Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Hi
Speaker 1: Family Secrets. Family. It's Danny and we're back with an
Speaker 1: episode of listener Messages. Here are some stories recorded by
Speaker 1: you are wonderful devoted listeners. I'm honored and grateful that
Speaker 1: you're part of my world. Hi. I found out at
Speaker 1: five years old that my father is not my biological father,
Speaker 1: that he and my mom used a storm downer for
Speaker 1: my brother and I after learning that he couldn't produce children.
Speaker 1: All I remember was taking me for a drive and
Speaker 1: sharing the news and I went hysterical, saying, no, I
Speaker 1: look like you, I look like you, and um him
Speaker 1: just affirming that I don't, but that he still loved me.
Speaker 1: Fast forward, as he's about a year later. I did
Speaker 1: take the DNA test and have been connected with several
Speaker 1: of my half siblings, and just two weeks ago, one
Speaker 1: of the half siblings I connected with has information on
Speaker 1: our sperm donor. And this man was the doctor who
Speaker 1: went to Alaska and just so to pay off his
Speaker 1: loans for medical school, but showed up with an attitude
Speaker 1: of helping the community, singing and dancing with the people
Speaker 1: at their festivals, and unfortunately, on his seven hour snowbile
Speaker 1: drive to the hospital, was caught in the worst snowstorm
Speaker 1: and over twenty years and was killed and never found
Speaker 1: his body. He shared a photo which was very, very
Speaker 1: shocking because he looks identical to my brother. So to
Speaker 1: learn who I came from and that he's no longer here,
Speaker 1: all in a matter of moments was quite a shock. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: I've been in touch with his family, who have been
Speaker 1: open and receptive, and it's been quite a wild, wild journey.
Speaker 1: We believe there's about eleven of us children that came
Speaker 1: from his firm donation. I'm thankful this podcast because hearing
Speaker 1: it has been very healing, through very emotional in crazy time.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I love Inheritance and loved the podcast. My
Speaker 1: father never mentioned his family. We only knew, or we
Speaker 1: thought we knew, that his parents died in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: and so about five years ago we embarked on a
Speaker 1: personal family history quest and in a pair of ship records,
Speaker 1: we discovered that my Italian immigrant grandparents arrived at Dallas
Speaker 1: Island in the early nineteen twenties. In the nine thirty centses.
Speaker 1: We found that this family of four, my grandparents, my
Speaker 1: father and his brother had a very tenuous footholds on
Speaker 1: the American Dream, and then based on what few family
Speaker 1: stories there were, UM, we all always assumed that my
Speaker 1: grandparents died sometimes shortly thereafter in the nineteen thirties, because
Speaker 1: my father never mentioned any members of his family, and
Speaker 1: we thought we had a dead end there, and he
Speaker 1: passed away about twenty five years ago. UM. When the
Speaker 1: census was released, my grandparents magically reappeared. UM. But that's
Speaker 1: not kind of the worst. UM. They were both listed
Speaker 1: as inmates UM in separate places of the sentences record
Speaker 1: after Rockland Insane Asylum. Fast forward through a few more
Speaker 1: years of research, and we discovered that they had actually
Speaker 1: lived unmentioned by my father for any of the time
Speaker 1: that that he was surround, That my grandfather actually lived
Speaker 1: until nineteen and my grandmother lived until two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and all of this was unknown to any of them.
Speaker 1: And we discovered subsequent to them that they were both
Speaker 1: buried in unmarked grade. So we're left with a huge boy.
Speaker 1: We've been trying to find out what happened. But New
Speaker 1: York State is horrendous when it comes to releasing health
Speaker 1: records of dead people and so what happened? You know,
Speaker 1: who are these people? How did their lives go so crazy?
Speaker 1: What happened to make my dad walk away from his family?
Speaker 1: Those are some of the secrets that we're trying to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom up. Hi, Danny, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to thank you so much for creating a wonderful podcast
Speaker 1: that has helped me so much. It has helped so
Speaker 1: much that I wanted to share my family secret with you.
Speaker 1: When I was nineteen, I found out that the wonderful
Speaker 1: man who raised me was not my biological father. When
Speaker 1: I went to my mom to talk to her about this,
Speaker 1: she gave me and I will use fake names. These
Speaker 1: are not people's real names. Um, but I've got to
Speaker 1: assigned so names because it gets a little confusing. She
Speaker 1: told me that my biological father will say his name
Speaker 1: is John Doe. And she told me that when she
Speaker 1: found out she was pregnant, she told John Doe that
Speaker 1: she was pregnant, and he told her he was not interested,
Speaker 1: that he was engaged to be married to another woman.
Speaker 1: So then she went to the man who raised me
Speaker 1: told him that she was pregnant, and he said, well, um,
Speaker 1: it's probably not mine. Because I was in Vietnam and
Speaker 1: I was exposed to agent Orange, so I'm medically syrile.
Speaker 1: The man who raised me, though, told my mother that
Speaker 1: he would marry her and that they would raise me
Speaker 1: as their own, and they would never tell me. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I really had no interest in reaching out to John
Speaker 1: Doe because, um, I mean, he had already rejected me
Speaker 1: once my father, who raised me. My birth certificate father
Speaker 1: passed away about ten years ago. And when COVID hit, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we were in lockdown, quarantined and a little bored,
Speaker 1: and so I decided to take an ancestry DNA test.
Speaker 1: When the results came back, I did not match with
Speaker 1: John Doe or the man who raised me. I matched
Speaker 1: with another man entirely, and we'll just call him Mike.
Speaker 1: So when I spoke with my mom, um, she had
Speaker 1: no memory of a man named Mike, and um, long
Speaker 1: story short, I finally ended up reaching out to Mike.
Speaker 1: He called me back and has been so wonderful and open,
Speaker 1: caring and loving throughout all of this. He has reassured
Speaker 1: me that had he known about me, he would have
Speaker 1: done everything in his power to have been part of
Speaker 1: my life. Of course, this has been crazy, a wild
Speaker 1: ride and it's been amazing. And this past weekend I
Speaker 1: got to go and meet him um and I found
Speaker 1: out that I have two other half sisters that I
Speaker 1: was also able to meet for nieces and the nephew.
Speaker 1: So life is great and I just wanted to share
Speaker 1: my story with you guys. H We'll be back with
Speaker 1: season five of Family Secrets beginning April one. We will
Speaker 1: be sharing these listeners stories from time to time and
Speaker 1: also more great bonus content between now and then, so
Speaker 1: hope you'll listen in. If you'd like to share your story,
Speaker 1: call one eight eight eight Secret zero and record your story.
Speaker 1: We won't be able to run all the stories, but
Speaker 1: we do want to shine a light on as many
Speaker 1: as we can. The number again is one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight Secret and then the numeral zero. For more podcasts
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