onlyhuman77
Experienced User
Joined: 15 Apr 2008
{Posts: 187 }
Location: Harlem, NYC
|
 Posted: Wed 07 Oct 2009 18:01 Post subject: Man Searches for Family After Being Abandoned as a Toddler |
 |
|
| Quote: |
Kiowa County man searches for family after being abandoned as a toddler
By Mark Anderson
The Pratt Tribune
Mon Oct 05, 2009, 03:38 PM CDT
Imagine growing up in Mullinville, a small town in southwestern Kansas, not knowing how many miles your home might be from where you were born.
Imagine noticing as your self-awareness grows that your complexion and hair are noticeably different from that of your parents, and everyone else in town for that matter, prompting you to start asking questions.
Imagine your dad telling you at age six that he and your mother are your adoptive parents and that they adopted you after you were found abandoned by a farmer in a roadside ditch 13 miles to the east on a chilly Saturday morning in late March of 1966. You were around 20 months old at the time, with nothing but the clothes on your back and sock-less shoes on your feet.
Fast-forward 43 years to the present and you’ll find a middle-aged man with the same dark complexion living in Greensburg still trying to understand how it was he came to grow up as the adoptive son of Bill and Ruth Kaltenbach in Mullinville, wondering who his biological parents were, if they’re still alive and, most importantly, why they left him in that ditch so long ago.
Though more than a few adopted children never bother to track down their natural parents, such peace with the past is more often the exception than the rule. Mike Kaltenbach says today he remembers having “always had the desire” to discover his parentage but failed to pursue the matter after early attempts by the local sheriff’s department, KBI and Bill led to nothing but dead ends. He was also fearful of what his reaction might be once he found his natural parents—fearful the anger and resentment harbored within would spill out upon meeting them.
Ready to find his roots…
Today Kaltenbach is ready to launch his search in earnest, owing to a gradual but lasting change in outlook, the passage of time and more recently, the renewed offer of help of a former babysitter and longtime friend.
Kaltenbach — he was named Michel Jon by his adoptive mom, Ruth, also known as Queenie — admits to having been disrespectful and rowdy both at home and school as he moved into adolescence, saying he was “in the principal’s office a lot more than I should have been.” He also recalls being sent off to spend the weekend with his older siblings who were already grown and gone when he was found.
Having signed up at 17 to go into the Army, he left for basic training in May of 1983. He eventually spent four years in the service, the first two in Europe where he received a weekly letter from Ruth until her death in 1985.
Through the generosity of several buddies he gathered enough cash to catch a flight back to Mullinville in time for her funeral. Both the time in the service and his mother’s death from a long fight with cancer served to “open my eyes” as Kaltenbach remembers it. The experience was the beginning of a realization of how deeply he should treasure his upbringing by Bill and Ruth.
Having grown to appreciate the stable, loving home provided him by Bill and Ruth, Mike had yet to deal with the residual resentment he felt toward the parents who’d left him to fend for himself in that ditch slightly south of the Brenham elevator. His opportunity to do so came as a byproduct of the ending of his first marriage in 1991, Kaltenbach entering an intensive round of counseling that helped him find peace with his natural parents’ apparent decision to give him up to fate and the kindness of strangers.
Once he’d cleared that mental hurdle Kaltenbach was freed up to at least consider finding his folks, or so it must have seemed to Pratt’s Linda Brehm, who lived next door to Kaltenbach in Mullinville. Brehm was 11-year-old Linda Edmonds when Kaltenbach came to live in the small town.
With big sister’s help…
Brehm, who remembers having watched Kaltenbach as a tyke to free up Queenie for various chores, has remained close to Kaltenbach over the years, saying “he thinks of me more as a big sister than anything.” She called Mike “around ten years ago” asking if he’d like her help in locating his parents and/or any natural siblings he might have.
“He said ‘no’ almost immediately,” Brehm said, “and I thought that was that. But then he called me back 20 minutes later and said he did want (to pursue the matter).”
The endeavor was put on hold, however, because of Bill’s objections to Mike finding the parents who’d abandoned him. “We held off then out of respect for his dad’s wishes,” Brehm said.
After Bill’s passing in 1997 the momentum was lost until caring for an ailing mother—who was, ironically enough, also named Ruth—and then a cancer stricken spouse occupied much of Brehm’s waking moments. With the passing of her mom last spring and the full recovery of her husband from a relatively new medical procedure Brehm was freed up to call Kaltenbach once again last June. He indicated an interest in restarting the delayed search.
“I told him we were just getting older and it made no sense to put it off,” Brehm said. “We need to do it before they (parents and siblings) get any older. I told him I’d do whatever I can to help him find them.”
What Brehm has done is to “give him some ideas and encourage and advise him” in how to go about the search. Finding reviewing of old KBI files to be fruitless Brehm and Kaltenbach are both hopeful having a DNA workup by a Wichita geneticist can at least give Mike a sense of his heritage.
Mullinville’s “little brave”…
Identified consistently as a “little Indian boy” and the “little brave of Mullinville” in the 1966 newspaper clippings Queenie Kaltenbach gathered into a scrapbook that serve as Mike’s unique baby book, he today has no clue if his ethnic makeup is exclusively Native American, Hispanic or some combination of the two. Though boyhood and high school photos hint strongly at the former in terms of facial features, the Hispanic possibility seems just as likely today upon casual observation.
Finding his natural parents would, of course, help settle the racial identity matter in addition to the matter of his actual birth date. Kaltenbach was determined to be between 18 to 20 months of age on the appearance of his teeth when found, and had October 11 designated as his date of birth, the same as that of Queenie.
It would also allow Mike to ask his parents the burning question of “why?” “I’d like to know why they left me there,” he said. “Was I left there for dead or to be found? And why there? Why in the middle of Kiowa County?”
