Shelby
County Indiana
Genealogical Society
Please send all correspondence to:
P.O. Box 434
Shelbyville, IN 46176
Dues, $15 per calendar year
Meetings are the 3rd Saturday of each month at 10am
and are held at
Blue River Foundation Bldg
aka Town Hall
54 West Broadway, Suite 10
Shelbyville, IN
Officers, 2008:
President: Susan
Armstrong
Vice President: Rebecca Morgason
Secretary-Treasurer: Bill Ancil
Sponsored by The Blue River Foundation
The Genealogical Society has a library, open by appointment only, in the Blue River Foundation Building. If you are planning a visit to Shelbyville
and would like to use our library, please contact one of the officers listed above.
If you would like to join
the society, please complete the New Member Form.
From the August 1999 issue of "Fore Bear Pa's", vol X, No III, by permission of the author.
“...MAKE SOMEONE HAPPY...”
Charlene Rosenfeld
I have been blessed with wonderful friends, each
of whom has enriched my life greatly. Following is my
friend Carmella Marie HAMMOND. When I think of
Carmella, I think of some of the words to an old song -
“...make someone happy. Make just one someone happy,
and you will be happy too.”
Among the many children born in post-war
Germany of a German mother and American serviceman
father were two children in particular. One was a girl
named Gabriella born 1 MAR 1953 and the other, a boy
named Hans born 16 JAN 1953. Their only relationship
was that they had been left at the same orphanage as
foundlings in Aschaffenburg, GER.
Also in GER at this time was Purple Heart
recipient Sfc Kalman J. VALASTEK on his second tour of
duty and his wife, Alberta, who had been married in 1947
and were childless, having lost four babies.
To occupy her time in Aschaffenburg, Alberta
visited hospitals and orphanages to help care for the
children. One day the aforementioned Gabriella was
brought to the Catholic orphanage and Alberta fell in love
with her. When Gabriella was 10 weeks old, she was
adopted under GER adoption laws by ‘Sarge’ and Alberta
and named Carmella Marie. The adoption was made final
on 18 MAY 1953.
Within months Sarge and Alberta adopted Hans
on 13 DEC 1953 and named him Kalman Steve.
On AUG 1954 Sarge was transferred back to the
states. Through special efforts of military officials and the
American Consulate in Heidelberg, GER, special
permission was granted to take the children to the US.
Under a special ruling of the US Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the children were required to live
in the US for two years before application for citizenship
could be made. Three-year-old Carmella and Kalman
became US citizens in NOV 1956 in Ebensburg, PA near
where the family live. The family moved to Shelby Co., IN
in the early 1960s.
Carmella and Kalman grew up knowing that they
were adopted. When questioned, Sarge and Alberta
would tell the children that nothing was known of their
birth parents and that there were no records.
In OCT 1993 Alberta died: Sarge died in APR
1994.
After her parents’ deaths, Carmella and her
daughter, Alecia, set about the sad task of going through
Sarge and Alberta’s house in preparation of selling it. In
Sarge’s closet they found Carmella and Kalman’s
adoption papers. Armed with her birth mother’s name
(Berta HOFMANN) from the adoption papers, as well as
the city from where Carmella was adopted, Carmella and
Alecia took a quick GER language course and booked a
trip to GER.
In the Aschaffenburg orphanage where she and Kalman
had been adopted, Carmella learned of and was given a
copy of her older birth brother’s (Jon Alan HOGG) birth certificate.
Traveling back and forth between Bamburg and Aschaffenburg,
Carmella learned that Berta HOFMANN had married and American
serviceman, Ellis BOMAN, in 1962 - which meant that
Berta was probably in the US. BOMAN had been born in
AL. When getting a copy of their marriage certificate,
Alecia noticed writing on the back of the original and
recognizing her mother’s name and that of Jon Alan,
asked what they were. The man helping them explained
that they were the names of Berta’s children and their
birth dates. Alecia copied all six of the names and a birth
date for each.
All six of the children had been adopted by
different American servicemen, so each name listed had a
different surname - Jon Alan HOGG b. 5 MAR 1952;
Carmella VALASTEK b. 1 MAR 1953; Stefan LAMKIN
b. 29 SEP 1954; Cecil WILTZ b. 7 JUL 1956; Jim Robert
JOHNSON b. 1 JUL 1958; and Kathleen Lynn
CORNELL b. 19 OCT 1959.
Once back in the US, Carmella did not pursue
hunting her siblings or birth mother as her sister-in-law
was dying of cancer and wedding plans were being made
for Alecia.
In late 1995 a friend of Carmella’s prompted her
to contact Seekers of the Lost to start her search. Giving
them the information she had on Berta <Hofmann>
BOMAN and $200, Seekers of the Lost sent her pages of
variations on names - Betty Bowman, Berta Hofmann, etc.
along with addresses and phone numbers.
Knowing that BOWMAN had been born in AL,
Carmella concentrated on listings from the South. From
the list of phone numbers, Carmella hit ‘pay dirt’ on her
second call!
