The Beginning...Being Adopted - I am a War Babe

I am adopted.  I was adopted at 10 days old.  I was born in a Catholic hospital in Goeppingen, Germany, to a German woman. My birth mom was a girl from one of the surrounding farms who was working at the Army base as a house frau.  She cleaned, cooked, and took care of the children there.  I was adopted by a military couple through a private, lawyer adoption who was the friend of some friends.  My birth mother told my adoptive parents (who were stationed in Augsburg, Germany as my father was in the Army.) that my birth father was an American GI whom she dated for about six months before she got pregnant. He was being shipped out and he promised to send for her. Well, she never heard from him again. She even showed my parents a picture of her and the GI before she carried me out of the hospital and handed me over to them. It was required by the Catholic hospital that the baby be carried out of the hospital before it was handed over (I'm told), it must have been difficult for my birth mother.

I never realized fully that I was adopted until I was in high school. I am TOLD that my parents read a book to me every night before bed about how wonderful it was to be adopted and told me that was me. I am also told (by a cousin) that at about 2 1/2 I took the book and threw it across the room and said I never wanted to hear the book again.  So, I guess I didn't.

When in high school, we were asked for homework to find out what nationality we were.  When I asked, my Mom said, "Well, my grandparents were from Norway, your dad's were from Ireland, and yours were from Germany."  WHAT!!??  How does that happen?  Mom showed me a clipping from a paper when I was three that said that my mom had taken the oath of citizenship for me, a blue eyed, blonde haired Germany girl, since I had been adopted.  Well blow me down with a feather, I didn't have a clue.

Birth Mom, Liz Schulz                                      Me, Pam Stephens (RoseMarie Schulz, my birth name)

Continuing on, I wondered for quite some time about being adopted.  I asked my older cousin about it and she said that my birth parents were actually royal and had castles in Germany.  Not knowing much about history, I kept thinking, "Maybe my father was Hitler!!"  Silly, I know, but I thought it anyway. 

Flash ahead many years with hardly a thought about being adopted.  I married my second husband when I was 37 years old.  We had a little boy, Jake, a year later.  Since my husband was ALSO adopted, I realized that my son also had no heritage since his father did not know anything at all about his adoption either.  Hence, began my search for answers.  

It began by me asking my parents ( I was now 38 years old) and they said, "Oh, we thought you would never ask!".  To my utmost surprise, I was handed a huge binder with all sorts of 38 year old documents.  Many were in German, but most had been translated into English.  There was my birth name, and the papers that slowly changed my name from RoseMarie Schulz, to Pamela Lee Carroll.

There was also quite a bit of information about my birth mother, from her name to her birthdate, and even her location number, which is much like our social security number.

Here is one of my adoption papers, in German. 

Thus began my search for her.  

I worked a while with a group  called ALMA: Adoptees' Liberty Movement Association, located in New York, NY. https://www.nationalcenteronadoptionandpermanency.net/ncap-resources/alma-the-adoptees-liberty-movement-association-alma  Anyway, the woman that I worked with first told me to contact the German records keeper at the hall of records near where I was born. She said that Europeans keep VERY good track of their citizens and that they would more than likely know where she was.  She gave me the address and I proceeded to write a letter.  I told them that I was a relative and was looking for her. I gave them all the information that I had been given.  Then I waited on pins and needles to get a reply.  (This was in 1991, before there was much use of the Internet.) 

In a few weeks I did receive a letter!  But, it of course, was in GERMAN!  I had actually lived in Berlin, Germany when I was 8-11 years old, as my father was stationed there.  I took German in elementary school but at that time did not realize that I was at least half German. I could read a few words but could not tell much from the letter, except for the words "Fort Meade, Maryland".   Here is a copy of the letter I received.  You can see all of my words that people had translated for me!!