Amesbury pastor meets siblings for first time ? Local News ...

AMESBURY ? Bob Ingalls always knew that he was adopted. The problem was that's all he knew.

Ingalls' adopted parents were "all in all, very nice," but the Amesbury pastor couldn't stop wondering who his real birth parents were and where he came from.

Last weekend, he finally got that chance when he met five of his siblings for the first time.

"My entire life, I wanted to know if I had brothers and sisters," said Ingalls, the former pastor of Union Congregational Church in Amesbury who is now serving as an associate pastor at First Parish Church in East Derry, N.H., while earning his graduate degree at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton.

Ingalls tried to track down his biological family in the 1990s, but ran into dead ends. He knew his birth name ? Bertram Austin Stevens ? and entered the information into an adoption website, but never had any luck.

On July 6, that changed.

Just before going into a meeting, Ingalls received a phone call at First Parish Church from a woman.

"She calls me up and asks me all these questions. She said to me: 'You are my uncle.' That was a frozen moment," Ingalls said. "I said, 'Oh my God. My biological family has just found me.'"

It turns out the information Ingalls put into the adoption website more than a decade before was tracked down by Morgan Schoenagel, his niece.

Once she connected Bertram Stevens with Bob Ingalls. Schoenagel was able to find her uncle on Facebook, which directed her to First Parish Church.

But Schoenagel, whose father and Ingalls are biological brothers, didn't stop there. Within 36 hours, she was able to connect Ingalls and her father with their three other Stevens siblings, as well as a few half-siblings on his mother's side.

Soon, a portrait would emerge of the woman who would connect them all and, at least in part, ultimately caused them to be separated.

Not everyone was adopted like Ingalls. Other siblings spent time in foster care. Some had great experiences; others were passed from family to family and some suffered severe abuse and/or neglect.

Ingalls doesn't remember being in foster care. He moved around from home to home for two to three years before being adopted at age 4.

"This is a story of survival in the foster care system and adoption through the '50s and '60s," Ingalls said.

A reunion years in the making

Last weekend in Pittsfield, N.H., Ingalls and his siblings gathered for the first time since learning of each others' existence a month earlier.

Ingalls met his four Stevens siblings ? Debbie, Darlene and Dennis, all of New Hampshire, and Bob Kendall of Missouri. It was Kendall's daughter who was responsible for connecting the family. Two siblings from his mother's side also attended: Susan Haley from Maine and Ralph Haley from Brattleboro, Vt.

For hours, the brothers and sisters who may have never expected to meet each other spent the day as they are: a family.

"I was just taken away (by) the love of acceptance of family," Ingalls said. "There was overwhelming love and acceptance. No one was judgmental. As a pastor, it was a very spiritual moment to say the least."

Some of the first questions they had for each other were about their childhood. Ingalls said a clearer picture of their mother, Florence Haley, emerged.

Florence Haley was born and lived in Vermont. Even before she married her first husband, she had gotten a taste of the nightlife and alcohol and never looked back, Ingalls said.

She married Harold Haley, and their rocky marriage produced 10 children, seven of whom are now deceased, according to Ralph Haley, 70, who spent his entire childhood in foster care and doesn't remember ever living with his parents.

"At this stage in my life, I hold no animosity toward her," Ralph Haley said. "Circumstances were a lot different back then. Life was a lot harder back then. I don't think my father was a great husband to her as far as being around."

Florence Haley divorced Harold Haley and remarried, giving birth in New Hampshire to five more children, including Ingalls.

She returned to Brattleboro later in life and lived in a nursing home. When Ralph Haley learned she was back, he decided to go see her. He waited as his mother was wheeled out to see him. Florence Haley looked at her son and said, "It's about time, Ralph," he recounted this week, laughing.

Connecting the dots

With her death, Florence Haley's children have now begun piecing together their parents' story ? as well as their own.

While it was the Internet that got them together, the siblings hope public record searches fill in the gaps.

Since all of the Stevens children were born in New Hampshire, their ability to access their birth certificates in the Granite State is easier after the state in 2005 opened up its records to individuals who were adopted.

Joyce Maguire Pavao, founder and director of Center for Family Connections ? an organization serving families and children involved in adoption, foster care, divorce and other issues ? said under the previous New Hampshire law, at the day of adoption, the original birth certificate was locked and then sealed and a new one was created listing the adopted parents as birth parents. The law was similar in every state except Kansas, where original birth certificates were never sealed.

In the 1970s, the archaic laws began to be targeted when adopted children demanded access to the files, saying it was a civil rights issue.

As the siblings continue to unlock their past, they are comforted in the future and at having found each other. No one has followed in the paths of their parents, Ingalls said.

"The fascinating piece is that we all survived. We're all sober; we're all doing well; we all have great occupations," Ingalls said. "It's just a miracle."

Source: http://www.newburyportnews.com/local/x670924385/Amesbury-pastor-meets-siblings-for-first-time

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