A lost seventeen-year-old girl, I was warned that my life had changed forever and I was damaged goods from now on. No support or help was on the horizon, and it was pounded in my head I now had a traumatic secret I could never share with anyone.

The unwed mother’s home was akin to a reformatory school but there were no teachers, no classes, no therapy. There was only lock down, guilt, and despair.

Two girls in a room, four girls in a suite to share the bathroom. Forty plus pregnant young women wandering the hallways, working for their keep, heartbroken girls, abandoned girls, and angry girls.

I had been there since March and considered an old timer now. My baby due in a couple of months and my first roommate had been an older woman.

Twenty-six years old.

She was the most bitter young woman I had ever known. She scared me. Anti-social, scathingly sarcastic, mad at the world, and furious at the married boss who had gotten her in trouble. The months with her were terrifying, sad, and endless.

After her baby girl was born, she refused to look at her. Glad to be free of the burden, she said. But she cried all night long. Now she was on her way back to the real world and no one in that world the wiser as to what had happened to her. Ready to forget this ever happened.

I felt sorry for her. Tried to be her friend but never felt close and I can honestly say I was thrilled when she checked out. I had the room all to myself for a week and a half and it wasn’t lonely.

It was heavenly.

Just when I was thinking hallelujah, I might be alone until my baby comes, without any notice a new roommate arrived.

From our first introduction, I was smitten by Lizzy. Just the sight of her was sparkly.

She was tiny, scarcely five feet tall, big blue eyes, big blonde hair, and a megawatt smile that never left her ruby red lip sticked mouth.

Her make up was ever so precise, total perfection, and loads of it. While we big-bellied girls all wore flats or sandals, she pranced around in high heels.

But the thing I noticed most was the absolute joy that was emitted from this unmarried pregnant teenager.

Didn’t she know we were supposed to be depressed, sad, and angry in this place of sorrow?

I welcomed her and before I could shake her hand she was hugging me. She acted like I was the most interesting person she had ever met. Well, she seemed to think all of us girls were the most interesting girls in the world.

She was charming, inquisitive, and loved to sing, which she did randomly all through the day and before bed every night as she scrubbed her perfect face free of the beautiful mask she wore.

One day it occurred to me that she reminded me of Dolly Parton, minus the big boobs.

I was only three years younger than Dolly Parton and had just become aware of her.

I didn’t know much about Dolly, but I did know we girls of the sixties were beginning to wear less make up and God forbid, we would never paint our lips that bright garish red. Jean Shrimpton, our icon of the sixties, wore frosted pink nude. Red was so yesterday.

We were starting to wear our hair long, lank, straight as a board. Then along comes this young country western singer who was doing just the opposite. She was proudly strumming and singing with this mile-high blonde bouffant, which would eventually become mile high wigs.

Of course, my seventeen-year-old self-thought she over the top.

Good grief, give me the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez… not country music.

At the time I had no idea how strong this glittery blonde bombshell and insanely sequined young country girl was.

I judged a book by its cover.

In my humble, immature, and unformed teenage mind this girl Dolly Parton was all fake. Didn’t she read Seventeen magazine or know about Mods and the British Invasion and Flower children? Maybe, just maybe, she was out of style because she was from Tennessee?

Not cool or sophisticated like me from Mississippi.

Still Dolly’s sweetness, her goodness, her glorious talent and her bright brilliance must have infiltered past what I allowed myself to think, because when I looked at smart, kind, and effervescent Lizzy, I saw Dolly.

Over the decades I wised up. From afar I watched Dolly change thousands and thousands of people’s lives.

Probably more like millions and millions.

Her music, her business sense, her confidence, her charming humor and her generous philanthropy were all phenomenal. My respect grew in leaps and bounds.

She taught us women so much.

Be YOU.

Be true to yourself.

Believe in yourself even when no one else does. Be you and hold your head high.

Rise above your circumstances. Keep the Faith.

Look for the bright side. When you feel down, lift others up.

You can make a difference, and you should. Give and then give some more.

Sing and dance! Laugh out loud!

Love, love, and love some more.

Dolly, the world has lost a shining star like no other. We will forever love and miss you and whenever I see your photo and hear your voice, I will always smile.

