by Cathy LaGrow
With memories of the Challenger explosion still fresh, the first two minutes were agonizing. But as the clock ticked on and the NASA feed continued its calm details, a sense of relief swept through the families. They hugged and slapped each other on the back, their eyes continually glancing skyward. All too soon, they were hustled onto buses and driven away.
Celebrations went well into the evening, with plenty of snacks and drinks to go around. The Lee family stayed riveted to the NASA channel on cable. Nerves dissipated as the shuttle safely reached Earth’s orbit. Having already stayed extra days, most of the family scrambled to book flights and parted ways the next day. Ruth said good-bye to her children, her brothers, and her sisters-in-law. She and Charles flew back to Wisconsin.
After four days in orbit, the shuttle returned, landing in California. Ruth was relieved to hear Mark’s voice when he called. He told her how bumpy the launch had been, like driving down a gravel road full of ruts. He’d been impressed by how small Earth appeared from space. It took just ninety minutes to go all the way around it in the shuttle. When he returned, the world felt smaller, the human experience both more trivial and more momentous.
During the next eight years Mark would go on three more space missions and would conduct four space walks, spending a total of thirty-three days in orbit and traveling around the earth 517 times. His parents and most of his siblings and extended family were present at every launch.
Especially harrowing for the family was his third mission in 1994, during which Mark performed an untethered space walk while flying an experimental jet-pack outside the shuttle. The walk produced stunning photos of Mark, in a brilliant white suit and gleaming gold-faced helmet, floating above the blue curve of Earth with the fathomless black of space behind him. Some hundred and fifty miles below, his anxious family listened to the NASA feed and waited for word that he was safely back on board the shuttle Discovery.
Traveling to space was an experience shared by only a handful of people in human history. Thanks to a certain stubborn determination and decades of focused work, the boy from Wisconsin had fulfilled his extravagant dreams.
* * *
After the first shuttle launch in 1989, Ruth made her own changes. Her nest had nearly emptied out. For some time, she’d worked part-time doing bookkeeping for her church, but as Christmas approached, Ruth wanted to add funds to the holiday budget. She applied to be a seasonal employee at a busy store that had sprung up two miles away. In many ways, the new Walmart had now become the town center.
After the holidays ended, Ruth’s manager asked her to stay. She enjoyed the bustle and energy of the place. It wasn’t long before part-time turned to full-time. Ruth worked at Walmart for almost twenty years before retiring at the age of seventy-eight.
Ruth enjoyed chatting with customers, many of whom knew her family. It seemed as if the whole town of Viroqua eagerly watched televised reports of Mark’s space travels. Ruth’s other children had all worked hard to build successful lives for themselves, too. She couldn’t have been prouder of each one.
As time marched on, Ruth acknowledged a truth about life: “You can only depend on change.”
Life was more than she might have imagined as a girl sitting in the tops of trees. It had taken her far beyond her beginning at a home for unwed mothers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Ruth knew nothing about her conception, but sacrifice and prayers had prevailed against the tragic assault on a sixteen-year-old girl at Scatterwood Lake. Great beauty had risen from ashes.
Redemption had occurred, but something else was on its way, something that Ruth hadn’t expected but which would bring her abundant joy. Something that a very old woman had waited for nearly all her life.
Restoration was coming.
Chapter Twenty-One
THOUSANDS OF MILES separated two women who shared the same DNA yet were as good as strangers. The miles would shorten not by their own doing, but by the curiosity of the younger generation.
Brian Lee was a tough and focused soldier, but he had always been close to his mother—and he wasn’t afraid to show it. Even as a teenager, after a long day of school, football practice, and bagging groceries at the local market, Brian would stay up late with Ruth to watch Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. With three other children still at home, this was mother and son’s chance to connect, to laugh together over a shared pleasure.
Brian had intended to follow Mark into the Air Force Academy. He, too, had earned the rank of Eagle Scout and had excelled in track, football, and wrestling. His grades were also good. But sidelined by poor eyesight, Brian enlisted in the marine corps instead.
Two years later, Brian was accepted by the elite US Military Academy at West Point. He graduated as a second lieutenant; promptly married his high school sweetheart, Teresa; and then began an army career during which he would rise to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Brian earned an MBA from Syracuse University, and with dreams of flying still in his blood, he obtained his private pilot’s license.
Brian spent five years working at the Pentagon. When he retired from the army at the age of forty-six, he was hired as an engineer by a defense contractor in Alabama. After years of bouncing around the country, Brian and Teresa and their two children could finally settle down. But Alabama was far from his parents’ farm in Wisconsin.
The connection to his mother and father was as ingrained in Brian as rising early, stating the hour by military standards, and driving the precise speed limit at all times. Every day, unless he was overseas on business, Brian called home to check on his parents. When a problem arose within the family, and especially with his mom or dad, Brian couldn’t get it off his mind. When Ruth had heart surgery in late 2005, he could think of little else.
