THE details of my adoption are sketchy and come from a very unreliable source — my foster mother.
She herself was unable to have children. But her husband was determined to override God’s better judgment. I think also each was looking for an ally in their many violent quarrels.
We lived in a world of make believe. They pretended I was their natural child. I pretended to be unaware I wasn’t their son.
I was given away by my mother only a few days after my birth, but my awareness that the unhappy, quarreling couple I knew as “father” and “mother” weren’t my real parents, though unspoken, lingered in a corner of my mind as long as I can remember. And then there were hints about my status in the small family throughout my early life.
If my foster mother is to be believed, her husband, Joseph E. Ritz, had gone alone to St. Francis Hospital in search of a son. On learning he was Catholic, married and had a job, hospital authorities gave me to him and his wife. They apparently believed that was sufficient to assure my future well being physically and spiritually.
“They said at the hospital that if we didn’t take you then, it would be harder for us to adopt once an agency got involved,” my foster mother told me when I at last confronted her with my unwavering belief I was not her natural son. I was 18 and had finished high school six months earlier.
“A banker and his wife, very wealthy people, wanted you very bad, but they wouldn’t let them adopt you because they weren’t Catholic.”
Being raised by a wealthy Protestant couple wouldn’t have been that bad, I thought.
My natural mother was said to be Irish-American, blue-eyed, dark-haired, pretty and 26 at the time I was born. She was the sister of not one, but two priests, “one so high up in the church it would kill him if he knew of your existence.” At the time of my birth, she was said to be working as a housekeeper at the rectory where her brother was pastor. It was not a place where an illegitimate child could be raised. I would have been living evidence that a significant mortal sin had been committed by the sister of priests who preached chastity before marriage.
I was told my mother sometimes came to a park to see me when I was being wheeled in carriage. It fits the image I have of her. I do not remember her.
You can read more at my web site: jritz.net
She herself was unable to have children. But her husband was determined to override God’s better judgment. I think also each was looking for an ally in their many violent quarrels.
We lived in a world of make believe. They pretended I was their natural child. I pretended to be unaware I wasn’t their son.
I was given away by my mother only a few days after my birth, but my awareness that the unhappy, quarreling couple I knew as “father” and “mother” weren’t my real parents, though unspoken, lingered in a corner of my mind as long as I can remember. And then there were hints about my status in the small family throughout my early life.
If my foster mother is to be believed, her husband, Joseph E. Ritz, had gone alone to St. Francis Hospital in search of a son. On learning he was Catholic, married and had a job, hospital authorities gave me to him and his wife. They apparently believed that was sufficient to assure my future well being physically and spiritually.
“They said at the hospital that if we didn’t take you then, it would be harder for us to adopt once an agency got involved,” my foster mother told me when I at last confronted her with my unwavering belief I was not her natural son. I was 18 and had finished high school six months earlier.
“A banker and his wife, very wealthy people, wanted you very bad, but they wouldn’t let them adopt you because they weren’t Catholic.”
Being raised by a wealthy Protestant couple wouldn’t have been that bad, I thought.
My natural mother was said to be Irish-American, blue-eyed, dark-haired, pretty and 26 at the time I was born. She was the sister of not one, but two priests, “one so high up in the church it would kill him if he knew of your existence.” At the time of my birth, she was said to be working as a housekeeper at the rectory where her brother was pastor. It was not a place where an illegitimate child could be raised. I would have been living evidence that a significant mortal sin had been committed by the sister of priests who preached chastity before marriage.
I was told my mother sometimes came to a park to see me when I was being wheeled in carriage. It fits the image I have of her. I do not remember her.
You can read more at my web site: jritz.net
posted by ritzham at 8:28 PM
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