Plus, you will make me remember that shining light of a roommate, Lizzy, wherever she is now, who was so like you. She brought me peace, made my life softer, and happier in a time and place of sadness and grief.

Once upon a time, when I was a little girl living with my mama and daddy and younger brothers in Mississippi, the one thing that I loved most was sitting with my Grammy and listening to her talk about when she was a little girl growing up in Alabama on a sharecropper’s farm.

I was a lucky child, my favorite person on earth, Grammy, lived next door to me and always welcomed my visits. I would sit for hours listening to her and her Alabama sisters talk about the good old days as they sipped strong creamy coffee and quilted. I soaked up those stories with no desire to be racing around outside with my brothers and neighborhood friends.

My Daddy was quite a storyteller like his mother, Grammy. He loved to talk about family history as well. I was fascinated by his stories of days gone by and his recounting of the tales his Daddy told him about our family’s history.

I never doubted every word of those stories was true, and I daydreamed about those long dead ancestors his words brought to life. He made them sound so real, I almost expected them to show up for Sunday supper.

As I grew older my love of history grew and my fascination with genealogy did as well. I particularly loved English history, Tudor history and the Restoration period. An avid reader I absorbed history books and historical fiction too. I loved the classics. Whenever I tried to put together a family tree, I could only go a couple of generations back but always longed to know more.

Then when I was in my fifties I heard about Ancestry.com and the rest is, well, history!

Oh, how I loved that website from day one. Creating a tree became an obsession. I could stay at the computer for hours and hours. Just me and Ancestry - Happy as a Lark!

I traced one side of my family all the way to the 1200s and another to the 1500s. I learned some surprising facts along the way and learned our family on all sides had been here in the US from the Colonial days. I happily learned my Daddy had been right about so much of the family history and Grammy too. It was the best of both of my favorite worlds, reading and family history.

Then it got even better!

Ancestry DNA arrived. My husband and I sent away for the kits. He wanted to see his ethnicity. For me I wanted that, but also, I hoped and prayed the son I had been forced to relinquish to a closed adoption in 1967 would be able to find me. DNA was still fairly new, and I didn’t completely understand all ins and outs but was thrilled when our results arrived and once again, so many fun surprises came our way.

I discovered my own DNA was 88 percent UK. All those stories handed down over the generations proved true. My husband Gene was 2^nd generation, and we knew about his Hungarian and German ancestors but found he was also 30 percent English and Irish. I loved this stuff and could stay at the computer for hours, happy as a lark!

I have read that most people have no idea who their great grandparents were or where they came from. It bothered me to think our family history would just disappear if I did not write it down.

I have never understood when a person dies and there is no celebration or life, no words about their days, their accomplishments, the things they loved, who they really were. It is sad to think they lived this time on earth and poof were gone as if it all didn’t matter.

I wanted to bring all those ancestors I had heard about back to life through my words.

The best part of all, six months after doing our DNA test, an incredible miracle happened in my life, and my wish came true. My son who I had not seen since birth, found me though Ancestry DNA forty-nine years after I had held him in my arms as a newborn. That was the most beautiful time. For the first time ever, I was a mother who could love all four of my sons, the three I had raised and my first-born son.

After my reunion with my oldest son, thanks to Ancestry DNA, I paused the family history, and I did something I never dreamed I would do. I wrote my first memoir about the painful secret time in my life that I had never spoken about, the time I spent in an unwed mothers maternity home in New Orleans in 1967. My memoir You’ll Forget This Ever Happened, secrets, shame, and adoption in the 1960s was published in 2022. I began writing and publishing essays and pieces in anthologies.

Now a days I am more involved in Ancestry than ever as I work on my newest project. I am currently writing my second book, the history of my parents’ love story and sixty-four years of marriage. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.

My research on great grandparents, grandparents and parents has taken me back to the late 1800s until the time of my parents’ deaths in 2011. It’s a challenge and written from my heart as I bring these beloved individuals back to life on the page.

I get lost in all the lives of these people who went before me and who still live within me. I’ve learned interesting and surprising facts that I never would have known without this research and those surprising facts only make me more eager to write this book.

I believe we are all part of those who came before us and all their stories still matter. The wonderful stories, the sad stories, the ugly stories, and the uplifting stories – each and every one.

