Little Mister Victory: Solving an 80-Year Family Mystery

A baby abandoned on one of America's most historic days. A mystery that lasted nearly eighty years. Could modern DNA finally reveal the truth?

On August 15, 1945, while crowds filled Boston Common celebrating the end of World War II, a young woman handed her infant son to a teenage newsboy, slipped him a few dollars, and disappeared.

That baby grew up to become Tina Drzal's father. For decades, his family knew only fragments of the story. Who was his mother? Why did she leave him? Did she ever try to find him? And what happened after that unforgettable day?

Joining Corey are Tina Drzal and Boston historian David Kruh, co-authors of Little Mister Victory. Together, they combined newspaper archives, historical records, DNA testing, and years of detective work to reconstruct one of the most remarkable adoption stories we've ever featured.

This conversation explores:

•  How one newspaper article restarted a decades-long search 
•  Using DNA to solve an adoption mystery from World War II 
•  The emotional impact of inheriting unanswered questions 
•  Why family secrets continue to echo across generations 
•  The surprising discoveries that completely changed the investigation 
•  How compassion can reshape the way we view difficult decisions from the past 

Whether you're an adoptee, an NPE, a genealogy enthusiast, or simply love an unforgettable true story, this episode is a fascinating reminder that history is never as distant as it seems.

Learn more about Little Mister Victory at littlemistervictory.com.

Transcript

Kendall 0:00

What would you do if your family's biggest mystery began on the busiest day in American history? On VJ Day in 1945, as thousands celebrated the end of World War II on Boston Common, a young woman placed her baby into the arms of a teenage newsboy, handed him a couple of dollars, and disappeared. That little boy became Tina Drizel's father. For decades, her family only knew the headlines. Who was that woman? Why did she leave him? Was she ever found? What really happened that day? Joining us today are Tina Drizel and Boston historian David Crewe, co-authors of Little Mr. Victory. Together, they combined DNA testing, newspaper archives, public records, and years of relentless research to uncover a story that had been hidden for nearly 80 years. Along the way, they discovered that the truth was even more complicated than anyone had imagined. This is a story about family secrets, perseverance, and the extraordinary links one daughter went to in order to finish the search. This is a story about family secrets perseverance and the extraordinary links one daughter went to in order to finish the search her father never could. Here's our conversation with Tina Drizel and David Kurt.

Corey 1:21

Hello, David. Hello, Tina. Thanks for joining us on Family Twist. Thank you very much for having us.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yes, thank you.

Corey 1:29

Now, before we get into the book and this story, how did you two find each other? How did you end up working together on this book?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I had written a column about this story that I found totally by accident while researching another project. And it was this story that I had never heard in all my years, researching and writing Boston history and talking to people about their memories of the city growing up. And it was the story of this baby who had been abandoned on the Boston Common on VJ Day. And I wrote that column. It was published in our Boston Globe in 2005. And then three years later, I got an email.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

So I had been searching on an off for many years for more information. The internet was still so new. And then finally in 2008, I had access to more online information. So I started with searches, and I just happened to have the right words to do the right search to come across Dave's article. And so I did my little digging around and figured out where he worked, figured out the naming convention of his email, and just sent an email hoping it would reach him. And an hour later he called me.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Because though I don't think emojis had been invented yet, you know that emoji with the exploding head? When I saw Tina's email, that was me at that moment. And of course, I couldn't wait to talk to her. And we started chatting over the years. And when at the height of the pandemic, I found myself retired, big air quotes. I said it was time to start really diving into this subject and maybe trying to unto solve that mystery of who was that woman who left Tina's dad in the arms of a newsboy back in August of 1945.

