Thursday, January 26, 2017

2017 A to Z Challenge ~ All About Me ~ Letter B


This is a post for the 2017 A to Z Challenge ~ All About Me created by Jeanne Bryan Insalaco of Everyone Has a Story.

Brothers

In my family I have one brother Billy. However, between my birth parents I have six brothers, which by the way, is more than I thought I had! I know for a fact that my brothers through my birth mother that one is older and one is younger than me. I am not sure about my brothers through my birth father but I suspect that they are also older than me.  From my non-identifying information I knew that I had at least eight older siblings but my birth father's obituary listed that he had eight children so at least three of his children were born after me. I have four paternal brothers, Richard, Johnny, David and Mike. I never dreamed I would have so many brothers both older and younger than myself. 

I have been searching for Richard, Johnny, David and Mike since I learned about them in June 2016. Hopefully I can find them sooner rather than later because I really want to meet them and get to know them.

Barbara

Barbara is my birth mother. I met her twice first in March and again in late April of 2011. We talked for several hours during our first visit. I showed her pictures of my children, pictures of my parents and siblings. She showed me pictures of ancestors and my siblings. She was very forthcoming when it came to family and medical histories. She told me a little about my maternal siblings. We soon learned that we were both long time book readers and even liked some of the same authors. The one thing I wish I had done was to take a picture of her especially because she made it very clear that she did not want a relationship.

When I asked her about my birth father she didn't have much information because according to her he lied about everything he ever told her. It was obvious that he caused her a lot of emotional pain, I could see it in her eyes when she spoke of him. I am hoping that my siblings will share pictures of their respective parents with me at some point.

Birth and Baptism

I was born on Saturday, the 21st of July, 1962 at Baptist Hospital in Miami, Dade (now Miami-Dade) County, Florida. My birth mother told me that she worked in the X-ray Department typing reports and was working on the day I was born. I was delivered by Dr. Grosskloss (now deceased) and he is the doctor who arranged my adoption. My adoption was considered a closed, private adoption. My parents brought me home from the hospital the next day and the rest as they say is history.

Daddy, Momma and me the day I came home from the hospital. (personal collection)

I was Baptized one week later on Sunday, the 29th of July 1962 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hialeah, Florida. It was also my Momma's birthday. My Godparents are my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Kenny. Uncle Kenny is my Momma's younger brother. My Baptism was performed by Fr. S. J. Clift. I was the first to wear the family baptism gown. All of my siblings as well as my nieces and nephews wore this very same gown too. I had my children baptized together when Kenny was one and David was a newborn however, David weighed in at 10 pounds and even leaving the buttons undone he was just to big for the gown.

This is me in my baptismal gown. (personal collection).

Books

Books and reading have always been a passion for me. As a child who had severe asthma and allergies I spent a lot time inside. One of my parents was always reading to us kids. Once I learned how to read there was no stopping me! In middle and high school I would read late into the night. I can't tell you how many times my Dad would come in and tell me it was time to go to bed and turn out the lights.

I am not exactly sure when my parents bought this particular set of books (the books are long gone and I don't even remember the names any longer) but it was series I read repeatedly about U.S. Presidents for elementary school age children probably up until about 6th I would think. My particular favorite was the volume on John F Kennedy. These books fit in with my love of history which led me to reading books about the Salem witch trials, the kidnapping of the young son Charles Lindbergh, the sinking of the Titanic and other fascinating events in history.

By the age of 12, I discovered Agatha Christie novels. I couldn't get enough of them. In my freshman year of high school I discovered J R R Tolkien's, The Lord of the Rings and what some might call "trashy" romance novels. Complete ends of the spectrum I know. My senior year of high school I discovered true crime books when I found my Dad's copy of The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule, which was about Ted Bundy. 

I am never without my e-reader which I received for my 50th birthday but I also still read real books too. I am a voracious reader and always have been. I would spend lunch hours in my car reading. I would read at my children's sporting practices but never during a game! I still read at lunch, between television commercials and always before falling asleep. I can't tell you how many times my husband has woken up in the middle of the night to find my book beside me with the book light on! 

This is my largest bookcase. It has only my hardback and oversized paperback books. (Personal collection)

As you can see in the photo above one set of my bookcases is quite full in my living room. I have a smaller bookcases on either side of my entertainment center filled to capacity and overflowing with paperback books only. I still have boxes, tote boxes, nightstand drawers, a shelf in the closet filled with books. Then I have a bookcase in my office filled with genealogy books, magazines and notebooks. 

