Mom reunites with biological child 77 years later

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (AP) — For most of her 100 years, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what became of the precious baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teen.
She hoped, but never imagined, she'd see her Betty Jane again.
The cruel act of violence bore in Disbrow an enduring love for the child. She kept a black and white photograph of the baby bundled in blankets and tucked inside a basket.
It was the last she saw of the girl — until the phone rang in her California apartment in 2006 with the voice of an Alabama man and a story she could have only dreamed.
Disbrow, the daughter of Dutch immigrants, weathered a harsh childhood milking cows on South Dakota dairy farms. Her stepfather thought high school was for city kids who had nothing else to do. She finished eighth grade in a country schoolhouse with just one teacher and worked long hours at the dairy.
On a summer day in 1928 while picnicking with girls from a sewing class, Disbrow and her friend Elizabeth were jumped by three men as they went for a walk in their long dresses.
Both were raped.
"We didn't know what to do. We didn't know what to say. So when we went back, nothing was said," Disbrow recalled.
Months passed. Her body began to change.
Disbrow, who had been told babies were brought by storks, didn't know what was happening.
Her mother and stepfather sent her to a Lutheran home for pregnant girls. At 17, she gave birth to a blond-haired baby with a deep dimple in her chin and named her Betty Jane.
In her heart, Disbrow longed to keep her. But her head and her mother told her she couldn't bring an infant back to the farm.
A pastor and his wife were looking to adopt a child. She hoped they could give Betty Jane the home she couldn't.
"I loved that baby so much. I wanted what was best," Disbrow said.
She never met them, or knew their names. But over the years, Disbrow wrote dozens of letters to the adoption agency to find out how her daughter was faring. The agency replied faithfully with updates until there was a change in management, and they eventually lost touch.
Disbrow's life went on. She married a fruit salesman who became a wartime pilot and drafting engineer and they had two children. She worked as a dressmaker, silk saleswoman and school cafeteria manager in cities spanning from Rhode Island to Minnesota and Northern California before moving to the seaside town of San Clemente an hour's drive north of San Diego.
Every year, she thought about Betty Jane on her May 22 birthday.
Five years ago, Disbrow prayed she might get the chance to see her.
"Lord, if you would just let me see her," Disbrow remembers praying. "I promise you I will never bother her."
On July 2, the phone rang.
It was a man from Alabama. He started asking Disbrow, then 94, about her background.
Worried about identity theft, Disbrow cut him off, and peppered him with questions.
Then, the man asked if she'd like to speak with Betty Jane.
Her name was now Ruth Lee. She had been raised by a Norwegian pastor and his wife and had gone on to marry and have six children including the Alabama man, a teacher and astronaut Mark Lee, a veteran of four space flights who has circled the world 517 times. She worked for nearly 20 years at Walmart — and especially enjoyed tending to the garden area.
Lee knew she was adopted her whole life, and grew up a happy child.
It wasn't until she was in her 70s that the search for her biological parents began.
Lee started suffering from heart problems and doctors asked about the family's medical history. She knew nothing about it. Her son, Brian, decided to try to find out more and petitioned the court in South Dakota for his mother's adoption records.
He got a stack of more than 270 pages including a written account of the assault and handwritten letters from a young Disbrow, asking about the tiny baby she had cradled for a month.
He then went online to try to find one of Disbrow's relatives — possibly through an obituary.
"I was looking for somebody I thought was probably not living," said Lee's now-54-year-old son. He typed Disbrow's name into a web directory and was shocked when a phone listing popped up. "I kind of stopped breathing for a second."
On the phone with her biological daughter, Disbrow was in disbelief. Her legs began to tremble. She couldn't understand how a naïve dairy farm girl without an education could have such accomplished grandchildren.
A month later, Ruth Lee and Brian Lee flew to California. They arrived at Disbrow's meticulous apartment on a palm tree-lined street armed with a gigantic bouquet of flowers.
Disbrow couldn't get over how Lee's hands were like her mother's. Lee was amazed at the women's similar taste in clothing. They pored over family photo albums and caught up on the years Disbrow had missed.
"It was just like we had never parted," Disbrow said. "Like you were with the family all your life."