Corey 3:32

Wow. That is just wild. Well, Tina, what did you know about the story before you and David connected?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Well, I grew up always knowing that my dad was adopted and I knew he was abandoned. We had one small article that I remember that my grandmother had showed us. So, but I had no idea how big of a story this was until I met Dave and he found other articles. My father had found one or two more articles later on in life. So again, I always knew about it. It was just part of known history, but it's not something we talked about very much. My grandma did not like to talk about the adoption because, in her mind, you know, she gave him everything he needed. So why did he need to know more? It was something that I always it always is kind of weighted on me. You know what I mean? Like I always wanted to know because I know he always wanted to find out. He and my grandmother really gutted heads about it because he wanted to know more.

Corey 4:26

So he was inquisitive, didn't necessarily try to shut things down because you know he really wanted to know. Because that is pretty common, especially when we're talking about people of a certain generation. Like they, you know, we've heard so many times like, here's what I'm going to tell you, and I don't want you to ever bring this up again. Which, like, wow, I mean, what a slap to the face, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Well, that's funny because for the longest time, my father was actually convinced that his adopted father was his birth father. And he had a whole story in his mind, and we get into it in the book, but he had a whole story in his mind that, you know, his father was really his father, maybe he had an affair, blah, blah, blah. And that's not what happened at all. But he was still convinced that my grandmother knew more and she wasn't telling him something.

Corey 5:09

So, David, you're an old school journalist, like I'm an old school journalist. So you know about research and things. Like, how do you dive into this with Tina? Like, what, you know, what tools did you have available at the time?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Before Tina and I met and began to talk about the story, all I had was the microfilm department down at the Boston Public Library, all those newspapers from August of 1945, and I found every single article. I believe we counted maybe 13 or 14 articles, a bunch with pictures. But after August 29th, 1945, there was nothing. There were no articles about did the mother or father ever come forward, whatever happened to the baby. Only through Tina, because she is a blood relative and could get his foster care records, were we able to see in a heavily redacted document, I mean, they must have used several black markers, crossing out last names and towns. But once we had uh that document, once I had that document, and then using the tools that came with these DNA websites, and Tina had submitted her DNA to both major DNA companies, one of which has an outstanding access to birth certificates, death certificates, obituaries, newspaper articles. And once you have that, then it's I won't say it's easy, but uh for an example, when you see an obituary, inevitably it will list uh relatives and what towns they live in, and then it uh just becomes a matter of being a little well, uh you just start diving into phone records and you start making phone calls or send emails, and you hope that people respond in kind, understanding that you know you're asking about a relative, you're asking about a distilled. I found your name through here. Most of the time, people responded. They said, Oh, yes, that was my grandmother who was the nurse in that picture, or that was my uncle who was the officer seen holding the baby. Occasionally you get a few hangups, occasionally you get something even stronger. But overall, people are great because they realize they're part of this amazing story, and each little nugget of information that they give me helps us uh get closer to the truth and ultimately to the answer to this great mystery.

Corey 8:17

So, Tina, I'm assuming the the two DNA companies you used were Ancestry and 23 and me. What year did you take the test?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

So I first took the test, David. It was what was 2000 So you know that show Who Do You Think You Are, right? That that had come out already, and I was watching that all the time. And then I joined a Facebook group called Family Finders. And you know, you're hearing all these stories about people figuring stuff out, but DNA testing at that time was for celebrities because it was expensive, it was very expensive. And then suddenly one Christmas it came about and it was $199, and I said, I'm I'm doing it. So I did that, and it and it told me a few things right away, but it didn't tell me enough because you really have to separate both parents' DNA. Thankfully, my mom was still alive at the time. So my mom went ahead and did her DNA, and that just opened everything. Because 23 and me, you were able to split right away. I could split right away and see who was her side, who was my dad's side, and who I can start contacting. I started sending messages right away to people.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

And also there's the key to Tina being able to dismiss that family rumor that John had somehow, of course, and and you know, you've done a number of these podcasts, so you could probably tell us some stories about what drives people to grasp at such things, as improbable as they are, that could John have actually found somehow this baby in this this again, with all that redaction going on in the documents to be able to find Robert. So having Garvey DNA and having her biological mother's DNA could separate them and see immediately that that was not the case, that Robert was not actually John's son.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

It was funny though, because then Dave and I researching the story and finding out more about my grandfather, because I was born after he passed away. He was quite the character, quite the character. And I understand why my dad thought, yeah, this could have happened. He could have had an affair and then had guilt and came back and said, Well, you know. So I I totally see where my dad was coming from with this. And they actually did look fairly similar. Not not completely, but like just certain characteristics. My dad was convinced that that's why he had the years that he had. He thought it was from, you know, that side of the family and it was not.