I refuse to part with the series books I have collected over the years such as the Alex Cross series by James Patterson, the Luke Davenport series by John Sandiford and the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell to name just a few. 


Saturday, January 21, 2017

2017 A to Z Challenge ~ All About Me ~ Letter A

My friend and fellow blogger, Jeanne Bryan Insalaco of Everyone Has a Story started a fun blogging challenge about writing about ourselves. You can find her first post Letter A... All About Me here. The 2017 A to Z ~ All About Me Challenge is her twist to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The idea is to post bi-monthly posts about ourselves and completing all 26 posts by 31 December 2017. I am accepting Jeanne's challenge and I hope she won't mind if I add my own twist to it as well. My twist is that I will be using these posts to tell my birth siblings about my life. 



History has always been my favorite subject so it is no wonder that I fell in love with genealogy. With genealogy I can step back in time and discover who my ancestors were. I tell their stories here one my blog. Now I am going to step back into my memories and write my life so that my birth family will learn about me and my life. 

The letter A makes me think of being Adopted and Alabama.


Adopted

I have always known I was adopted. I can remember a set of books that my parents used to read to me about being adopted and how special I was because I was chosen. As far as I am concerned being adopted was like winning the lottery. My birth mother didn't have a lot of choices in 1962 and I believe she made a great choice in choosing my adoptive parents, Bill and Nina. I say choose because my adoption was arranged by the obstetrician who not only delivered me but treated both of my mothers. As a matter of fact, this same doctor delivered all of my siblings too. I have a great life, and I love my family.

 Dawn Marie Williams (personal collection)

Alabama

After graduating from high school on 4 June 1980, my husband Marc and I left for Montgomery, Alabama to begin our life as a married couple. He had been living and working there since shortly after we were married three months earlier. He was working for his brother, Lester at a motorcycle dealership. We lived in a two bedroom apartment in an area that was mostly open space. Now that area is filled with housing developments and shopping areas. 

We spent our time going to Lamaze classes as we awaited the birth of first child who was due on 21 September 1980. It was the hottest summer ever! To keep from going stir crazy in our apartment I would go to the Alabama State Archives where I began my journey in the world of genealogy. Finally on Friday,  10 October 1980 our son, Kenneth George Kitts was born at 12:50 p.m. We left the hospital the next day but two days later Kenny had to be admitted to the children's hospital because he was severely jaundiced. Then in November I was admitted to the hospital for anaphylactic shock from penicillin. 

By December the company my husband was working for was closing and we were heading home back to North Carolina. It was a 500 mile trip with a two month old baby but pulling up in front of my parents home just a few days before Christmas was homecoming I will never forget.

My son, Kenny. The best thing that happened in Alabama. (personal collection).
 


 

Friday, January 13, 2017

Do I Look Familiar Friday? # 4

 Photo Credit: Personal Collection

Do I look familiar to you? If so, please contact me! You can find my contact information in the left hand corner of my blog in the box "Are We Related?".

This is a post for my series, Do I Look Familiar Friday?. I will be posting pictures of myself at various ages in the hope that I may look familiar to someone who is either my sibling or by someone who maybe related to them.



Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Top 5 Posts of 2016 for Scarlet and Dawn


I didn't write nearly as many posts I had hoped to here at Scarlet and Dawn, however, things really started popping for me my research and my search for my biological family back in the spring and it didn't slow down all year. I am hoping that 2017 will continue to see as much success as I had in 2016. 

Here are the top 5 posts from my blog for 2016!

  • Newspaper Extraction Form for Death, Burial and Obituary Notices This was my top post for 2016 and it is still getting hits! After months of clipping burial, death, funeral and obituary notices for my birth family I needed to find a way to get as much information as I could from each type of notice. I hope that eventually I can make a book for each surname using my form and a copy of the notice.
  • The Tale of My Two Mothers  This is by far my favorite post so far! It is the story of how one woman gave me life and how one woman took me into her heart and made me hers. I had originally written the post for my blog Dawning Genealogy on Mother's Day, 9 May 2015. I updated it with a few more details and posted it here for Mother's Day, 8 May 2016.
  • I Found My Birth Father's Funeral Notice! This was an amazing find for me! I was in Charleston for medical reasons but as usual wherever I go I always find time for genealogy. I still have had no luck in finding my paternal half siblings but I won't stop until I do.
  • A Little of My Story This was my first blog post of 2016. It is my story about how I came to be adopted.