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[Courtesy photo] |
When Betsey Davis was 4 years old she asked the question to a favorite loved one.
"I can remember asking my teddy bear, 'Do you know who my mommy is?'" says Davis. For more than 50 years, she waited for the answer.
Less than 50 miles away, this past spring, Dan Caldwell was cleaning and packing in his elderly mother's Amherst home. His parents Rita and Warren Caldwell, slipping in health and memory, were preparing to move in with Dan, the youngest of their three children, and his family in Milford.
Dan found a postcard sent from South Dakota and signed, "love, Betsey."
Who is Betsey from South Dakota? Dan asked his father.
"Oh, that's your mother's daughter," the father said.
As Dan's jaw neared the floor, he stammered his objections to this illogical comment. So began in earnest the reunion of a 60-year-old daughter and her three siblings.
The wind is howling outside the log cabin home of Betsey and Ted Davis in Hampton, but the mood at the round dining table is warm and full of love as Betsey Davis and her half-brother Dan Caldwell sip coffee. At times it seems like they've known each other all their life, so easy is the conversation, the witty needling and the laughter.
"Since I've met Betsey, we've just hit it off so well," Dan says.
One of their favorite chuckles concerns the family lineage.
"I was always sure I was Irish," Betsey says. "I even took a trip (to Ireland) and felt at home there, thinking I'd found this connection to my roots. And now I find out that I'm probably almost all French."
Davis knew from an early age she was the adopted - and only - child of Evelyn and George Squire of North Hampton. Ever since, she's wanted to find her real mother.
"I was always looking behind trees," in wishful search, hoping the unknown woman might be in the vicinity, stealing a peek of the daughter she had given away; a mother being as curious as the daughter herself.
Now she knows most of the pertinent facts. Her mother, Rita Archambeault, gave birth to "Baby Girl Archambeault" on Feb. 24, 1943. Unwed, Roman Catholic and a product of foster homes since her mother had died when she was young, Rita Archambeault was 19 when she secluded herself in a house in Manchester. Months later she gave birth to a daughter, offered her for adoption and then kept the pregnancy a secret to all but a select few for nearly 60 years.
Betsey and Dan think they "might know" who Betsey's father is, but it is not confirmed. They know it is not Warren Caldwell, Dan's father and Rita's husband.
There are some eerie coincidences when it comes to names and dates. Betsey has three children. Two are named Dan and Sue. Betsey now has three "new" siblings. Two are named Dan and Sue (Ann). Betsey, who raised her children as a single, divorced mother, married Ted Davis on Nov. 22, 1982. Half a state away, Dan Caldwell's youngest daughter Heidi was born Nov. 22, 1982. One might think a higher power was trying to connect the families.
Still, there is much to learn and discover about their pasts. Betsey and Dan have known each other five months, meeting for the first time June 20. Their respective families must adjust to this unexpected reunion. While Betsey's on the phone with Dan nearly daily, she knows forming similarly strong emotional connections with her other half-siblings, Warren Jr., 58, of Amherst and Sue Ann, 55, of Keene, will take time.
"I haven't resolved how to be a sister. I don't know where to be, how to be," Betsey says, adding that she's happy to learn the ropes because, "I couldn't have found a better family."
What did it take for Betsey Davis to find her family? Just a lifetime of desire, years of research, plenty of hope and perseverance, some professional guides, and a 22-cent postcard.
Davis had been poking about the mystery of her origins for many years. Sensing that time was running out if she was going to find definitive, living answers, she began to put more effort into her search in 1988. She started with her adoptive mother, who told her that she was the product of a couple who could not afford to keep her. That explanation always lacked credibility, Davis thought.
"Couples just didn't give away their children," she said.
She sent letters to probate courts requesting documents. On a tip from a longtime North Hampton resident, she investigated the names of people who had died in the famous Coconut Grove Fire in Boston, Nov. 28, 1942. The date of the fire - three months before she was born - paralleled her mother's story, but turned out to be one of many false leads. In the early 1990s, with the help of trained professionals, she found her true identity. It took longer still to find her mother's name.
A key element in that stage was a letter written to a judge by Rita Caldwell. According to the concise, type-written letter, Rita was looking for her daughter. Both Betsey and Dan have suspicions about the letter's origins. Dan points out that his family never had a typewriter in the house. Betsey says that letters she has received from her mother, who has Alzheimer's disease, would indicate that she could not have written a letter in that style. When the letter was written, and by whom, is one of the remaining mysteries to unravel. Regardless, it was an essential element because on it was Rita Caldwell's name, giving Davis the direct link she needed. With her daughter's help, a quick Internet search produced an address and a phone number.
Over the next two years, Davis and her mother exchanged brief notes without meeting. Finally, one day became the day. Davis called her mother. Scared "to death," that she might be turned down, Davis asked if she could come for a visit - right now.
"On the phone, in the background I can hear Warren and in this gruff voice he says, 'Who is it?' and Rita answered, 'It's my daughter,'" Davis recalls. "I packed up and was on my way to Amherst and I didn't breathe the whole way. Somewhere around Raymond I actually had to tell myself, 'breathe.' "I was well received that first day. She came down to meet me with her arms out. She didn't really want to talk about the adoption," Davis says.
Davis had found her mother, but she had to wait for the whole family. Rita asked her eldest daughter not to contact her siblings until Rita allowed it. Davis had to content herself with more notes and phoning occasionally, always careful not to reveal too much in case someone other than Rita or Warren answered the phone or saw the mail.
That's where the postcard comes in.
"If my dad had just said he didn't know who it was from I probably would have just dropped it," Dan says.
Instead, he came home and in a flurry of phone calls, discovered that his own sister had Betsey Davis' phone number and address, though she was unaware of the hidden familial connection.
Dan then placed the fateful call to Betsey and as quickly as possible asked, "are you my sister?"
"What else are you going to say?" Dan asks. "We stayed on the phone about and hour and my wife was telling me to settle down. I was just bouncing off the walls."
"That postcard was the best 22 cents I ever spent," Davis says.
Davis says she feels exceptionally fortunate. She feels thankful to the many people who assisted her in searching out her past. Social worker Pam Seavey Bruning and adoption specialist Karen Amos of Somersworth were critical in getting her through the paperwork maze and connecting the dots to Rita. Constant emotional support, acceptance and encouragement of the search came from her children, her husband and the Valleys, a family of friends who live in Rye.
"And my coffee ladies, they know who they are," Davis says. "We meet every Tuesday and Thursday at McDonald's and they were always asking for updates. When I brought (Dan) in to meet them they were all in tears," Davis says.
She's thankful that she found a wonderful, welcoming family when her search ended. Her cousin went through a similar situation, only to find a mother who wanted no part of a long-forgotten offspring.
Davis also knows that by being adopted, she was afforded the benefit of being raised by learned and concerned parents. She graduated from high school (Winnacunnet, Class of 1961) and attended college (UNH). She has three children: Dan, 40, who lives in Kingston; Chris, 37, who lives in Hampton with his wife Jennifer and their daughter Sarah; and Sue, 35, who lives with her husband Steve in South Dakota.
"I could have gone to the orphanage in Boston. Things have worked out extremely well for me, all through my life," Davis says.
The adoption also gave a young, scared woman a second chance at happiness. Without that, there might not have been a family for Betsey Davis to find.