Corey 10:55

Going back, you know, even then in the early days of the commercial DNA tests. I mean, obviously thousands, if not millions of more people have taken them, you know, in the last 15 years since you've done this. But so I would imagine the matches were probably lean. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yeah, it was really wild. It's been wild over the years going back and watching it slowly. I mean, first of all, finding out I was Portuguese, I had that was not even on my radar. Portuguese and Spanish was not something I even thought. I thought maybe Greek, possibly. Always thought Italian. There was a tiny bit of Italian. But what's been really cool over the years is watching it slowly change. And that's what I don't think people understand. That doesn't mean that the science isn't right. What it means is that the match is better and it's more accurate the more people you are related to that also do this testing. So the science gets more credible, I guess, or science gets more down, you know, really down to the nitty-gritty, the more people that actually do the DNA.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Right. And one of the turning points in this story came at the suggestion, I think it was one of your relatives, Tina, who said, because you were just on 23 and me at the time, and they said, submit to Ancestry, because they have that many more people in their database. Right. When Tina did that, all of a sudden we had a family tree, still blank spots where Tina's biological grandparents would be. But there were relatives now, again, we could see the names, we could see through Ancestry and through some of the documents that were posted on Ancestry by the people who had submitted their DNA. We could see where these people were living and start to communicate with them and ask them, hey, I I think some of the stories you have, Tina, about your first tentative steps towards connecting with these relatives are some pretty good stories.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Yeah. When I first reached out to the closest match that I had, she's very hesitant to talk to me because she thought that I was contacting her and the connection was due to her father having an affair. Similar story, right? And she just adored her father and she just didn't want to go there. So she just didn't respond. And shortly after she let her access expire and just never really went back. And so this is my dad's half-sister that I found. So my aunt. And at the time I didn't know if she was an aunt, a cousin, but that's one of the reasons why she was so hesitant. So we found another relative kind of within that realm. And that's the one Dave was referring to who, you know, mentioned going to ancestry as well. And so did on my mom's side. I have a relative on my mom's side who's really into genealogy, and she said the same thing. You got to go on ancestry. And it kind of helped me navigate the the tree and the family tree and things like that. So she was hesitant, but having that intermediary relative help her understand that I didn't want anything from her. I just, you know, it was more, hey, I would love to meet you if you'd like to meet me. My father passed away suddenly of a heart attack at 42. And I've been, you know, I've been checked out a few times, but you you can't you want to know family history when someone dies that young, right? Sure. So I was really more interested in things like that. So I think once once she figured out that we knew more than she did, and she would probably want to know some information, that's when things kind of opened up with her and she was willing to talk to us.

Corey 14:28

So, Dave, rewinding to your initial column, what was like who did you have access to or whose names did you have going back to 1945? Was the did you have the newsboy's name? Any of the police involved? Were were any of these people still alive?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

What one of the biggest challenges that I had in finding the newsboy was that in every one of these six Boston Dailies, this newsboy's name was misspelled. Sometimes in in the same newspaper, two different ways. Right. So finding that family was was a challenge. Yes, the happy old trees. He talked often of happy accidents. And so when the 2000 column column was published in 2005, two weeks after the column appeared, there was a letter to the editor to the Boston Globe. And that letter was from a 60-year-old named Charles Spataro. I'm sorry, he was well, he would have been 70 at the time. He was the newsboy. So first of all, now I knew how his name was spelled correctly. And two, I knew where he was living, which was Palm Springs at the time. And three, he was in his letter to the editor providing details that were not in the newspaper articles of August 16th, 17th, and so on. So taking a page from Tina's book, finding his phone number, using the internet. Again, it's 2005 now, and there's enough of these white pages, yellow pages, websites. And I found him, called him. He was amazing. He was so excited to hear about that the story had been written about. And then in our conversation, he provided even more details about that day, what the woman was like, what the baby was like, and then all of the people who, in succession, would end up holding Tina's dad over the course of August 15th, 1945.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, Dave was able to connect me with him, which was just an amazing experience. Being able to talk to him, he was very, very clear of what he remembered, and he was just so thrilled to talk to me. So that was a really cool experience through all of this.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