If you listened to Part One of my podcast with the amazing Genevieve Kruger of Hidden Chapter last week, here is part two. The rest of the story.

Here is what Genevieve wrote:

Last week in the Summer Replay Series, Laura Engel shared what it was like to be a teenager during the Baby Scoop Era, when shame and secrecy led thousands of young women to place their babies for adoption.

After giving birth to her son on July 8, Laura spent the next 50 years wondering about him and hoping she might someday know his story.

This week, we continue where Part 1 left off.

A DNA match led to the reunion Laura had dreamed about for decades. She shares what it was like to finally meet her son, build a relationship together.

Laura also shares the heartbreaking chapter that followed when she lost her son again, this time to suicide.

Today, Laura’s book brings awareness to the Baby Scoop Era, encourages others impacted by adoption, and remind us that even our deepest pain can become a source of hope for someone else.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

https://hiddenchapterspodcast.com/

Laura’s Book is here: https://lauralengel.com/books/

If you haven’t heard my story, I would be honored and thrilled if you take the time to listen to Part One.

(Part Two is next week)

Hidden Chapters wrote:

This week’s Summer Replay Series revisits one of the most unforgettable stories ever shared on Hidden Chapters.

As a teenager in the 1960s, Laura Engel became pregnant during what is now known as the Baby Scoop Era, a time when thousands of young women were sent away in secrecy and shame to give birth before placing their babies for adoption.

For 50 years, Laura carried unanswered questions about the son she gave birth to on July 8.

What happened to him?

Would she ever know if he was okay?

Would they ever find each other?

Laura shares her story with remarkable honesty, courage, and hope, shedding light on a chapter of history that many people have never heard about but that continues to impact families today.

This is Part 1 of Laura’s incredible hidden chapter. Trust me, you’ll want to come back next week.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

☀️ Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series | Laura Engel Part 1

Laura’s book: https://lauralengel.com/books/

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It seemed incredible that I woke exactly at the time I had been giving birth decades ago on a sweltering night in a hospital in New Orleans, La. I had turned eighteen the month before. I lay in bed and let myself remember the long night of pain and fear and devastating sadness when I first held my baby boy the next day.

It was 1967. The summer of love.

Richard would have been 59 years old today.

My heart ached. My eyes filled with tears, and I reached for my beloved husband Gene’s hand.

Of course, Gene had no idea what I was thinking, I didn’t say a word, and we often reach for each other’s hands at night for no reason. He gently squeezed mine and turned on his side, back to sleep.

As so many of you dear friends and readers already know, I was convinced and coerced to leave that baby boy, my first-born son at the Unwed Mothers Home. His adoption was closed as they commonly were in those days of the Baby Scoop Era. I was told he would go to better parents, and he was no longer mine. I was told to forget him.

I was told not to speak about this time ever again and to keep this whole pregnancy and devasting loss of my baby a secret. I was told to forget this ever happened to me. I was told to move on with my life because I was just another wayward unwed mother. A silly teenager.

I had no voice, no choice. No one would let me speak the words I needed to say or cry when I needed to cry. God knows I had no way of knowing back in 1967 the primal wound that so many adoptees carry for life. If I had known, if my parents and society had known – would this have even happened the way it did? Nor did I know that I would spend forty-nine years wondering about him, worrying about him, searching for him, and thinking I was doing something I had no right to do.

I never spoke about that time, but I never forgot the secret son I had lost. Disenfranchised grief hurt my heart every single day and shame secretly colored my life, until a magical miracle happened.

In 2016 thanks to Ancestry DNA, Richard and I had a fairy tale reunion when he was forty-nine. It shook both our worlds in the best of ways. My life was complete. For once I knew where all my sons were every night.

For four and a half years we caught up on each other’s lives and those were truly some of the very best years of my life. I had always had a full life filled with a beloved husband and dearly loved children I had raised, along with many grandchildren, but as mothers all know, there is always room for more love.

We lost Richard in 2021. As a mother I lost him for the second time. I know I will live with this complicated and intense grief forever, but I will forever be grateful for the short time we had together. I finally met him, loved him, and he loved me. I will never forget that.

One of our last photos together.

We miss you son.