Help for Joni in baby search

The father of the child Joni Mitchell gave up for adoption says he wants to help the singing star find her. "Now that (Joni) has gone public with this, I'll do anything I can to assist her in any way," said Brad MacMath, who met the signer at a Calgary art school in 1963. "If I could get in touch with her, I would certainly help her," said MacMath, or Toronto. Mitchell went public earlier this week about her desire to find the daughter, whom she gave up for adoption in 1964.

Mitchell and MacMath - who lived together after falling in love in Calgary - moved to Toronto after discovering the pregnancy. "After we finished our school year, she discovered she was pregnant," said MacMath, who kept the child a secret 30 years. "She wanted to go away from home; she didn't want her parents to know so we moved to Toronto," he said, adding Mitchell never considered abortion. But the pair broke up before Mitchell had the baby, he said. "I left Toronto and moved back to Regina. I sent her money," said MacMath, who returned to Toronto to dicuss marriage with Mitchell, but found she'd already married.

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This past week, Canadian-born singer-songwriting legend Joni Mitchell announced she was seeking the daughter she gave up in Ontario in the mid-1960s. Mitchell was pregnant with the baby while attending Calgary's Alberta College of Art in 1964. Like Mitchell, hundreds of Albertans every year seek to be reunited with their long-lost loved ones who were adopted decades before. Reporter Bill Kaufmann examines the odysseys of some of those searchers and the process leading to reunion - or rejection.
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Calgarian Sherri Flemmer recalls writing cheat sheets for the first conversation she'd ever had with her mother in 29 years of life. No more schooled in the game of reunion was Flemmer's mother, Betsy Magelssen, who had also prepared notes for that fateful phone call last March.

"We'd both written notes in case we were flustered," says Flemmer. "Because she was so nervous and scared, too, it took the pressure off me." After a fruitless search through a private investigator, Flemmer's mother was fround by Calgary trace firm Adoption Options after a week's sleuthing.

A face-to-face meeting occurred last August in Toronto, where nearly three decades of mystery and yearning fell away. "We shed a few tears and I reassured her there were no hard feelings, that it takes a stronger person to want something better for their child.," says Flemmer, who was given up by a poor single mom of 18 - in days when such status was still plagued by a powerful stigma. "It answered questions of who I am, where I'm from."

(Recent photo of Joni Mitchell)

"It's a sentiment driving hundreds of Albertans, and even renowned Canadian-born signer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, to seek to reforge links with long-lost children, birth parents and siblings.

But it's often a road to rediscovery pitted with obstacles, emotional trauma and frustration, say the people involved in reuniting those separated. "Once you make that connection, you can never go back... it's like an emotional roller-coaster," says Colleen Clark, who found her birth families in the past few years and now helps others do the same with the city firm, Imagine

In the late 1980s, an investigator friend of Clark's discovered the whereabouts of her birth mother and two half-brothers living in Edmonton - without her consent. "I remember driving down the street and he said 'By the way, I found your birth mother'... it threw me upside down," she said. Though not emotionally prepared for the news, the physical reunion ultimately proved fulfilling, she recalls. "There's an energy you've never felt before - there are eyes that reflect back your eyes," says Clark.

(Photo of Sherri Flemmer with her birth mother, Betty Magelssen) FOUND AT LAST... Calgarian Sherri Flemmer, left, was reunited with her birth mother, Betty Magelssen.

Earlier this year, Clark made contact with the family of her birth father, a man who had earlier died. "When I set out to find his family, I was ready."

In a bid to facilitate such long-sought reunions, the Alberta government on July 1 cleared the way for birth parents and siblings to benefit from adoption information on their long-lost loved ones, through sealed records released only to licensed search agencies. Prior to July 1, only adoptees, or adult children, had that power. But a veto for those reluctant to reunite is still a determining factor in each case.

One veteran adoptee tracer says Alberta should go further by following B.C.s recent example of opening up government files to all seekers, thus circumventing search agencies. "(The changes) give equal control to both parties, but I don't think it goes far enough," says Linda Edney of the non-profit Adoption Options. "We'd like the government to have open records so there wouldn't have to be agencies like ours - there's still a mentality that there's a need for protection."