Since then, the families have met numerous times. Disbrow has gone to visit grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Wisconsin and Texas. She is planning to travel to Alabama in the spring, where they will celebrate her recently marked 100th birthday.
Disbrow has started sharing her story with members of her church and community. The Orange County Register ran a story about Disbrow's journey in December. The family's improbable reunion also made the local newspaper in Viroqua, Lee's hometown in western Wisconsin.
"It has been such a surreal, amazing experience that I still think sometimes that I will wake up and it will just be a beautiful dream," the 82-year-old Lee said.
Disbrow's daughter Dianna Huhn, 65, of Portland, Ore., said the reunion has filled a void for her mother — one that for many years, the sharp, stylish woman with sparkling blue eyes kept a deep, dark secret.
"I have never seen my mother as happy," said Huhn.
By Nick Vicera (Originally published in Filipinas Magazine, July 2009)
 
Another story forwarded by  Marino Bual, a friend from cyberspace:
Source: http://www.filipinasmag.com/?p=496 Pete

Amidst the roaring chants of adoring fans, Tim Tebow towers like a giant in the football field as he directs the offense of his collegiate championship team, the University of Florida Gators . As the first college sophomore to win the much-coveted Heisman Trophy, given to only the best college football players, he can stand as an equal to such football legends as Mike Ditka, Joe Schmidt, or Joe Montana.
But Tim’s personal story goes beyond football. His other greatness lies in walking around as a virtual unknown in the muddy streets, dirty markets and slums of Mindanao where he preaches a message of love to those whose lives are mired in misery and poverty.
“My conception and birth were beautiful stories of life. They were not stories about choices. They were stories of my parents’ selfless love of life and their unwavering faith in God who knows and sets the bounds and ends of our lives” says Tim, in describing the agonizing circumstance and joyful outcome of his birth in the Philippines, where his parents, Bob and Pam Tebow, worked for five years as Baptist Church missionaries in South Cotabato, Mindanao some 24 years ago.
Because of the poor sanitation that was and still is a common situation in the rural areas of the Philippines , Tim’s mother contracted dysentery while pregnant with him. She fell into a coma. To combat her infection, her Filipino doctor administered a high dose of antibiotics that triggered the side effect of placental abruption.
The Philippines , a predominantly Catholic country, outlaws abortion except in cases when the life of the mother is endangered. Thus, the attending physician of Pam Tebow recommended abortion. “But my Christian faith led me to decide otherwise,” says Pam. “I was flown to Makati , the country’s business capital, to seek the second advice of a medical specialist. With my strong trust in God and in the power of prayers, and encouraged by the care of my new doctor, I carried Tim to term and delivered him a normal infant.”
“That baby who was at first handed a stillbirth sentence in the Philippines would later carry a U.S. college football team to two national championships and is marked to go down as one of the greatest players ever to play the game of football,” says Urban Meyer, head coach of the University of Florida Gators, the 2006 and 2008 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) collegiate champion, with whom Tim has played as quarterback.
Twenty years after his birth in the Philippines , Tim grabbed the sports headlines in the U.S. by contributing as a key reserve in the 2006 collegiate football national championship against Ohio State University . In that championship game, he threw for one touchdown and rushed for another, finishing with 39 rushing yards, which helped secure the 41-14 victory for his Gators team.
Instant Celebrity
Tim first appeared in the sports radar screen in 2006 as one of the nation’s top recruits for college football. He became an instant sports celebrity. He was featured in an ESPN “Faces in Sports” documentary and got the unique branding of a dual threat quarterback because of his mobility to elude or run past defenders of opposing teams. His innate mobility gives him that flexibility to dictate games at will, passing or running, with him either handing the ball off, running it himself, or pitching it to his running back.
Highly sought by coaches of 80 collegiate institutions, Tim chose to attend the University of Florida , the alma mater of both his parents. He made his college debut coming off the bench against Southern Mississippi University. His biggest game in his first college season came against the Louisiana State University when he maneuvered all three of his team’s touchdowns, passing for two and rushing for another.
