Man meets his birth mother after 2-year search

Bill Brenaman learns from her that he is part Cherokee Indian and part Irish.

By JOE HUMPHREY

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 13, 2000

UNIVERSITY NORTH -- A deaf man's long quest to find his birth mother ended with happiness last month, as Bill Brenaman finally got to look into his mother's blue eyes.

Brenaman, whose search was first featured in the St. Petersburg Times in December 1999, met his mother and her family in her Orlando home on July 9.

It was the end of a journey that started in 1998, after the death of Brenaman's adoptive father and stepmother piqued curiosity about his birth parents. Brenaman, 32, isn't sure how the relationship with his mother will advance.

"My birth mother wants to take anything with me very slowly," he wrote in a series of e-mail interviews this week. "How much I'll see her is entirely up to her. I have heard that it normally takes about 12 months for a long-lost birth family member to blend in an established family."

But he's glad he got to meet her and learn something about his past.

"I didn't feel the need to cry or whatever. I felt relieved that the meeting had taken place," he wrote.

A series of events led Brenaman to his mother, starting with the help of an Orlando judge, who unsealed his adoption file and provided him with his mother's name.

Several newspaper articles also helped, he said, giving his story exposure and leading him to an Ontario man who helps adopted people find their birth families.

"He met me at a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop for an interview and exchange of information and papers," Brenaman said. "He simply said that the cost is only a photo for his scrapbook."

The man encouraged Brenaman to join a Tampa adoption support group, and in June the leader of the support group contacted Brenaman's mother, Janice Lynn Clark.

Brenaman said his mother likes to cook and has won baking contests in the past. She has two other children, one of whom will attend the University of Florida beginning this fall. She did not want to be interviewed for this story, Brenaman said.

Brenaman, who lives in the Carlton Arms North apartments off Fletcher Avenue, has since referred his mother to the man who had helped him, in hopes that she can track down her father.

His mother has already given him answers about his heritage, that he is part Cherokee Indian and part Irish. She talked about her life growing up in Clermont, about 30 minutes east of Orlando.

But she answered onlya few questions about his father, whom she characterized to Brenaman as "an attractive man" who was stationed at the now-defunct McCoy Air Force Base.

"My father is a subject that is "off-limits' for now," he said.

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