Your family isn’t your “real” family

205961_269253959754124_6583323_nAnonymous,
Des Moiones, IA.
Drake University

This is what my mom was told in 1954 when social services came into her home and removed her and all of her siblings from her mom. At that time they were truly poor and were having a hard time finding enough food to eat. Her mother had a dysfunctional relationship with her husband and her younger children did have different fathers. My mom’s father was black. All of her older siblings were white and her two youngest siblings had a hispanic father. My mom did not realize that she was racially different from her siblings until the State of Iowa told her “that they were going to find her real family”. Four of her siblings were able to stay together the twins were adopted by family and her two brothers directly under her were adopted together. Over time, my grandmother did regain custody of three of the 8 children that were taken by the state once she married the hispanic man who was the father of her two youngest children. My mom however, was in an orphanage waiting for her real family. She did have occasional visits with her family until she was sent to live with the THomas Family who were and respectable, and black. My mom did not know that her siblings missed never stopped looking for their sister. It took 40 years but in 1994 my mom was reunited with her “Real” Family.


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