Tim lived up to the expectations of sports analysts of major news networks. He always played fearless in the field, rushed yards, ran games by himself, and earned the nicknames “running freight truck” and “superman Tebow.” It only took him two years in college to break playing records and post new ones. He is the first and only player in NCAA history to rush and pass for at least 20 touchdowns in both categories in the same season. He compiled 55 touchdowns in his 2007 sophomore season—32 passing and 23 rushing—the most in the history of college football. His rushing touchdowns of that season were the most by a quarterback and are a record-setting feat.
In January of this year at the Dolphin Stadium in Miami , Florida , Tim wowed 73,468 people that were in attendance for the 2008 BCS National Championship against the University of Oklahoma Sooners . After the Sooners’ first failed ten-yard conversion, the towering 6’3” 240-pound left-handed Gators quarterback in his number 15 jersey stepped on the field at 11:47 of the first quarter, and immediately the sea of blue-shirted Gator Nation fans erupted in roaring chants. Four minutes into the second quarter, he threw a pass to his wide receiver Louis Murphy for the first touchdown of the game.
The Oklahoma Sooners retaliated with their own touchdown in the same quarter. The defenses of both teams then became stifling and the game tied at 14-14 three minutes into the last period. The Florida Gators scored a field goal midway through the period and cushioned themselves with a 17-14 lead. With 3:07 left on the game clock and at second-and-goal face-off at the Sooners’ four-yard line, Tim soared for his trademark jump pass with pinpoint accuracy to his other wide receiver David Nelson and gave their Gator team a final 24-14 lead, and all the way to their second national football championship in three seasons. Tim was voted the best offensive player of the game, accounting for 340 yards of total offenses, 109 of which was rushing, and two passing touchdowns.
The Filipino Connection
“My parents moved back here in the U.S. when I was three years old,” Tim recollects. “As I was still a toddler when I was there, I have vague memories of my having lived in the Philippines , except perhaps my having been in the care of my Filipina yaya (babysitter). But one thing for sure, I have a deep attachment to the country and its people. I have been joining my dad’s Christian mission to the Philippines every summer these last four years, and these trips have been my eye opener to the things that need to be done for the less fortunate people, especially children, in that part of our world.”
What Tim’s dad started in the Philippines some twenty years ago as a young missionary is now a strong and established ministry of 45 Filipino evangelist staff and 13 workers now funded by the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association of Jacksonville, Florida. It’s located in Cotabato in Mindanao —the hotbed of the southern Muslim insurgency. “The mission is about bringing the faith of Jesus and the goodwill of the American people to over 15 million people in the island.
Through our church planting ministry, we have worked with over 10,000 local churches in the Philippines to build new churches. We also work closely with a local seminary to train local pastors. We hold seasonal charity clinics to provide free healthcare services and distribute medicines to poor people who can’t afford to see a doctor, much more, buy medicines,” says Tebow’s dad, Bob. “We also have built an orphanage, the Uncle Dick’s Home that now houses more than fifty homeless orphans.”
Every summer, when schools are on break, Tim goes to that barangay (barrio) in the Philippines where his dad had set up his mission. There, as a virtual unknown and away from the media spotlight, he walks the streets of Cotabato and visits the markets of Digos with the Holy Bible in his hand to preach the gospel of Jesus. He saddles homeless kids on his shoulder in the slums of Sarangani and plays kuya (big brother) to them while handing out candies and chocolates. He bathes in cold water just like the natives do, and runs errands for volunteer doctors and nurses who perform surgeries on indigent patients in makeshift operating tables.
A world away from their home in Jacksonville , Florida , that faces the Atlantic, Tim finds himself in a different playing field in the island of Mindanao that is nestled in the Pacific. “It is a much different ballgame,” he says. “There, I hear no roaring chants from fans rooting for a touchdown, but deafening silence as people desire to receive the words of Jesus that I preach about. I see none of those eyes of adulation when we win games, but eyes of faith of people searching for Jesus who I talk about,” Tim relates. “You kind of find out from the get-go, what sets faith apart and what a game is just about.”
With all his outstanding achievements in football, Tim will definitely emerge as the top NFL draft pick of his 2010 class as soon he steps out of college. But he has set his sight and his heart on other things, too—that little orphanage of more than fifty children in Mindanao that his father had founded. “Those kids make me more grounded and help me put things in proper perspective,” he says. “At the end of the day, what matters may not only be about scoring a touchdown, but also winning the future of those kids who do not get the opportunity to receive that touch of hope and love that you and I may have the means of giving.”