You gotta get lucky. You gotta hope that the people that you reach want to talk. Either they want to talk or they don't. It was very difficult for people who expressed that initial reticence to get them to really open up. So to have someone like Charles who was willing to be so open and excited, actually, to talk to both of us, that was a gift. It was a real gift.

Corey 17:30

It must have really impacted him that day because we're talking about, you know, 60 years later that he's gonna write, you know, a letter to the globe to sort of clarify things. So yeah, I would imagine if you're willing to do that, you haven't buried it. You're probably willing to talk about it if you're willing to, you know, put yourself out there like that. So through your conversations, and and you can both answer this. What did he recall about that moment when this woman approached him?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Well, he recalled a lot from you know, from the original article, obviously, but you know, he pointed out that the original article said something, right, Dave, they said something that he got ten dollars. He's like, I didn't get $10, I got $2. And he said she was a very good-looking woman and she was very, very well dressed, which is really funny because then Dave and I have recently found out that, you know, one of the things that happened afterwards was it's Mary's brother, right? Mary's brother got a bill, got a bill on his credit card that Mary is had used his credit card to buy some nice clothes. So yeah, he he was able to describe it quite well.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

And and from my perspective, reading the newspaper articles, how the newspapers would this is already a dramatic story, but why some of these reporters or editors felt compelled to make this uh even more dramatic by adding in things like as she handed the baby and placed it in him in the newsboy's arms, she chucked him gently on the cheek under the chin before she walked away. And I asked him specifically, he said that didn't happen. She just handed me the baby 1045, but she handed him the money and she just walked away. There was there wasn't this dramatic, heartfelt moment, you know, and for whatever reason, they felt the need to over-dramatize it.

Corey 19:25

Yeah. Did you ask him or did he provide any information as to why she might have chosen him?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Nope, didn't say anything to either of us, I don't think, did he, Tina?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

No, he did not say that. But you know what, when I'm thinking about that moment, I can imagine because he was staying in that one area, there were definitely police all around the area. And in that day and age, you can't hand a baby to a cop and say, here. You know what I mean? So my theory is because he had that spot where he sold newspapers, so she knew he would be right there and she knew police are gonna be floating around. She took the time to make sure he was gonna be safe. There was enough people around that she took the time to do that. That's in my theory, that's why she chose him.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

And it's interesting that, you know, once he is Tina's dad is handed to this newsboy, this sets off this series of events and occurrences that end up with Robert in in foster care. Because he's being handed this newsboy and uh he's waiting. He thinks the woman is coming back. And when she doesn't come back, the baby started to fuss. That's what babies do. And that's when there were these three young women from Dorchester, they all worked nearby on Washington Street, and they saw this teenage boy holding a baby who was fussing, who was starting to cry. That looked kind of strange to them. And that's when they walked over, they asked him what had happened. He told them the story. That's when one of them flagged a passing police cruiser, and then the baby ended up at the Joy Street station, the police station. Then he ended up at a place called the Temporary Home, which is where they would bring abandoned children and other people in trouble. That's when they make a discovery, which we talk about in the book, that compelled them to have the baby sent to Boston City Hospital. And that's where all of the reporters and photographers from those six newspapers converge because by then that story had gone out on the Boston Police Department's system, and they all knew there was a story that needed to be covered.

