My Dad's Birthday

Today would have been my Dad's 103rd birthday, were such a thing even possible. Of course it is possible for a human to live to the age of 103 years, but not my Dad. His smoking, his diet and his sedentary nature all denied him that. Just as his half-brother, Albert, had his life cut short, only much shorter.

Albert - yes! I have an Uncle Albert! - was born three years before my Dad, almost to the day - on the 16th rather than the 17th of April. He was christened Albert Martin Brown in the Lutheran church on the 21st of January 1916. He is shown as resident in the Owatonna State School in the 1920 census. I'm told he was adopted in 1922 - at the age of 7. 

A letter from his mother, Marit / Mary, to the Minnesota state officials in 1939 tells us he has died from drowning at the age of 24. The people who adopted him apparently knew how to contact his birth mother. Having lost one son - she feels due to carelessness on the part of the adopting parents - she is desperate to know where her youngest son - my Dad - has been placed. It is a heart breaking letter.

Of course my Dad lived to the age of 71. His adoptive parents were anything but neglectful. And of course my Dad never knew he had a half-brother. It always strikes me as a bit surreal to think of all the things he didn't know about himself - and all the things I didn't know until someone dropped this piece of information on me and I pursued the story. It often crosses my mind that there are likely other things I don't know, or only think I 'know'.

I am practically wishing this year away when I realise I can obtain Albert's adoption information from the Minnesota Historical Society, or perhaps from the courts, I'll have to figure it out. It will then be 100 years since his adoption and the records will no longer be sealed. I'll then know the names of his adoptive parents and can look for his death certificate. Perhaps there will have been an inquest or other records to shed more light on the circumstances. I will be able to search for him in the 1930 census and perhaps there might be a marriage record, who knows? Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a photograph somewhere and I could see a resemblance to my Dad - or even to me? 

Bless him, he didn't make it to be in the 1940 census. How very much of life he missed out on, passing at 24. Makes me feel terribly ancient and extremely fortunate. Also to realise that even though I've always felt cheated that each of my parents died at the age of 71, they did get to experience most of what life was going to hand them by then, except perhaps something negative about growing old. So I'll not wish for what can't be anyhow. 

Happy birthday, Daddy.