Life Choices: Memories of an Adopted Child

By William M. Wheeler

This is my story in my words. I am not a professional author, I tell a story in this book like I would tell it talking to you the reader. I have put forth my experiences to help others not to make some of the mistakes I have made and to make an impact on the readers life. Those that have read my book CHOICE RESULTS say that I am an interesting person. Remember every choice you make in life has a result, there are good results and bad results and then the only thing you can do is make another choice. Life is not easy but it is worthwhile. I am glad I was chosen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491772805

William M. Wheeler

William M. Wheeler was born Ronald Gene Houseworth he was adopted and grew-up as William Marsh Wheeler. He is a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature, a regional contest winner for his story “THE PERFECT TREE” Christmas of 2012. He is a published author and has had his poetry published. He has just completed this book “LIFE CHOICES” which is an expansion of the book “CHOICE RESULTS” for those people that asked questions about and wanted more information. To them I thank you for your faith in me.

Book preview

LIFE CHOICES

MEMORIES OF AN ADOPTED CHILD

Copyright © 2015 William M. Wheeler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-7279-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7280-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015911527

iUniverse rev. date: 07/31/2015

T his is the story I wrote before I was going to meet my birth mom, she wanted to know if I was well taken care of and what kind of life I had as I grew up. I was adopted at six weeks old and have had a good life. The story is what I remember of my life with my adoptive parents until I found my birth mom and beyond. I found my birth mom through the efforts of a genealogist, my birth mom at 84 helped me at 69 put the unknowns of my life in place. I thank both moms daily for allowing me to live and for raising me. When my birth mom passed in 2012, I self-published on Amazon, Create Space CHOICE RESULTS and those who read that story wanted me to expand the story with more information and to answer some of their questions. This is the expansion of that story and I answered their questions in this story I titled LIFE CHOICES. There is no end and when I die no one can finish the story.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 The Early Years

Chapter 3 Summer Camp

Chapter 4 Winter School

Chapter 5 U. S. Navy

Chapter 6 Back to Civilian Life

Chapter 7 A New Beginning

Chapter 8 Finding My Birth Mom

Chapter 9 Final Chapter

Post Script

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank both my mothers’ daily for giving me life and for raising me.

I wouldn’t have had any story to tell if I wasn’t born or adopted.

I thank Pegi Deitz Shea my mentor during my course for writing for children’s literature.

I thank my wife for putting up with me and helping me with editing and proof reading this story over and over again.

I thank my family and friends that I grew up with and those that I encountered along the way.

I especially thank the new family (mom’s children) who accepted me when the genealogist found her.

I thank the genealogist for making the effort to find my birth mom and to make the first contact with her.

I thank iUniverse for the opportunity to self-publish this story.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this story to:

My birth mom who died in August 2012

My adoptive mom who died in November 1981

My adoptive dad who died in June 1957

THE BEGINNING

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T his is my story that had its beginning when a genealogist found my birth mom. I don’t want to get ahead of myself so I will leave the details until later. I came to be in Columbus, Ohio on June 11, 1939. I really can’t remember a lot but was told I was adopted by my mom and dad that raised me from six weeks old. From what mom told me, as I grew up, was that she wanted a baby, and she and dad couldn’t conceive a child, I never knew for what reason. They were trying to adopt a baby through an agency in Columbus, Ohio and were told a six month girl was available.

The person with the adoption agency called and made an appointment to meet with my adoptive parents who lived in a small western Ohio town. When the lady from the adoption agency met with my new parents at a hotel in their town I was a six week old boy.

Mom said I’ll take him anyway. I must have been adorable.

Mom made an assumption that the students decided to keep the girl and I was available. Mom named me after her father, William Marsh. Mom was thirty when she got me and dad was forty-two so by standards back then they were nearing the age where adoption was no longer possible.

I never had to cope with learning about being adopted because my mom always told me I was adopted. My adoptive mom’s favorite saying was, Not bone of my bone or flesh of my flesh but still miraculously my own. (A similar saying is in the Bible KJV Genesis 2:23 Adam said of Eve This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh).

A baby is a baby to any women who wants one. I was healthy and available, they were running out of time to adopt because of restrictions on adoption in the 1930’s and 1940’s they took what was available, I suppose, but I was lucky to be chosen.

My mom taught school and Dad worked for an insurance company. I grew up in that western Ohio town. There were four distinct seasons, warm summers and cold snowy winters with beautiful fall colors and spring blooms. We lived in a two bedroom home not far from dad’s work and mom’s school.

I remember seeing pictures in an album of mom’s dad, my granddad and grandmother holding me (my mother’s mother died when I was still a baby and too young to remember). My first memory of my namesake is his watching me while mom went to teach school. I was about four or five, I don’t remember how I got started or how it came about but I’d get a tin can, fill it with water and with a paint brush, dad let me use, would paint the sidewalk from the porch to the sidewalk parallel to the street (a distance of about thirty feet). I don’t know what the fascination was but it kept me busy and made the time go by faster. I could see my progress until the sun dried the water. I remember I’d paint between the section lines on the sidewalk being careful to stay in the lines. I thought it was a great accomplishment when I could see the end result.

One Christmas granddad gave me a train set, it was all set up under the Christmas tree when I got up in the morning. I had a lot of fun changing set-ups and running the train on the track and through the switches.

My grandfather was a rail-roader, he started off as a call boy and he worked his way up to road foreman of engines before he retired. He had a limp, one leg was shorter than the other and I don’t remember which leg but was a result of polio, I think.

Granddad had some rail road stock; he sold it for $700.00. He had given me seven $100.00 dollar bills. I was in the front yard playing before Mom took me to the bank to deposit the money; I had put in my pocket. Mom came out a little hyper and asked where the money was that granddad had given me, I pulled it out of my pocket and said right here. Don’t remember what was next but the money got deposited.

My grandfather died one summer I was away at summer camp.

I never knew my adoptive father’s parents. Dad had a brother that lived in eastern Ohio who we visited several times. He worked in a coal mine, one time he took us to the mine where he worked, he told us about mine safety and how some of the equipment worked.

One thing I remember is that they had used birds in cages as a warning that the air was not good in the mine. At the time he showed us they were using lanterns that would not burn without good air.

THE EARLY YEARS

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A untie was not a member of the family or an aunt, but that is what I called her. She was a friend of mom’s family, a retired librarian that had been married to a man named Conn who was the advanced advertising manager for a well-known circus when they first went overseas and she got to go along. Her husband died after they were married only seven years. Boy, auntie could really tell some stories of her travels.

Auntie lived at the OLH (Old Ladies Home) as she called it, some fifty miles south of where we lived. Auntie had a friend; he was the only man at the home. He and auntie would take care of the flower gardens around the