Corey 21:48

And at that point, when this was all going on, did anybody come forward saying, I recognize this baby, I think I know who the mother is, anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 21:59

A few days. After the abanimment, there were several stories which we talk about. And for me, as the historianslash detective, these are kind of fun to dive into. For example, there was up in Portland, Maine, the day before, a patrolman had seen a woman carrying a baby, getting on a train heading into Boston on the 15th of August. So he reads the story about the abandoned baby on the next day. He calls Joyce Street Station. The idea that the woman would get on a train in Portland, come down to Boston to abandon the baby. Well, nobody knew this point anything. So the Boston police, they sent a detective up to Portland to look at that. Then there was a woman who had given birth in a hospital on Long Island. She contacted the police because the baby of the woman in the bed next to her in the maternity ward at this hospital, she said, Well, the baby that I saw the picture of in the paper looks exactly like the baby in the bed next to me. Give the police here in Boston credit. They sent a detective up to Portland. They contacted the person down on Long Island. There were other also very tenuous leads that they dutifully followed up, but of course, they they none of them came to fruition.

Corey 23:27

When does DNA start coming into the picture, starting to shine a little bit of light on who this woman was, what her motive was? And I know that there's another shocking revelation that I have no idea what it is. So how let you guide us into that.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah. Well, the the DNA, once I got into 23andMe and that first connection came up of my dad's half sister, Jennifer, that's where everything kind of went, huh? Wow. Okay. Because then her background and her name wasn't really matching to everything else we thought. So her background and her name, and again, we had that intermediary because she didn't want to talk to me at first. So that intermediary said, Well, you know, Jennifer thinks most of her family comes from Albania. Well, her dad's family came from Albania. But she knew her mom's family was Portuguese. She just didn't allude to that. Because again, she was convinced that I was contacting her from her dad's side of that connection. But 23andMe, the the DNA testing is what really opened up more connections because that's where I figured out we were Portuguese. And that's why I started to see I like I saw the name Madeiros and I saw all these other names. And the cool thing with 23andMe is you can click on map and you can see where different relatives were. So you know, you can see the Azores and see them all throughout Europe. So that was sort of like, huh. And so I messaged other people too. I said, Hey, have you ever heard of this story? Have you ever heard of this? So there's many second and third cousins that did not hear of the story, uh in Portugal at least. But it kind of goes back to Fall River.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yeah, and so the exposing of this big secret, which, you know, is frankly by the book because it's it's it's amazing what happened next, which was you know, I'm a historian, I'm a researcher, but I'm not a genealogist. And trying to uh figure out all of these numbers and how they uh interconnected, something I learned about uh these uh two big powerhouse DNA companies is each of them has what I call their own secret sauce, they have their own way of analyzing your relationship to somebody else. So this woman who Tina's talking about we originally saw as Robert's sister. Turns out she was his half-sister. Well, that changed all the math and we got lucky, and I always and again I come back to Bob Ross and the happy accidents. It was the posting on a website looking for information about one of the foster homes in which Robert was cared for. He was in foster care here in Massachusetts for five years, three different homes. Finding out about one of those homes, somebody, I was not getting any good answers, and someone said, you know what? Why don't you post on the Brocken, Massachusetts Facebook group? Because that's kind of the big town on the south shore of Boston. So I did. Not only did we find or somebody see the post who knew somebody who knew somebody who actually knew those foster people and told us some terrific little stories, but a woman saw it a woman named Nikki Brown. She is a South Shore mother of two who is also a very skilled genealogist. And what she saw was we had a first name of the foster mother of Cora. And Nikki says in her email to me, I noticed your post because Cora's an unusual name, and that is my daughter's name. And I saw the story of Tina's dad, and I want to help you find the answer. She said, I need to know the answer. And this woman was all in, and she is the one who did the math, cut through all that secret sauce, and was able to come up with this, you know, and and so that's you know, that that what that all happened because these series of happy accidents. And again, Nikki's the one who really unlocked this this story.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