It was bitterly cold for a day in the Deep South. Though she was accustomed to harsh Midwest winters, Ruth could not get warm. She huddled on Brian’s couch, wrapped in a thick sweater. Charles had gone to bed, and Brian had lit a fire in the fireplace. Ever since her operation four months earlier, Ruth had struggled to shake the chill that settled in her bones.
As was their custom, she and Charles had stopped in Alabama to visit Brian and Teresa on their way back from a two-month “snowbird” trip to Florida. The annual tradition had started eight years earlier, on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. The couple would stay at the same hotel in Cocoa Beach that had hosted them during Mark’s launches. Charles relaxed by the pool or dropped coins in the machines at the penny arcade while Ruth played shuffleboard and visited with fellow vacationers.
But after this vacation, in February 2006, Ruth’s health issues were very much on Brian’s mind. One facet had nagged at him for years. Whenever Brian went to the doctor or had a physical, he’d be asked his family’s medical history. His reply was always the same—there was no information on his mom’s side. As time went on, that answer bothered him more and more.
Brian had considered discussing this with his mother before but had needed time to deliberate first. He liked to analyze every angle of a situation—it was one of the reasons his employer valued him so much. Now he was ready to broach the subject. In typical Lee fashion, he spoke plainly.
“Mom, have you ever thought about researching your adoption records? Maybe we could find out more about your birth parents.” He paused. “Maybe we could get some medical information, for all of us.”
In the background, a news program played on the TV with the volume low.
“Well, yes.” Ruth looked at Brian. The reference to her children swayed her. Ruth would do anything for her family. “But I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“I can do some research and see what I can find out,” Brian said. “If you say no, I’ll drop the subject. But if you say yes, I’ll lead the way.”
“Okay,” Ruth said. “Let’s do it.”
“Do you know anything besides what you’ve told me?” Brian knew from Ruth that his birth grandmother had been Dutch and that she’d obviously gotten “in the family way,” but that
was about it.
“I’ve never known very much,” Ruth said. “The girl’s name, my birth mother, was DeYoung or de Jong. . . . I’m not sure how they spelled it. And I have a letter.”
“A letter?” Brian was surprised. This was the first he’d heard of it. “From whom?”
“From somebody at the place I was adopted from. They wrote to Mom and Dad when I was just a baby and mentioned my birth mother. Said something about Holland; she was from Holland, I think.”
“Where is the letter?” Brian asked.
“Our safe-deposit box. At the bank.”
“Wow.” For a moment, he tried to imagine what that letter might say. “I’ll need a copy of that. And then I can start searching on the computer.”
“Okay,” Ruth said. “I’ll go to the bank and get it when we get home.”
That night, after Ruth went to bed, Brian sat staring into the fire for a while, his thoughts flickering like the muted orange flames. There’s no turning back now, he realized.
He was suddenly more curious than ever.
On Thursday, March 2, Brian arrived home from work and settled in front of his computer. His mother had called from Wisconsin after rereading the letter she’d retrieved from the bank. The letter was written to Brian’s grandparents and was from Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota, or LSS. The supervisor of the Lutheran House of Mercy offered the requested information about Ruth’s christening. The letter was signed: Miss Bertha Bragstad.
Brian found a website for Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota. He clicked on “Contact Us” and filled out a form with his name, phone number, and e-mail address. There was a space for comments. He kept it short.
I am helping my mother research her birth parents. She was cared for and subsequently adopted from the Lutheran Children’s Home Finding Society of SD back in 1929. She would like to know what information is available through telephone or mail/letter request and what other information would require more official request through state/local agencies. Thanks. Brian Lee
The next day, he received a reply. To ensure he wasn’t embarking on a wild-goose chase, Brian sent more detailed information— names, dates, and places—to the “post legal adoption specialist” at LSS. He asked if the woman could confirm that Ruth had been adopted through their agency. Were there any records?
The brief answer came the following Monday. The e-mail said that Brian would need to contact the clerk of courts to begin the process of unsealing the adoption records. But yes, it confirmed, Ruth had been adopted through their agency. That’s all they could say.
Sitting alone in his office, Brian felt the elation of a detective getting a hit on a long-cold trail. His face broke into a wide grin. He immediately searched for a phone number for the South Dakota Department of Social Services.
One week later he received a petition for release of confidential adoption records, which he forwarded to his contact at LSS. And then he left town for a two-week business trip to his company’s Boston offices. He thought about the search often. He wondered what his brothers and sisters would say—he hadn’t told them about this mission yet. Would they be glad? Irritated? He was close to all of them, but this was uncharted territory and he couldn’t guess their reactions.
On April 19, Ruth received a packet in the mail from LSS containing their waiver of hearing and the court petition. Brian told her to send it on to the South Dakota courts. They were inching ever closer.
The process was straightforward: fill out the correct paperwork, then wait for it to wind its way through the system. Brian was plenty busy with work and family—his two children were finishing up their spring semesters of college. But his mind was never far from the search. If all went well, he was about to collide with a huge piece of his history that he’d always wondered about.
