December 14, 2008 - Our
long-lost brother, now Alex Palo, has been located in Goshen, New York!
Carl Walter Schmidt and his older brother,
Richard August, taken just before he vanished with his new
guardians. Click the
picture for a close-up of Carl at age 2
Here's
what we knew or suspected....up to December 12, 2008
We had been looking for our long-lost
brother and his family for many years. We strongly suspected that Carl's name
had been changed to Alex, Alexander, or Alec. We felt It entirely possible - probable,
in fact - that his temporary guardian, who we were certain had been the only
mother he had known since the age of two - had changed his last name to Feingold...the
maiden name of his new guardian, Sylvia. We did not know whether or not he had
ever been legally adopted. We suspected he had not.
What we did know for
sure that he was born Carl Walter Schmidt
on February 17, 1935, in Oakland, California. Two years later, during
very difficult family times, he was to be
cared for by William John and Sylvia Bernice (Feingold) McGee of either Oakland or a
nearby town. The arrangement was made during the depression and union
strife of the time and it was a year or more before Carl's birth family realized that
the child had completely disappeared. Sylvia, Bill
and little Carl had apparently left the area sometime after
1938-1940.
The only photo that his
biological family possessed was taken when he was two years old,
standing with his eldest brother Richard (who, himself, was adopted by friends of the
McGees) during a
brief visit before Carl and his temporary guardians disappeared. It also
now seems likely that either Sylvia or Bill McGee actually took that
photo.
Richard recalls addressing his brother as "Alex" or "Alec"
at that time - but not Carl. It seemed a near-sure bet,
therefore, that Carl's
name at that point was Alex or Alexander McGee (or possibly Feingold). It also
seemed likely to us that either
he or his descendents reside at or near the family home somewhere in or near New York.
The search
continued - and intensified in late 2007
Carl has a biological sister who was
raised with two now-deceased brothers, Frank and Robert, by their birth
parents, Carl & Loretta Schmidt in the Oakland Bay Area of
California.
Carl also has two living
brothers: Richard August (now John Richard Tippin of Jackson,
California) and Herman Frederick (now Frederick George Davis of Palermo,
Maine), both of whom were legally adopted out of the family but have
since been reunited.
We felt it imperative that we
find Carl Walter. We not only had important
medical history to share, we felt strongly that Carl has a right and deserves to
know not only the true history of his birth family
and early childhood years, but the fact that there were family
out there who love and miss him as well.
After the discovery of another
adopted sibling, Herman Frederick, in July of 2001, several Schmidt family
members renewed the search for Carl Walter with vigor and determination,
eventually enlisting the aid of ALMA (Adoptees'
Liberty Movement Association) and other professional family search
organizations. Now a great many talented and experienced people were on the
"case" - including Carl's sister, Ernestine and her two daughters,
the now re-united Herman and one of his sons - and with the encouragement and
support of many other members of the extended Schmidt "clan."
Those combined efforts uncovered
almost a mountainous assortment of facts, dates, names, places, immigration
documents and, unfortunately, several "dead-end" leads. Once, during
2008, we thought we'd found Carl...but it was not to be. After so much
intensified research and digging...and so many go-nowhere leads, the search
gradually cooled. And eventually chilled to a near halt.
Then...suddenly...
On the stormy Maine evening of
December 12, 2008 - locked in the grips of the worst ice storm in ten years,
sitting in the cold darkness of an extended power failure - The telephone
rang.
"Hello."
"Can I speak to Mr. Fred
Davis, please?" (The voice was that of a woman.)
"Speaking." (Fred
was immediately suspicious that this was to be yet another annoying and
unwanted call from some questionably-legitimate - and possibly totally
insincere - telemarketer seeking entrance into his wallet.)
"My name is Jeanne
Brumbelow and I'm calling from Ellenville, New York..." (At about
that point, Fred was on the verge of saying, "No thanks, I'm not
interested in buying whatever you're going to try to sell me," when this
person named Jeanne continued:
"Mr. Davis...I think you
may be my Uncle!" (From that point, nothing was going to make
Fred prematurely break the connection.)
It turns out that this Jeanne
Brumbelow had been conducting some Internet research on her family and, by
pure chance and to satisfy curiosity, typed Carl Walter Schmidt into
Google. Up popped this site. She immediately recognized the photo at
the top of the page on your computer screen to be an exact duplicate of
one she and her father possess. Within minutes, the worlds of three people
metaphorically flipped completely upside-down!
Pieces of a longtime and
bewildering puzzle began falling into place. That same evening Fred called his
Sister, Ernestine, in California...and her world flipped upside-down as
well. Within days, the incredible and wonderful news had spread all across
several states, phones rang and were dialed, emails nearly collided as they
raced through the ether and, yes, there were even a few tears of sheer
joy.
Fred called his older brother and,
after nearly an hour of filling in some gaps and building new friendships,
said to his wife, Linda, after hanging up the phone, "You know?...I
like this guy!"
Alex Palo of Goshen, New York....Welcome
Home!
Descendents and offspring of Carl
A. and Loretta B. (Hummer) Schmidt...Celebrate! Our family is now complete!
That which
appears here is only the beginning! As time goes by we'll be adding an absolute
treasure-trove of Schmidt family information and history - including dozens
of old family photographs, documents and contributions from any and all of
"us" -- Stay tuned!
Incidentally,
background html codes have been placed on this site to exclude it from
"robots" and Internet "web-crawlers" - meaning that eventually
it will not come up in future internet searches.