And unlocked is a good word because Dave actually, when she first showed up, in fact, she still shows up as cousin. So she was she wasn't initially it said the percentage, the way they worded is she could be this or that. And the way they still word it is she could be your cousin or she could be your half aunt or half aunt. And then they give you percentages and things like that. But that kind of alludes to the science is there, the science is real. It's all about those connections and who else updating their information. So we all know that she's not my cousin or second cousin once removed or anything like that. But 23A me doesn't know that for sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Right, right. I mean, we've been talking all this time about the mother, but there was a whole other bunch of things revolving around who Robert's father was. You know, he's just as responsible for Robert existing, and as Tina points out many times in our book, let's not forget his role in this. And again, we got lucky because one of the grandchildren over on Robert's father's side was a woman named Jenny. No obviously no relation to the other Jennifer we've been talking about, but this this woman, Jenny, who's basically that family's historian, she was able to help us l look at the the histories of these four brothers. Because as it turns out, we do not know which one of those four brothers was Robert's father, but we do know where they were, what they did during World War II, and more specifically, we have a pretty good idea where each of them might have been in October of 1944, which math and science tells us that's when Robert was conceived. And so we present that story as well in our book.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, and it was interesting too. I mean, the only thing we can kind of just from the numbers, as Nikki helped us explain, we can pretty much figure out who isn't the father, and that is Jenny Moller's father, is very unlikely to be the father just on percentages and just from the stories and history that she shared with us. So it's it's most likely one of the three remaining brothers, but we still don't know. And we and we joke about this in the book, and we've joked about this. Like we all have who we think it is, and then I'll go back and I'll read something. I'll go, yeah, I don't know now. Now I'm wondering if it's this one instead. Jenny has sent me some pictures, and it's really cool to look at these pictures from the 60s that look so much like my father. Her brother Matt looks so much like my oldest son. We were actually connecting on Facebook Messenger the other day because she had posted something on Facebook, and I said, Holy cow, look at this picture of my son. I said that they just same body type, same structure, and everything. So you know, that's one we might not ever unravel. Well, we probably will never unravel that one. Which which because it looks like that brother was the only one who had kids. So that's the only reason why we can kind of roll him out. And from what we can tell, none of the other brothers had well, obviously one of them did, but none of them have other kids that we can match that DNA to.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

And I'm sure this is a story that you have heard during these podcasts. It's likely he that brother does not know, you know. We like to think, certainly Jenny likes to think that who whichever of her grand either was grandfather or her three great uncles, they they would have done the right thing. I mean, but we we just don't know. Right.

Corey 31:54

Right. I would imagine like, well, how old were we were those brothers like military age, like were you know, they like older teenagers, you know, young twenties or it's this is one of those typical families where they were all born very close together.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, yeah. They were all born within like one to two years of each other.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, well, World War II, you know, part of the research is what was draft age. So I think it was 18 to something like 42 or 44. If you were in that upper range and you were the sole support of your family, you ran a business. If you were in a profession which supported the war effort, one of the brothers worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. And so it was a critical job to get people up and down the East Coast. He worked on on the uh the railroad that ran from Washington up to New York. So, you know, we we as I say, we know in general where they were, what they were doing. We know one of them was in the Navy, one of them stayed at home, one was an MP, and the other was we lost the fourth brother.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Which one was it one involved in in food service, right? One was involved in or no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

He ran he got a deferment because he was the sole supporter of the family. So but again, you know, unfortunately, one of the things that we just simply will never know is that because unless somebody finds a document or finds a diary or something, it's just it'll have to remain one of those holy mysteries.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Which is kind of the premise of my idea of another book, is is I I've been calling this the hallmark version of the story. I'd love to write sort of the the fictional love interest story version of this. Of, you know, in my mind, I've always had stories in my mind, and and you know, over the years I was convinced that they were, you know, teenagers or maybe, you know, someone who had met before, and then maybe they meet a couple times a year because it's the only time they can see each other. I've got all these different scenarios in my head, and that's what I'd like to write next is what if it happened this way?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

I have a question for you because you have been how long have you been doing these podcasts? We've been doing this for almost four and a half years. So you've undoubtedly heard dozens and dozens of stories of adoptees and I guess people who have adopted. Yes. So the idea that, as Tina is doing, trying to envision that scenario, that people talk about that wondering of how did my biological parents get together? Do you find that people do a lot of that sort of speculating?