He wanted to be realistic, however. The average life expectancy of someone born early in the twentieth century was some fifty-four years. His own mother was already in her late seventies. Whoever his birth grandparents had been, they were likely long dead. Perhaps they’d had other children, but if so, he’d have to tread carefully. He’d researched reunion stories. It seemed that for every glowing, heartfelt account there was a cautionary one to balance it, a tale of grievances and rejection.
He tried not to hope that somewhere, in a nursing home perhaps, one of his grandparents might still be alive.
Brian knew that he could expect to get at least some information. The Lutheran Social Services was a modest operation, but they’d undergone some modernization over the years. At some point, all of their records had been transferred to microfilm.
Even the files from early in the previous century.
On May 22, 2006—the day Ruth turned seventy-seven years old—the signed judge’s order arrived in the mail. Brian forwarded it to LSS, along with a check for two hundred dollars. He waited again. Finally, at the end of June, just as Brian and Teresa were preparing to drive to Wisconsin for a wedding, Brian received a short e-mail. It said that the package with the adoption records had been mailed to his mother.
The e-mail concluded with a final, puzzling line: “Just to give you the heads up, the file is about 270 pages.”
* * *
On Wednesday, June 28, a mailman driving on a rural Wisconsin road pulled up to a black mailbox, one that had been propped back up a dozen times over the years after winter snowplows knocked it down. Along with bills and a flier from the local Walmart, he had to struggle to stuff a large manila envelope into the space. The return address was Lutheran Social Services in South Dakota.
Sometime later, Ruth Lee picked up the packet from the dining room table, where Charles had left it after sorting the mail. She ran one hand over the yellow envelope. It was nearly two inches thick, and heavy. The weight felt like an enormous book that had a story to tell—her story.
She laid the package back on the table and called Brian’s cell phone. When he picked up, her words tumbled out.
“It came. The package with the adoption papers. It’s so big! I don’t know why it’s so big.”
She couldn’t imagine why there would be that many pages to a perfectly legal adoption. Was something wrong? Had there been some sort of terrible medical issue?
Brian had been sitting at his desk, reviewing spreadsheets. He stood and paced now, pulse racing. He wished four states didn’t separate him from his mother or that package.
“Do you wanna open it, Mom? Or wait until we get there on Saturday?” He and Teresa would be in Wisconsin in three days. He didn’t know whether he preferred she wait or not. If he could’ve borrowed a plane and flown up to his parents’ farm that very moment, he would have.
“Well . . . I don’t know. Your father says to open it, but I think I’ll wait.”
“Whatever you decide is fine,” Brian said.
Ruth left the package on the dining room table but soon regretted that choice. She passed by it all day long. She tried not looking at it, but that didn’t help. It seemed to beckon her. Ruth resisted. The sheer size of the packet intimidated her.
Brian was on his way. He would help her sort it out, deal with whatever was in those pages. She told herself to wait.
After Charles went to bed on Friday night, Ruth’s curiosity finally won out. She sat down, tore the flap open, and pulled out an enormous stack of photocopied pages. Flipping through them with unsteady hands, Ruth realized that none of the papers were in order. And there was such a confusing variety.
Official forms.
Legal documents.
A couple of photographs, but the copies were so dark and grainy that she couldn’t make out the faces.
And letters. Letter after letter after letter after letter.
Ruth began to read them. Most of them, dozens of them, were from a young girl. A young mother.
My mother, the thought came suddenly. Writing about a baby named Betty Jane. Writing about me. Ruth had not heard or thought about that name since her childhood. The unexpected sense of c
onnection pinned Ruth to her seat.
May 29, 1934
Dear Miss Bragstad
I hope you haven’t thought I’ve forgotten you and Betty’s birthday. Am so sorry I was unable to get these few lines to you in time. Never the less I do hope she had a happy birthday & enjoyed herself through the day. . . .
If you have heard or seen her please write and tell me. . . .
Ruth realized the date on this letter referred to her fifth birthday. Her birth mother had written a letter five years after her adoption? She picked up another letter.
September 1933
Our crops and all around amount to nothing. We did receive a small potato crop. Outside of that we shall have to buy everything.
Well there are some folks here that don’t seem to realize yet we are in the midst of depression. Maybe they will before the close of winter . . .
Have you heard or seen anything of Betty Jane? I think of her often through the day. . . . Hope & pray they will always be able to think highly of her. . . .
Ruth’s vision blurred. She blinked her eyes clear, kept paging through.
June 25, 1933.
December 4, 1935.
January 6, 1947.
1947? The year she graduated from high school, leaving the gym in that rare May snowstorm with Charles walking beside her. Her birth mother was still writing letters about her then?
Ruth’s hands stilled. She stared at the window, blackened by the night outside and reflecting the harsh light over the table where Ruth sat. Certainty flooded her.
She loved me, with all her heart.
Ruth picked up her cell phone. It took her longer than usual to punch in Brian’s number. By the time he answered, both her eyes had filled with tears.
“She never forgot about me, Brian,” Ruth said. Her voice trembled. “These letters . . . there are so many letters!”
“Letters? There are letters?”
“Yes, so many. She kept writing for years . . . asking about me. . . .”
Brian felt a hard and painful knot in his throat. His own vision blurred. Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t this.