While Clark agrees with Edney that searchers have a right to a happy ending, she says middlemen of sober second thought are vital in providing counselling and avoiding family ambushes. "It's pretty scary when you don't know what's on the other side of the door," she says. "What do you do if you discover you're an incest baby, for example?"

Calgarian Lori Pringle suffered a traumatic shock when she finally tracked down her birth mother. "A social worker told me she had committed suicide (partly) because she couldn't handle not knowing what happened to her daughter and son," says Pringle, 27. She says if the system was opened up earlier, it's possible her mother might still be alive. "My grandmother was sure if we'd found her earlier, this wouldn't have happened," Pringle said. But she said searchers shouldn't be shielded from such shocks by government limits on adoption data.

Sherri Flemmer's mother had no reluctance in hooking up with the daughter she'd given birth to in Calgary. Betty Magelssen had sought out her daughter 12 years ago by placing a file with the Alberta government. But it was Sherri's efforts that finally made the connection. "For years, I decided to put it in the back of my mind," says Megalssen, 49, her voice halting with emotion. An Adoption Options agent was the first to contact Magelssen, offering her the option to back out - an option instantly discarded, and a phone rendevous was set up. "When I first talked to her on the phone, I thought I was speaking to my nieve, because the laughter and speech were similar," says Magelssen. The women's Toronto visit led to a reunion with other family members in Vancouver last month - a gathering filled first with uncertainty, then joy, says Magelssen. "Her grandmother already had 10 grandchildren but one more certainly wasn't a problem," she says. The once-mysterious mom has also contacted Sherri's adoptive parents, who had been supportive of her search. "I wrote a letter saying I wasn't a threat to them and that we could possibly share in Sherri's future," she says. Just knowing Sherri has been brought up in a stable, loving home made the anguish of searching worthwhile, concludes the grateful mother. "She's my only child... it's been positive, for sure.

(Photo of Debrah Wright) (Photo of painting)- LONG SEARCH... Debrah Wright, above, is using the internet to try finding her birth mother. Inset: a painting of Wright at age 15.

Separated since the age of three from the woman who gave her life, Calgarian Debrah Wright is casting the 'Net to track down her elusive birth mother. Frustrated by conventional search means, a network of Canadians, including Wright, are resorting to the Internet to track down loved ones lost in the mists of time. "I just gave up searching in 1981," says Calgarian Wright, 48, who began an agonizing odyssey in 1968. "This (Internet) group is amazing, in helping me to reach people and teaching me how to search." The CANADopt website, operational since July, allows searchers who register to list personal information and a detailed description of their stories in the hope that long lost loved ones - often at long distance - will be alerted. The site also theoretically allows users to bypass restrictive search regulations in some provinces and to inform 'Net users about changes to those rules. "People should be allowed to make discreet, confidential inquiries - it's completely voluntary," says Wright. "It's enabled me to search in Quebec with the help of volunteers for free."

Wright says she was given the name Marie Gabrielle Leduc by Catholic nuns at Montreal's Misericorde Hospital where she was born Feb. 6, 1948. Her unwed mother eventually gave her up under stiff societal pressure. "I'm going to find out whether she's alive or dead," says Wright, adding she believes her mother would now be 72, still in Quebec and gies by the name Simone Toulouse. Relatives have told Wright her mother visited her with her adopted family until she was three. "Ive always believed my mother has honored her word that she would not interfere with my life, but I think she's always wanted to find me," she says. And through the 'Net, Wright has tracked down a woman in New Jersey whose personal details indicate possible sisterhood. "I want to touch the hand of someone with the same blood as mine," she says.

The founder of CANADopt said it's fast growth - now at nearly 250 members - if proof provincial access to birth information regulations should be relaxed. "There's a community here that's not happy with the legal situation," said Dec Charge, who's seeking his birth mother.

Fast facts of adoption searches in Alberta

• There are 10 licensed agencies that charge $325 - $350 for a search.
• In 1995-96, agencies accepted 376 requests and completed 171 searches.
• Of those, 168 reunions resulted but there were 28 vetoed or rejected by one of the parties.
• The average search takes about two months.
• One city agency says 52% of its searching clients are women, 48% men.
• Alberta Family and Social Services has a passive adoption registry where people can file and if a loved one also registers, a connection is made.
• The passive registry has about 1,000 people on file.
• The registry led to 313 reunions in 1995-95.

Information courtesy of Alberta Family and Social Services.