Corey 34:59

Because I think we're talking about going back to a certain period of time where unless somebody, you know, had like a deathbed confession or something like that, you know, something out of the ordinary where things are just coming from unexpected sources, there's always going to be that mystery. You know, because could potentially be for family members and stuff. You know, sometimes they do find out. There's just something, you know, something pops up. A lot of the times I think it's it it's kind of in the falling into the same situation that you're in team that you you know, you might not never know who he was.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

I really don't think he knew that.

Corey 35:35

Yeah, and I think that's the case a lot of the time, you know, is that you know, they didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

And she might not have even known how to find him or if it was, you know, the right thing to find him. So you know, I find that interesting. And, you know, I mean, people on her side knew, obviously, people on her side knew. I I found it interesting over the years, especially Dave, with your article when you first wrote that article, that other than Charles, that no one else said something. Like they kept that locked down tight in that family. It was not discussed, which I find really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

The only person to respond to the article was Charles Spitaro.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

It was just something they did not speak of.

Corey 36:18

Yeah. Have you been able to figure out as to why she would choose a stranger to give her baby to, thinking that this was going to be the best opportunity as opposed to a friend or a family member?

SPEAKER_01 36:32

I my theory is so it was a large family already, and they're all living together, as as many ethnic families did then. She already had two children. She gets pregnant with my father. That was probably, oh heck no, from the family. You better figure this out. And the choices for women in those days were very limited. I mean, birth control, obviously limited, but then choices when you were in this situation were so very limited. So I I feel like she was pushed against a wall and she just had no choice. And she had to make, she had to do something, but she had no other choice.

Corey 37:09

I definitely want people to check out the book, but is there a without giving away too much, is there something you can tease to entice people to want to find out what the big shock is?

SPEAKER_01 37:19

I don't know, Dave, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

It's a science-based conclusion that would ultimately result in a response, finally, from Tina's cousinslash half-ant, who had been reticent all those years to respond to Tina. But when we could conclude scientifically that it was not her father, but her mother, whom had had the we'll call it an affair, and and delivered Robert out of wedlock, that this woman was willing to talk and have this conversation with Tina. Tina does a great job in the book, near the very end, talking about that conversation, which could not have been easy for this woman, even though it turns out it was her mother, not her beloved father. But in that conversation, she reveals things about her mother and her relationship with her mother that make it go, okay, I get it now. And that's the thing ultimately that I think Tina does such a great job in that last section of the book is talking about, as she just did earlier, the options that were and were not available to women at the time, the very difficult decision that this woman had to make once Robert was born. And yet, and Tina, talk about the effort she made about ensuring that Robert would be in a good place or at least the best place possible.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Right. And that's the thing, too, is one thing we touched upon in the book is it doesn't sound like this her first marriage for the first two children was a very happy marriage. There was some history of violence that's been recorded. And again, for women in that era, you you know, when you're in that situation, you don't just get to pack up and leave with two kids because it's going to be nearly impossible to support those two children. That's why she was still living at home while her husband was overseas. So I think her making sure that he was safe was a way of making sure that, you know, even though she couldn't have him, she wanted to make sure this child would be cared for. So she took that thought and that she made a point of doing it the best way she possibly could, which I really admire. And it's interesting too. When I when I did talk to my aunt, Jennifer, my dad's half-sister, the first thing she said to me was, I knew my mother was hiding something. She said she always knew her mother was hiding something. And her mom had that like a like a sadness to her that there was something she just could never talk about. And unfortunately, before all of this happened, or she passed away before all of this happened. My father passed away before all this happened. And Jennifer and I kind of connected on that. We both lost our mothers very, very suddenly. And that was really hard, you know. It's it's been nice knowing that I was able to do this for my dad, but also kind of going, God, I wish but it's so great to still have him here and around for this because he would just gotten the kick out of me being just the penguin. My nickname was penguin because I'm stubborn and it's a whole thing. And then he would have just been so impressed that I just didn't let up. I'm like a dog with a bone. I mean, there were times where I was like, forget it, I'm just gonna write the fiction hallmark version of this because we're just never gonna get anywhere. But you know, I I feel like this weight has been lifted off of me, and I did write by him.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

