Through Faith and Determination: Adult Adoptee Discovers her Past

Dear Catholic Charities:

In August, of 1956 my twin sister Sheila and I were adopted and brought to Chicago through the help of your wonderful organization. We lived in Canada, were very poor and did not have 2 pennies to rub together. We were brought to a Catholic Church in Digby, Nova Scotia as small children because it was my grandmother’s wish that we live a better life. My biological mother became very ill and died of cancer at the age of 36 and my father was a life long alcoholic. I have never forgotten your organization and how instrumental you were in giving us a good home in Chicago.

My sister went on to become a great nurse and I a successful banker in Chicago. Sheila was murdered in 1993 and I miss her greatly. I continue to work hard to fulfill my grandmother’s wish.

Thank you for all you have done and for the help and guidance you give people. Without your help I am not sure how my life would have turned out.

Sharon Vinicky sits in a snug conference room at 721 N. LaSalle, Catholic Charities’ St. Vincent Center, but the story she tells takes me to the wind-swept farmland of rural Nova Scotia 50 years ago, where she and her twin were fostered when her mother could no longer care for them. Photos of the sisters from that time show two girls with matching bobs, dresses and the heavy shoes they needed to navigate the dirt roads and fields around their foster home.

Sharon and Sheila were the fifth and sixth children born to a poor, young mother who battled rheumatoid arthritis and cancer while working as a waitress at outdoor cafes. Their father’s alcoholism prevented him from providing for his family, so the girl’s mother took them home to Digby, Nova Scotia to be cared for by her own parents.

The girls came to Catholic Charities through the Daughters of Charity, who ran St. Vincent’s Orphanage. The religious order had members in Nova Scotia who learned of about Sharon and Sheila and facilitated their adoption to a couple in Chicago who had already adopted a child from St. Vincent’s. Today, the little girl who arrived in 1956 has grown into a lovely, mature woman who doesn’t remember 721 N. LaSalle, but will never forget the momentous change that took place in her life when the adoption was finalized there.

In a very short time, the girls went from a life of rural poverty to one of suburban middle-class comfort, with regular dental check-ups, Catholic education, and adventure. Their adoptive father was a risk-taker and at one point, moved the family by boat to Florida, where they lived for a few years.

“I never forgot that the Catholic Church gave me my home,” Sharon says. Her faith has sustained her through a challenging life. Sharon has reconnected with many members of her birth family, through her own determination, the help of strangers, and her faith.  “I was guided,” she says of her search which started nearly thirty years ago, after she saw a  television special about adopted children.

Married at that time and with a child of her own, Sharon decided to look for her relatives in Canada, after asking her adoptive mother’s permission. She first called her former foster home in Digby, Nova Scotia. “Do you remember twins?” she asked the man who answered. He did. He and his wife were members of the church Sharon’s grandmother attended. She was able to get some information about her birth family from him. Sharon’s next stop was O’Hare Airport where she knew she would find international phone books.

Armed with a lot of quarters and her own moxy, Sharon called the operator in Sydney, Nova Scotia  and asked if she had listings under her birth father’s family name. The operator told Sharon she could give her two names, but after Sharon told her about her mission, the operator gave her four. Sharon chose the right one to call, and reached her great uncle, who put her in touch with a cousin, who ran down Chapel Drive in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, to alert Sharon’s grandmother that she had been contacted. Sharon’s grandfather had passed away just a week earlier. He may have sensed that a reunion with the girls was near. Before leaving for the hospital he told family, “We need to go down to Digby to find those twins.”

Sadly, Sharon’s mother had died years earlier. Both of Sharon’s parents came from large families of over ten children, and struggled with poverty. “I found out things I didn’t like, but more things I did like,” Sharon says of her birth family. “When you understand a person’s past, you know where they’re coming from.”

Over the ensuing years, both Sharon and Sheila reconnected with their maternal relatives, as well as their birth father, a life-long alcoholic whom they visited shortly before he died.  The girls learned that they were named after their father’s twin sisters, who had worked for the Bank of Montreal. Interestingly, Sharon became a banker herself. Sheila was a nurse who died tragically following a robbery attempt. The two sisters had remained close, and Sharon stays in touch with Sheila’s three children.

A parishioner of Queen of Martyrs on Chicago’s Far South side, Sharon taught Confirmation classes to eighth graders for 15 years. She remembers being told, “You must take care of your soul,” when she was younger, and that phrase has always stayed with her.  It must have been divine intervention that brought her to 721 N. LaSalle recently on a business “cold” call. As she stood in front of the building, Sharon recognized it as the place from which she and her sister were adopted.  Sharon contacted Catholic Charities’ Maternity and Adoption program, and she received a copy of her adoption record.  She has now been back to 721 a few times, bringing full circle a life that has touched so many others, through faith and determination.