A Latter Day Witness

When my mother was 45 years old, she learned from her only other sibling, Alice, that she was adopted. It was revealed soon after the passing of my mother’s adoptive parents. A secret meant to be kept until that time. You can imagine the shock that shook our whole family. Although she loved her adoptive parents very much and is sealed to them, she longed to know who her real parents were and even more important, health concerns, genealogy, etc. So she set out to find her biological parents only to find her birth and adoption records were sealed preventing any progress. Little did she know, she would meet her biological mother 15 years later…

My mom always had the thought of her biological parents in the back of her head and at times would try to pick up where she left off only to face the same problem. However, about 2 years ago, she started to gain some ground. That’s when I enter the story.

I had no clue she was actively searching again since she usually seemed to keep it to herself not expecting much to come of her efforts. But one day while I was working, I felt prompted to search the internet for ways to unseal her records(the internet would have been handy 15 years ago!). Within 10 minutes I stumbled across an address she could write to and petition for her records to be released. I don’t even remember what it was, only that it seemed possibly helpful, so I emailed the link to her and thought nothing more about it.

Without telling anyone, she wrote to that address and sent whatever documents were required and months later received a packet full of non-identifying information of her biological mother which included her birth date (December 23, 1923), that she was from Washington County, Utah, and the fact her mother had a twin sister.

My mom continued to push for a name and the courts finally released it since by now her biological mother may not be alive so the judge didn’t feel any reason to withhold her mother’s name. The name they gave my mother was Mary Seamon. By this point our whole family knows and we’re ecstatic! So our next step was to find out if she’s still alive and where. I searched all of the family history websites for her and found nothing so I knew she was either alive, married with a different last name, or both. I searched all over the internet and managed to stumble across an old Washington County newspaper archive and came across a newspaper dated December 20, 1923, which also happened to be the last newspaper in the archive. Below is the posting I found, the last paragraph, which reads, "Twin girls born to Mr. and Mrs Robert Seamon Wednesday all reported doing nicely"


I thought, “WOW!”… what are the chances this is my mom’s mom? Same last name, twin girls, within a few days of her birthdate… So I searched the name Robert Seamon in the church genealogy websites and found someone I felt might be my mom’s grandfather. I clicked on a link that revealed who submitted information for his family tree and wrote down phone numbers and gave them to my mom. Long story short, one phone number lead to another phone number which eventually lead to my mother’s mom, Mary Bishop, an 82 year old lady from Northern California. My mom flew out to meet her the following weekend after that phone call. And only a short few months later, her mother passed away…

Mary Bishop (Seamon) and my mom, Ginger

Mary Bishop (Seamon) and my mom, Ginger

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Grandma's Wedding Ring

I was fortunate enought to inherit my grandmother's wedding ring (my mom's adoptive mother). One morning as I was showering, my grandma's wedding ring on my right hand caught my eye. My heart sank when I realized the tiny little diamond in the middle was missing. I'm very sentimental and started to feel the tears starting. How on earth would I find a diamond so small? It could have fallen in the carpet, the bowl of popcorn the night before, or down the drain. As small as it was, it would have been fairly inexpensive to replace, but the sentimental value couldn't be replaced. So I said a very quick prayer that the Lord might help me find it. I pulled out a flashlight and began searching the carpet in our little 1 bedroom apartment. I gave up after 20 minutes feeling hopeless and could feel the tears starting again when a thought popped into my head... check the bed. I walked to my side of the bed, pulled back my covers, and lying right where my back would have been was a tiny little diamond.



Sometimes it's those tiny little miracles that really allow us to feel the love our Heavenly Father has for us. It reminds me that there is nothing too small to ask for.

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4 comments:

The Hardy's said...

wow, what an awesome idea...you are very talented in your writing. best of luck!

November 8, 2007 at 6:03 PM
Heidi said...

hey marybeth! its heidi (Holmes) Shirley. I saw your blog from Lyndzee's... hope you dont mind! that was an amazing story! thanks for sharing!

November 8, 2007 at 7:19 PM
The Hardy's said...

hi again! thanks for leaving a comment, and ya,definately add me to your friends list!

November 9, 2007 at 10:24 AM
Emily said...

Hey Marybeth, it's me Emily (Hansen)Aragon. I too ran across your blog from someone. That was a great story, so touching!

November 10, 2007 at 4:51 PM

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