1.                             Christopher C. Hugo says:
August 14, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Once a year, the Filipino community in the United States celebrates our Independence Day through a variety of festivities culminating in a parade and a version of the Philippine fiesta. I never participate in any of these celebrations except in one instance when my family visited the Philippine Fiesta in New Jersey about 3 years ago out of sheer curiosity.
Why? Because, I am not an “Independence Day Pinoy.” I celebrate the Filipino every day:
1. Though difficult (according to my Filipino neighbors), I teach my kids about Philippine culture and language and to be proud Filipinos.
Just recently, while we were vacationing in Ohio , my sister-in-law (who was then with my kids in a mall) bumped into a group of Filipinos who were surprised to hear my kids speaking in Filipino. When my sister-in-law told me about this incident, I replied: “Why not? My kids are Filipinos although they were born in the U.S. ”
Europeans, Hispanics, and other Asians living in the U.S. continue to be proud of their heritage despite being away from their respective motherlands. Why should we be different? Could this be one of the reasons why we continue to lag behind our Asian brothers and sisters such as Japan , South Korea , China , Vietnam , Malaysia , etc.?
2. I condemn Filipinos abroad who openly attack the Philippines /Philippine government for its apparent shortcomings. For a Filipino to do the same, he must have done something (i.e., paid taxes, followed traffic rules, honestly worked as a public servant, etc.) to improve the Philippines while he was still living there.
If a Filipino abroad did not do anything (or is not doing something) to improve the lot of the Filipino, he has forfeited his right to openly criticize the Filipino or the Philippines .
A few years ago, I met an “Iskolar ng Bayan,” living in the Midwest, who had nothing positive to say about the Filipino or the Philippines . I wanted to confront him then but out of respect for the event’s sponsor, I did not. This ingrate, who obtained his world class medical education from a premier Philippine public university courtesy of the Filipino taxpayer, had the temerity to malign the Philippines despite failing to give back to his Motherland (Almost immediately after obtaining his MD and passing the licensure examinations, he left for the United States and has since then sporadically vacationed in the Philippines for brief periods). Certainly, this person has lost his right to criticize the Filipino or the Philippines .
3. When vacationing in the Philippines, I strive follow the traffic rules. I refuse to believe that such rules are mere suggestions as a friend of mine once told me. In fact, I refuse to believe that it (following such rules) can’t be done in the Philippines . If we follow the rules in our adopted countries, it behooves us to do the same while in our Motherland.
Two years ago, I needed a police clearance for a consultancy job in the Philippines . I waited in line for almost 5 hours to obtain the clearance albeit I could have gotten the same by merely calling a friend. We cannot criticize the system and at the same time use it to our advantage whenever convenient.
Yesterday, I had a visitor (a learned man, a native Filipino and now a US citizen) who in the same breath lambasted what he calls the Philippine “bureaucracy” while he proudly exhibited his joy for taking advantage of the system’s alleged inequities (Apparently, he only paid a fraction of the property tax for his estate in Metro Manila because he knows someone at the City Assessor’s office). Such hypocrisy!
I am not saying that Filipinos abroad cannot criticize the Filipino or the Philippines . But before we do so, let us ask ourselves what have we done for our Motherland? There are more than enough Filipino armchair critics. Let us not increase their numbers. What we need are Filipinos who can propose and implement solutions for the ills of the Philippines .
