My wife Charlie has wondered, for decades, who her biological father was.
Charlie doesn’t look like either of her parents or her five siblings, this difference was evident to her and her peers early on, and it was commented on by her classmates (“Are you adopted?”). As she matured, Charlie was taller than her Dad and Mom, her two brothers, and her three sisters.
Something was rotten in Denmark, as the saying goes.
Questions related to this anomaly, directed by Charlie to her parents, were usually dismissed with something on the order of, “Change the subject.” In a Catholic household, you do what you’re told and don’t question authority. So, that nagging emptiness in Charlie remained an issue for her as she matured into adulthood.
Charles (Chuck) and Mary Jane (Smith) Meister were married about for over half a century, and both passed in 1997 when their oldest daughter Charlie was ostensibly 51 years old.
No one still living knows when Charlie was actually born because her supposed Cook County, Illinois birth certificate was declared a fake about 20 years ago by… Cook County, Illinois officials. So, Charlie still didn’t know when she was born, where, and who her biological parents were.
These are the very questions that Charlie posed to her Mom earlier in her life. Mary was uncomfortable with the question and, essentially, brushed Charlie off. Her Mom avoided the question in the years following, even on her deathbed.
After Chuck and Mary passed in 1997, some family story tidbits emerged from the Smith and Meister clans. The little that did leak out from Charlie’s aunt and uncle mentioned some guy named Richard, whom Mary referred to as “the love of her life”. He was a boyfriend from Chicago who was killed in World War II. The story went on that, subsequent to Richard’s death, Mary “went off to Florida” to grieve. It was there that she met “some Italian guy”, something happened, and Mary got pregnant.
Of course, Charlie’s eventual Dad, Charles Meister, wasn’t in Florida at that time: he was off in Europe fighting the Nazis. However, he was an acquaintance of Mary’s (he was one of the neighborhood guys and may have known her beau Richard), was attracted to Mary, and found out via the neighborhood grapevine that Mary was a damsel in distress. A wartime correspondence ensued (Chuck’s letters to Mary were discovered upon their deaths) in which Chuck courted Mary from Europe and indicated his willingness to rescue her from her motherly predicament and assume the role of Daddy to the newborn child.
We can only surmise what then happened: Chuck Meister returned to America, got married to Mary Jane Smith, and with the help of both families and their connections, obtained a blank Cook County Hospital birth certificate and doctored it up to provide “legitimacy” to little Mary Charlene.
Charlie’s birth certificate says she was born on January 3, 1946 in Chicago. However, it is obvious that the little tyke was already living when Chuck Meister was corresponding from Germany with Mary Jane Smith who was living in Florida at the time. That is because Chuck mentions Mary’s little baby in his correspondence. Thus, we know that Charlie was a living, breathing human being by 1945, for sure.
So, she is at least 77 years old, not 76.
Everyone involved in the Smith and Meister families (parents, brothers, and sisters) agreed to back the birth fable and agreed to take the secret to their graves, which they did to “honor Mary’s wishes”.
Because Charlie always wanted to know what really happened, her quest for answers went unfulfilled.
The answer came in 2021, when DNA testing/genealogic tracing became available to everyone for a small fee. Charlie sent in her saliva and, lo and behold, it is apparent that her biological father was of Italian origin. That confirmed the rumor of “some Italian guy” hooking up with young Mary Jane Smith in Florida.
Further inquiry on “23 and Me” (the Web-based genealogy service) revealed that Charlie has some living relatives on Mr. Italian’s side of the family tree. Actually, they contacted Charlie first. She has subsequently communicated with some of them and has fleshed out her birth story a bit.
We are now pretty sure the”Italian guy” was named Peter Millett. He was an immigrant from Naples, Italy and “Millett” was an anglicized version of his Italian name: Pietro Migliaccio. Information from his relatives indicate that he either owned or was living at a particular hotel in Florida at the same time that Mary Jane Smith was staying at that very hotel. This is based upon Chuck’s correspondence with her during the war: the hotel name was on the Mary’s envelope.
Peter Millett would have been in his 40’s at the time, while Mary Jane Smith was in her mid-20’s. One of Millett’s relatives who Charlie has talked to said that Peter was reputed to be quite a womanizer in his day. He was a good-looking, dark-haired guy who was more than average in height.
Young lady falls for charmer: it happens all the time. No judgment here.
Subsequent information provided to Charlie by relatives on the Millet side of the family tree (for example, photos of Peter and his daughter Regina) make it evident how Charlie came to look very different from her siblings. Charlie and Regina (who would have been Charlie’s half-sister) bear a strong resemblance, and Peter’s face featured a dark-haired uni-brow, similar to the one Charlie had before she started plucking her eyebrows in her teens. Peter and Regina also have the same eye shape and color as does Charlie.
Finally, an answer. Unfortunately, biological father Peter and half-sister Regina are deceased, so Charlie never got a chance to meet either one of them.
My wife is now texting and talking to several daughters of her half-sister Regina (Charlie would be their Aunt) and is learning more about that side of the family. They are all Catholic and have Mary in their names. Charlie (Mary Charlene) is fascinated by all of it and it is filling up that void in her soul that was always present. She feels more complete, as a human being, knowing the truth about herself.
The only unknown at this point is where and when she was born. Charlie and sister Theresa, with help from her nieces in New York, are looking into this. We suspect Florida in 1945. A legitimate birth certificate would help.
One truth that Charlie always knew was that she was loved by Chuck and Mary Meister and she loved them with all her heart until they passed out of this world. She wishes that her Mom would have confided in her as she matured, as it might have eased some of the anxiety. Importantly, had Charlie been told the truth, she would have had the opportunity to directly thank her Dad for stepping up to the plate in 1945 and taking her on as his own.
Chuck Meister never mentioned a word of this to Charlie during his life. He played his part in the Genesis story because it was the right thing to do, and he kept the family secret in wife Mary’s honor. A very admirable man and husband he was.
Anyway, Charlie now has answers to the burning questions, so life can move on.
Now she can obsess about other things, like her fake fingernails.