to meet up
again. We were going to go in July of
2024 and I talked to my therapist and I had all this
information to find out about her because she really couldn't
speak that well. So I made like this list of all
these questions that I can, you know, things like what's your
favorite color? What, what, you know, just
'cause I didn't really know anything about her, but I just
felt like she was my twin. I just had that feeling, you
know, we just had that. They were so close in age and I
just kept origin story. If we were to, I was so mad
because all my life I wanted a sister.
And I used to tell my mother, well, I wish I had a sister.
But you know, you can't make a sister.
You can't make a sister. You know, if your mother's not
gonna have a doesn't have a girl, you won't have a sister.
I saw these relationships that people had with their sisters.
And when I met my sister, I thought, oh, I always wanted the
sister. We could have been trading
clothes and we had our kids. Around the same time in May, I
got a message from my nephew saying that my sister had been
taken to the hospital and they didn't know what it was.
And so she went to the hospital. They said she had pneumonia and
they said that, you know, they were working on her and
everything. And then they said that she was
better. They were going to send her
home. So they sent her home.
And then I got a message about a week later saying that she
wasn't eating and she just wasn't cooperating.
They took her back to the doctor again and they said, well, she
needed a heart valve transplant or something like that, and but
she wouldn't survive the surgeries.
And I said, well, what are they going to do?
And my nephew said, I don't know.
And I said I'm going to go for a walk.
And so I went for a walk. And when I came back from my
walk, I had a message saying she's gone.
And that was that. But because we had said that we
were going to go back in July, we went back this July anyway.
And her husband had an 80th birthday surprise party.
So we went back to the party and my daughter was there and she
was with her two cousins and we were out at a restaurant and
they were talking and my husband said he heard the girl say she's
just like mom. How did that feel?
That just made it even more like that we were twins.
But I feel like at least I got the information to her 'cause
she got to know who her real father was before she passed
away and she got to meet me and she got to know about her
mother. And maybe that's just the way it
was supposed to be. Before I sent the information
off to the adoption agency, I just thought, am I just going to
die and never know? And then I got the information.
I got the family and I got to meet my nieces and my nephews
and I got to at least meet my sister because I almost didn't
get to meet her 'cause I didn't get to meet anyone else.
Because it, you know, half brother was passed away and, you
know, so that's where we are. I always thought about the
ending of the story was supposed to be, you know, I met my father
and I, you know, all these things.
And it's like, no, it's that I had this story that's now 74
years old and I went through all these things.
But look at all the roadblocks I had and all the barriers that I
had to come through and all of the the hurdles that I had to go
through and all the people that weren't there.
I didn't have a lot of support on the side of on my my half
brothers that are still alive. One of them isn't speaking to me
since we were going to do the reunion in Atlanta last year.
He just stopped speaking to me and didn't go.
And the other one is now he also has the same cancer that my
sister had. And in addition to that, he is,
has early onset Alzheimer's. So doesn't really do any good
really to talk to him. So other than that, it's like, I
don't really have any support there.
And that's just, I, I think another one of those roadblocks
or one of those things, I'm so used to them now.
You know, it's, it's more of a surprise to me when I, when I do
find something, but I'm tenacious and I, I'm, you know,
I stay at it and, and I stay on the trail.
And so I'm pretty happy with what I found out.
I'm, the information that I've been able to find out about my,
who my biological father was is wonderful information.
He seemed to be like a really great guy and he seems to be a
lot like my sister and myself. Well, my mother is a lot like my
sister too, but my father was a kind of like a, a political
activist, which I am, and he was an accountant, which my sister
is, and he loved to dress, which I like to do.
And so I'm very happy. Absolutely.
What advice do you have for a parent who is keeping adna
surprise from their child? Don't do it.
It's better it.
I mean, there are other people like me who live to be my age or
maybe sometimes even older that have to live with that emptiness
of the question of who their, their biological parent or
parents are. And it's something is missing.
It's just something that it, it can't be filled up and it's,
it's not worth it. It's really not worth it.
It's like, and I think now even like for adoptions, they're not
doing, they're doing more open adoptions now, which I also
think is a good idea. And if you ever have an adoption
and you have to give a child for adoption, I think it's really
nice if you fix it so that you can meet the child at some
point. It just does so much because
look at all the that it did for me.
And I didn't even get to meet my my biological father at all, you
know? So no secrets.
This is the end of the secrets in our family.
Thank goodness. And what advice do you have for
someone who just uncovered Adna surprise?
First, take a deep breath and know that you may be in for some
twists and turns, but it's very, it's a very interesting, I think
to actually find out how you link with the people or the, the
person or the persons that you find that are in your family.
And you'll probably discover some traits that you have some
things that they do that are just like you.
I, I thought that was one of the greatest things to find out
because when you don't have it, like when I was living with my
adopted father, he was nothing like me, you know what I mean?
But when I found out about my biological father, as I just
mentioned, we already had all these things like, oh, he did
that. Oh, that's why, that's why.
So just take a deep breath and just dive into it and see what
you can get out of it. And I think either even if it's
not a good surprise or ends up not being what you want in the
end, I think you still will gain something from it.
And you it's, it's up to each person to to make something out
of whatever it is they find, I think.
Devin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
sharing your story, and I wish you the best on wherever your
journey takes you next. Thank you.
Thanks again to Devin for sharing her story.
Devin started a YouTube channel to document her amazing journey.
I've linked the channel Silva Sistas in the show notes.
If you have adna surprise that you'd like to share, please
submit your story at dnasurprises.com and for early
ad free access to episodes, join me over on
patreon@patreon.com/DNA Surprises.
Until next time, this episode of DNA Surprises was hosted,
produced and edited by me, Alexis Ourselt.
It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording
Studios.