Patty's Journey: From Orphanage to Adoption and Reunion

I've now read several nonfiction works by adults who were adopted as children and later reunited with their birth parents. Patty's Journey is very good. The book is well-written, though Donna Scott Nordling's prose is not nearly as compelling or literary in quality as that of Betty Jean Lifton's Twice Born. Nor does this book offer the same insight into an adopted child's sense of being different, and lost. Nevertheless, Nordling's is a very important story for the pain it exposes of children who were torn from their families by unfeeling courts making little or no attempt to keep the biological families together. She and her siblings were taken from their mother after her father stole some radios during the Depression to try and support them; for reasons unclear, her mother never fought to regain custody. Unlike some adoptees, Nordling's adotpive family offered her a genuine love, despite making some typical mistakes. And in her case, sadly, that family closeness and the years of separation made it impossible for her to renew the warmth she had once had with her biological family. For all adoptive families, birth families and adopted people, this is a very enlightening and important book.

This is a wonderful story of a child's resilience and determination. Written by a woman of my era and from my own community, it reflected the experiences of my own mother who also spent time in a children's home in the 1920's. The richness of her story and the details of her experiences were humbling and thought provoking. I was deeply moved by her sharing of the culture of the period...one that surely shocks parents of today who have democratized their family structure and have given their children voices not heard during Patty's journey. Thank you for giving a voice to all those children whose voices were never heard. Bravo Patty!

I adored this book about a little girl's determination to have as normal as life as she could (whatever normal means!). It is always interesting to me how much she, and children like her, love and adore their parents, and yet when the going gets tough for the parents they dump their kids, in this instance in an orphanage. I can hardly believe adults are this cruel, but some of them are. I realize the conditions of the Depression were terrible, but I have also read about many, many families who stayed together and somehow made do. Not here. (Read: Little Heathens by Mildren Armstrong Kalish.) Patty, soon to become Donna, is resilient and hopeful and sad and ambitious all at once. She is a survivor. She apparently harbors no hostility about any members of her birth family or her adoptive family. Indeed, noting the glaring differences in her adoptive family, she is so kind to them, both while they were living and now that they are gone. I loved reading about her and especially about her love story, which has endured for many years. I believe her husband and the love they have shared since their teen years had a huge part in helping this brave girl learn how to live and to love and therefore become an interesting, sweet, kind, and relatively content woman.

I was adopted in the 70's when the process was very different from the one described in this book- but as I read Patty's Journey- I felt such a connection that I was often moved to tears. This book is about what it is like to know-and to not know. She reminds us of how adoption was and reminds us of how it is.

I cried and marvelled at the resiliance of a child's spirit. I was touched by the deep loyalty siblings showed for each other. I wanted to tell Patty's adoptive parents to be careful, to nurture the empty places, to fill up the gaps with affection, not to ignore the sadness. I vowed to let my children be who they are, not an image I created of who they should be. I was sensitized to the stigma of not living with a biological family in the '40s. I was touched by the faith and personal strength that sustained Patty. How can we learn from her experiences in a political era that considers rebuilding orphanages? We should read Patty's journey for wisdom.