I am not a perfect Filipino. Nobody is. However, I endeavor to celebrate the Filipino every day, not only during the Independence Day or when Manny Pacquiao is winning. I know in my heart that one can never go wrong for passionately loving our Motherland. [07/06/2010]
__,_._,___



The New Yorker, Adopted Celebrities

Lynette Cole - Miss USA 2000
Melissa Gilbert - Actress
Priscilla Presley - Actress
Sarah McLachlan - Singer
Scott Hamilton - Professional Figure Skater
Edward Albee (playwright)
John J. Audubon (naturalist)
Les Brown (motivational speaker)
Sen. Robert Byrd
Peter and Kitty Carruthers (skaters)
Nat King Cole (singer)
Christina Crawford (author)
Faith Daniel's (TV news personality)
Ted Danson (actor) (he is adopted and has adopted a child also)
Eric Dickerson (professional football)
President Gerald Ford
Melissa Gilbert (actress)
Newt Gingrich (politics) Scott Hamilton (skater)
Debi Harry (singer)
Brent Jasmer (actor)
Steven Paul Jobs (co-founder of Apple Computers)
Matthew and Patrick Laborteaux (actors)
Rep. Jim Lightfoot
Art Linkletter (TV personality)
Charlotte Anne Lopez (Miss Teen USA)
James McArthur (actor, son of Helen Hayes)
James Michener (author)
Tom Monaghan (founder of Domino's Pizza, owner of Detroit Tigers)
Marilyn Monroe (actress)
Moses (Biblical leader)
Dan O'Brien( Olympic gold medalist-Decathlon)
Hugh O'Connor (actor)
Jim Palmer (prof. baseball)
Michael Reagan (President's son)
Nancy Reagan (First Lady)
Wilson Riles (educator)
Victoria Rowell (actress)


Adoptive Parent Celebrities

Calista Flockhart - Actress
Dan Marino - Professional Athlete
Ed McMahon - Entertainer
Jane Fonda - Actress
Kirby Puckett - Professional Athlete
Magic Johnson - Professional Athlete
Maury Povich - Talk Show Host
Ozzy and Sharon Osborne - Singer and Actress
Willie Mays - Hall of Fame Professional Athlete
Brooke Adams
Woody Allen (director)
Julie Andrews (singer/actress)
Eve Arden (actress)
Pearl Bailey (singer/actress)
Harry Belafonte (singer)
Regina Belle (singer)
Lloyd Bentsen (Sec. of Treasury)
Taurean Blacque (actor)
Erma Bombeck (humorist)
Mai Britt (actress, ex-wife of Sammy Davis Jr.)
Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland (actors)
Denise Scott Brown (architect)
Art Buchwald (humorist)
George Burns (comedian)
Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Kitty Caruthers (skating champion)
Rt. Hon. Jean Chretien and Aline (Prime Minister, Canada)
Jamie Lee Curtis (actress)
Ted Danson (actor)
Bette Davis (actress)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (entertainer)
Oscar de la Renta (fashion designer)
John DeLorean (industrialist)
Patty Duke (actress)
John Gregory Dunn and Joan Didion (authors)
Peter Falk (actor)
Henry Fonda (actor)
Joan Fontaine (actress)
Robert Fulghum (author)
Teri Garr (actress)
Lou Gosselt, Jr. (actor)
Karen Grassle (actress)
Horace George Hamilton
Valerie Harper (actress)
Helen Hayes (actress)
Sen. Jesse Helms
Bob and Dorothy Hope (comedian/singer)
Sen. Gordon Humphrey
Kate Jackson (actress)
Jill Krementz (author)
Kris Kristofferson (singer)
Patti LaBelle (singer)
Hedy Lamarr (actress)
Michael Landon (actor)
Jerry Lewis (comedian, singer, dancer, actor, entertainer )
Willle Mays (prof. baseball)
Sen. John McCain
Ed McMahon (TV personality)
Richard King Mellon
Donna Mills (actress)
Paul Newman (actor)
Carroll O'Connor (actor)
Marie Osmond (singer)
Estelle Parsons (actress)
Michelle Pfeiffer (actress)
Kirby Puckett (prof. baseball)
Sarah Purcell (TV personality)
Sally Jessy Raphael (TV personalily)
President Ronald Reagan
Roy Rogers/Dale Evans (actors)
Al Roker (TV personality)
Linda Ronstadt (singer)
Isabella Rossellini (model, actress)
Susan Ruttan (actress)
Gail Sheehy (author)
Sen. Paul Simon
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Sr. (newspaper publisher)
Gloria Swanson (actress)
Robert Urich (actor) and wife Heather Mendes (actress)
Robert Venturi (architect)
Kurt Vonnegut (author)
Jane Wallace (TV personality)
Marcia Wallace (actress)
Barbara Walters (TV personality)
Jann Wenner (magazine editor)
Diane Wiest (actress)
Jo Beth Williams (actress)
Judy Woodruff (TV news personality)
Ted Danson (actor) (he is adopted and has adopted a child too)