Separated After Birth, 73-year-old Kisses Mom for 1st Time One year ago, Charles Bruce Pate kissed his mother for the first time. He was 73, she 88. And so the story, replete with decades of obituary searches, calls to strangers and cross-country trips in search of relatives, unfolds. From the day they met His mother, then Pauline Lott, was young when the Mississippi Welfare Department took her into custody and turned her over to the Kings Daughters Home for unwed mothers. The state guaranteed medical care and promised birthing bills would be paid in full with one condition — her child must be put up for adoption. On Jan. 20, 1941, she gave birth to the boy she would not raise. She cared for him for two months until his adoption date. She said she dressed him in a little blue suit and blue cap and prepared him for prospective parents. There were three boys up for adoption that day, and Bruce Pates future parents, who rode to Jackson, Miss., on a Greyhound Bus, chose the dark-eyed boy in blue. Pauline Lott parted with only one request for his new family — to retain his name, Charles. To this day the Antioch preacher signs his checks Charles B. Pate. Time goes on Even years after, she longed for him. What she didnt know is he sought her, too. Pate, an endearing person with wisps of white hair clinging to his freckled head, spent decades in search of the woman who gave birth to him. Though he lived a full, happy life with his adoptive parents — a good Christian couple, he says, who never would have had children had it not been for him — he still felt alone. I didnt know who I was, Pate says. In search of his mom In 1964, a year after he got married, Charles Bruce Pate went to court in Hinds County, Miss., to view his adoption record. The document contained both the name of his birth mother and the doctor who delivered him. He took research trips to his birth moms hometown of Rosedale, Miss., scoured obituaries and even arranged a face-to-face visit with the doctor. All unveiled nothing. At one point, he compiled a phone list of all the Lotts in Mississippi and started cold calling homes. He talked to many people, he says. None knew his mother. I was afraid when I did find my family, he says, I would probably visit the grave and not her. Finally, he asked a family friend with genealogy experience to help. Throughancestry the missing link came. Jessie Paul Lott, his birth mothers twin brother, died in a truck accident in 1953. The obit listed surviving family members names, including Paulines. Pates friend connected that to a family tree set up by Paulines nephew on the ancestry website. On Christmas Day 2013, that nephew, Rick Ward, clicked on the email inquiry that would finally connect Pate to his kin. Soon after, Pate spoke on the phone to a woman of whom he had no memory but knew he was part of. He called her mother for the very first time. She was kind of in shock, he says. As was he. Birthday brings reunion The final resolution of a decades-long search came a month later on his birthday. Two of his cousins on his mothers side drove Pate from Tennessee to Shreveport, La., to reunite with his family and surprise his mother. Just after lunchtime on a Monday, Pate arrived at the clubhouse in the apartment complex where his mother now lived. She came down under the presumption of checking her mail and taking a walk. Instead, she looked into her sons eyes. They embraced. Reunited after 73 years, Pate kissed his mother on the cheek. When you meet your blood kin, you can place yourself, he says. That day they shared a Cajun meal of gumbo and black beans, and ate birthday cake with a copy of his birth certificate made in sugar on top. He spent three days in her apartment, noting that she had his favorite type of jelly — strawberry — in her fridge. It helps me to know who I am now He crammed 73 years into 72 hours with the 4-foot-11, white haired woman who had a good memory and outgoing personality. She likes to talk, he says with a laugh. She never meets a stranger. Now, they talk on the phone nearly every day. She tells him about the past, his cousins and her life. He tells her about his family, holiday present exchanges and evenings playing cards. He talks about his wife, their own adopted son and their daughter who was born a few years after the adoption. And he shares stories about the parents who raised him, C.Z. and Lillie Mae. Hes had the best of both worlds, he says. Good parents who raised him and the chance to reconnect with a woman who didnt get the chance to do the same. It helps me to know who I am now, where I came from, he says. Then he adds: I dont know what I did when I didnt know her. wltx/story/life/2015/01/23/separated-after-birth-73-year-old-kisses-mom-for-first-time/22231867/
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 22:46:15 +0000
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