Though no one, of course, knows what time of night Kaltenbach was left in the ditch, newspaper accounts from then speak of assumptions the tyke was asleep when laid in the grass, and having spent most of the night in the 30-degree conditions. It was around 9:30 Saturday morning when local farmer Cecil Hubert happened to see the boy sitting in the grass on his way to the Brenham elevator with a load of grain.
Hundreds offer a home…
Hubert recalled the lad being unafraid when approached, the farmer turning him over to then Sheriff Bill Hogan, who immediately developed a consuming affection for the boy, openly expressing his desire to adopt the waif. It was Hogan who first dubbed the lad “Mike.”
Social services policy at that time, however, frowned upon there being a greater than 35-year gap between such a child and the proposed adoptive parent, Hogan being 44 years of age. Kaltenbach was taken the next day by the county welfare worker and placed in the custody of the Kaltenbach’s who as licensed foster parents were in an advantageous position to adopt the toddler.
Hogan’s only and slim chance to adopt Mike was to find his parents and convince them to allow him and his wife to adopt the boy. By the time he’d abandoned that quest in late April he’d received over 250 letters and nearly as many phone calls from over a dozen states begging for the chance to give the “little Indian boy” a permanent home. A smattering of those letters are preserved in the scrapbook Queenie Kaltenbach put together so many years ago, with postmarks from Alabama, California, Iowa, Missouri, Okalahoma and of course, dozens of Kansas towns, both big and small.
Ethnic enigma…
Growing up with the assumption he was Native American, Kaltenbach remembers being the target of racial jibes when a youngster, though the ribbing eased after he reached middle school age.
“I was raised in a Caucasian family in a white town, so I didn’t get caught up in racial (identity),” Kaltenbach recalls today. “By the time I was in high school I was just one of the guys. I still had some run-ins with other guys once in a while, but nothing a punch didn’t take care of.”
Kaltenbach says he can easily “pass for Hispanic when I’m around Hispanics” and has also had Native Americans see a resemblance to them. He remembers in particular driving through Arizona years ago and stopping at Navajo trading posts where he’d get a complimentary ethnic analysis.
“They’d look at my face and say, ‘you could be Navajo, but you lean more toward Cheyenne or Cherokee.’ I don’t know. I tell everyone I’m Heinz 57 and go about my business.” When younger Kaltenbach consistently listed Native American as his heritage when filling out various applications. Today he lists “either Hispanic or unknown.”
“Who knows,” he muses. “Maybe I’m a mixture of both. It’s not uncommon for Mexicans to have come across the border and mingle with some of the Native Americans in New Mexico or Arizona. But if that’s the case, why did I end up in southwestern Kansas?”
An open mind…
Asked one last time if he’s sure he’ll be able to speak with his parents without malice if either or both of them is located in the foreseeable future, Kaltenbach pauses a moment before saying, “I couldn’t be mean or rude to them. I know times were tough back then and I’m not going to know their reasons until they explain.”
And if the reasons aren’t plausible or satisfying?
“I still couldn’t get rude with them,” he said. “I’ve dealt with it and moved on. And besides, my adoptive dad wouldn’t have wanted me to be rude to them.”
As for whether he can envision developing and maintaining a relationship with his natural parents and/or any existing siblings, Kaltenbach again gave a measured response.
“Would my siblings want to have anything to do with me?” he asked. “As for my parents, I’ll leave my mind open as to what they have to say and then use my character and judgment from there as to whether to believe or try to understand what they say.
“If guilt has set in on them over the years they could be either remorseful or not care at all. If that’s the case (not caring) I guess I’d tell them I’ve had a good upbringing and good life and that they handled things the wrong way. If they turn away from me I guess I’ll have my answer.”
Until such a day of reunion occurs, if it ever does, the questions will continue to outweigh the answers for Mike Kaltenbach. That, however, is a way of life with which he seems content. As he said at one point, “If I find my parents, that would be great. But if I don’t, I don’t. I have a wonderful family of my own to enjoy.”
A little help from friends and family
Though Mike Kaltenbach’s first marriage ended 18 years ago, he has two grown daughters from that union as well as a pair of grandsons. The two boys belong to his 21-year-old married daughter Rachelle, who lives in Larned with her family. His other daughter, Shanda is 19 and lives with her stepfather.
Working today for a local oil field service company, Mike is married to Tamera who’s employed at Iroquois Center for Human Development in Greensburg. They have a pair of boys, Garrett who’s 12, and 11-year-old Dylan.
After spending their first 10 years together in Tamera’s hometown of Oakley, the family moved to Greensburg in 2006, just in time to have their home on East Florida destroyed by the 2007 Greensburg tornado. After living several months in Haviland they moved back to Greensburg and currently reside on South Grove Street.
Tamera has also played a role in encouraging Kaltenbach to pursue his parents’ identity, undertaking earlier this year with her sister an effort to get Mike booked on The Steve Wilkos Show, a syndicated program hosted by the former director of security for the Jerry Springer Show.
Upon closer scrutiny of the contractual details of the deal, a scrutiny encouraged by friend Linda Brehm, the family decided to abandon that venue in favor of publicity of Mike’s quest through more traditional outlets such as local and regional newspapers.
Brehm had spoken to Kaltenbach a decade ago about the possibility of taking his story to the then popular television series, Unsolved Mysteries. That idea was laid to rest, however, when it became clear Bill Kaltenbach was uncomfortable with a search for his adoptive sons’ natural parents. For now, the printed word will suffice.
|
http://www.pratttribune.com/news/x1992002505/Kiowa-County-man-searches-for-family-after-being-abandoned-as-a-toddler |
|
'
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in