When Berta - now Betty - answered the phone in
NOV 1995, Carmella asked if she were Berta Hofmann
from Bamburg. In response to, “This is Gabriella,” Betty
said that she had waited over 40 years for her to call. In
the same room as Betty when she received this phone call
were her two daughters (Carmella’s half-sisters) by Ellis
BOMAN who knew nothing of “your sister I gave up for
adoption in GER.”
Carmella and her husband, Jim, drove to MS the
next weekend to meet her new ‘family.’
Betty has told Carmella that her birth father’s
name is James MESSER b. 19 APR `932 which is also
Betty’s birth date. She refuses to give Carmella any other
information on him - middle initial, home state, etc. with
which Carmella might be able to track him.
Betty has a sister, Gunda, who is still in GER and
speaks no English. Betty wrote Gunda about Carmella
and ‘Tante’ (Aunt) Gunda, her daughter, Monika, and
Monika’s husband, Matze, came to the US in 1997.
Carmella and Jim made their second trip to MS to meet
Tante Gunda and loved the GER visitors so much that
they took them on a five-day mini-vacation. Carmella now
calls Monika, who speaks English, and who then relays
Carmella’s messages to Tante Gunda.
Besides the many, many phone calls to MS,
Carmella and Jim made a third trip to visit Betty in MAR
1999 when Betty had a severe heart attack. As Betty has
refused to acknowledge the other five children given up
for adoption in GER, Carmella hoped that Betty would
now finally give her some information on them. She still
refused.
I told Carmella in early 1997 that I would run a
search via Internet for current phone numbers and
addresses for her father’s name and all her siblings’
names. (HOGG is a very common surname and there are
many, many James Messers and Jim Robert JOHNSONS
in the US!) What followed were pages and pages of phone
numbers and addresses which I gave to Carmella. A
search of the Social Security Death Index did not show any
of them dead. At the same time, I send hundreds of
e-mails to those listed with e-mail addresses. In return, I
received hundreds of e-mails but no matches for the exact
people. I also put queries on GER adoption sites, military
sites, Genealogy’s Most Wanted, and anywhere I thought
might prove fruitful.
Carmella has made the phone company VERY
happy the last few years. After receiving the list from me,
she called every number at least twice and some of them
three times - just to question if the person called had
thought of anything that might help her. She has no idea
of what she has spent in phone calls (in case her husband
asks). There has been no luck.
On 1 JUN 1999 I received two short e-mails from
two girls, Leslie and Lisa, saying that their father’s name
is Steven Jan LAMKIN b. 29 SEP 1954 and adopted by an
Army commander in GER. His birth surname was
HOFMANN. They listed his address and phone number.
Could he be the Stefan LAMKIN for whom I was
searching?
With heart pounding, I grabbed my ‘Carmella’
file (which I keep always at hand and on which I work
frequently) and checked the birth date. We had a
brother! “...Make someone happy...”
After notifying Carmella, she immediately called
her newly-found birth brother. Forty-plus years were
covered briefly that night on the phone with so many
questions.
When Carmella called me back that night after
talking to Steve, she kept recalling how many, many times
he had told her that he loved her.
Raised as an only child, Steve had always yearned
to know if he had siblings. From an old picture Steve has
of himself and another boy as tots, Steve has always
thought he had an older brother. He was elated to have
an ‘older’ sister and to know that there are four other
siblings somewhere.
The next day Carmella received a baker’s dozen
of beautiful roses from, “Your Brother, Steve.” Now
they’re BOTH making the phone company VERY happy!
On 4 AUG Steve and his daughter Leslie flew
from CA to IN to meet Carmella. A lawn card
proclaiming, “Welcome Home Steve and Leslie” greeted
them as they arrived at the Hammond home.
Because Carmella and Jim have their entire
vacation time planned later in AUG, Carmella could not
take off work during Steve’s week-long visit. Early
morning, lunch, dinner and evening times were spent
getting acquainted and visiting Carmella’s children and
family. Too quickly the time passed for the brother and
sister.
I had the honor of meeting Steve and his lovely
daughter on their last day in Shelby Co. What a rare
treat to see such unbridled love between brother and sister
- holding hands, touching, telling one another how much
they love the other, trying in one short week to recapture
all those years spent apart. A sweet gentleness seemed to
envelope them.
This fall Carmella and Jim will go to GER for two
weeks to visit her Tante Gunda, her husband Herman,
Monika and Matze and their baby. A special trip will be
made to Aschaffenburg to show Jim where Carmella,
Steve and their four siblings were adopted.
I have now promised Carmella and Steve to find
their older brother, Jon Alan HOGG....
Carmella and Steve have both thanked me
profusely for bringing them together. They obviously
haven’t heard - “make someone happy...and you will be
happy too...”
Note 091799: Charlene found another birth brother of Carmella and Steve's! The family grows....
Society publications for sale
Main Page