Thursday, October 9, 2008

AN INDIANA ADOPTEE IN UTAH

It always saddens me to see an adoptee have to go through extraordinary lengths to be to get their information. Just to understand what most non adopted Americans have. What the adoption industry fights viciously against our having. Its a real shame but I am happy that she is getting closer and I hope she finds the answers quickly.

Here is the link. Here is the story.

Ind. woman seeking her roots lands in Ogden
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Thursday, October 9, 2008
By SAM COOPER
Standard-Examiner staff


OGDEN -- Nearly 61 years after she was left for adoption at a New York
City hospital, Indiana resident Rosemary Sorensen Hollis found her
birth father, Orvil Mural Sorensen, buried in an unmarked grave at
Ogden City Cemetery.

Now with some help from the public, she wants to get to know the man.

Hollis, now a grandmother herself, began a 1,500-mile sojourn to Ogden
from Indiana last weekend with her husband in hopes of learning more
about the father she never knew.

"Never did I ever suspect that my roots were out West," Hollis said in
an e-mail before her visit.

"Needless to say, I am very interested in finding out all that I can
about him and my Sorensen relatives."

The trip is the result of a search that began in 1992 with a scrap of
information from the adoption agency.

"They only told me that I was born in a hotel in Manhattan and my
birth mother had gone to the hotel with a soldier," she said.

Hollis said she's been able to piece together part of her family's
story through an assortment of records she has collected over the years.

From what she has discovered, her father, known to be a
rough-and-tumble kid from Ogden, joined the Army after a stint at a
local reform school and met her mother while stationed near Welfare
Island, N.Y.

It was in a hotel near there where Hollis was born May 2, 1947, three
months premature. Hollis said her then-21-year-old father rushed with
her and her mother in an ambulance to the New York Foundling Hospital
following her birth.

She isn't sure what happened next, but apparently her father returned
to military duty and her mother disappeared.

The only explanation Hollis has received is from the social services
department at the hospital, which informed her that while her mother
was recovering from labor, she received a visit from her upset mother,
who said she couldn't bring the baby home.

"I was at the hospital for six months, and then my grandmother
suggested I be sent to the adoption home," Hollis said.

Tracking down her mother has proven fruitless because she checked
herself into the hospital under an alias, Hollis said.

Decades later, she was able to find her biological father's name on a
baptismal certificate and traced him back to 859 Canyon Road in Ogden.

It was a eureka moment, she said.

"I can't begin to explain to you what finding the name of my dad has
meant to me.

"I have searched for so many years. Unfortunately, due to my age and
the fact that my father is now deceased, I realize that many of the
older people are now gone."

Standing by her father's unmarked grave, Hollis said she had mixed
feelings about her discoveries.

"I feel like I finally have found a root, a connection. Everyone needs
to have that ... It makes me feel sad that I didn't know him," she said.

Orvil Mural Sorensen, called "Sarge" by friends, would be in his 80s
if he were alive today.

Hollis said he worked at Defense Depot Ogden, was very active in CB
radio circles and loved to camp in the Monte Cristo area. He also
loved to collect records and ride his motorcycles.

She hopes to find anyone who may have known Sorensen, even secondhand,
and might be willing to share memories of him.

"I just want people to understand that we're not looking for anything
other than to get to know who he was and what he was about," Hollis said.

She said she plans to compile all the information she's learned about
Sorensen into a scrapbook for her grandchildren.

"I want to be able to put everything together and eventually give it
to them, so they can have it," she said.

Anyone with information about Orvil "Sarge" Sorensen is encouraged to
call Hollis at (765) 432-7121 or e-mail her at indianahollis@AOL.com.

She said she plans to stay in Ogden until the end of this wee

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