And look at all the relatives, the cousins, and the aunts, and that you now have.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

I've even witnessed, I mean, I was there one dinner with you and Pam. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

I got to see pictures, pictures of my grandmother I hadn't seen before. The last known picture of her, she's pregnant with my dad. And oh my gosh, when I have the my hair goes wild, it's Portuguese hair, I look a lot like her. So he he does have another half-sister who is still alive from Mary's first marriage, but she doesn't want to meet me because her niece said I look too much like her, which I understand. But it's it's kind of neat seeing that connection. You know, you see the ears, like I know where my ears come from. Yes, we know where my ears come from, so which is why I keep them hidden. But and now I know where the hair comes from.

Corey 41:45

Dave, going back to your question about the podcast, like I think the thing that we find, and that's why we'd start the tagline to our show, is that family secrets are the ultimate plot twist because that's what really, especially with these adoption stories, that's what kind of ties everything together is the secret, you know, and and how damaging they can be, not only to the adoptee or the adoptee's children or grandchildren, but also the people who know and have to keep this, you know. I'm I'm thinking of a not that long ago episode where everybody in the family knew except for the adoptee. And it was like, because mom said, you know, take it to the grave. And it's just to me, it just seems so unfair. And and so the the trauma that you're you know, that's it's generational trauma that just keeps going and going. And and you know, we've experienced that, you know, firsthand with, you know, Kendall's uh adoption story. And and there are fans, you know, the secrets are still trying to be kept, you know, in his story, even though we've been doing this podcast for four plus years and we told his story and you know dozens of times. But and not everybody gets that that resolution, you know, that sense of peace.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Yeah. My father, because he was so convinced that there were secrets that the family was keeping, he, as I got older, I noticed there was such a shift in his relationship with my grandmother. It was very tense many times. Because anytime we went to visit, he would ask her something or he'd go searching for something and wanted to look through, you know, a family Bible and see records and things like that. Because he was just convinced that there was information out there that people weren't sharing. And that's exactly it's generational trauma because he was just convinced of that.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

But but the fact is there they didn't have any information. It wasn't at a mean spirited that they simply didn't know. And it so when you don't know, you know, why bother continue to to bring it up?

SPEAKER_01 43:42

That's my father's the original penguin, that's why.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

And listen, you know, I I'm still flapping my wings too and not getting off the ground. It's the same thing with the researcher. You give us a mystery, I want to solve that mystery, but to pick more. But I think very big pointed is all the the emotion that went into and the thought process, you know, and again Tina writes about this in the book that they really ultimately this woman was just trying to do what was best for this child, for Tina's dad. And it really ended up being a story where he has a family, he served our country, he was successful, he was a you know, really I I I'm I'm just sorry I never got to meet him because everything the stuff I've read that he's written and the stuff that I heard he's done, he seemed like a really interesting guy. And you know, it's it's I I echo what Tina said. It's just a shame that you know he wasn't around to find out, you know, the story and maybe let go of I don't know what Tina, do you think he had any anger towards Mary?

SPEAKER_01 45:01

I don't think he would. No. Yeah, I don't think so either. I think he would have understood the time and the situation. Because remember, they got pregnant with me. My mom was 17 and my dad was 20, about to be 21. So, you know, I think he would have understood it from from that side. Um you know, and it and it's great that you say that uh uh about him because I'm still friends with all many of his friends that are still around. I'm friends with them on Facebook and I still connect with those people. Um so yeah, I think um, and it's funny because his one friend Sue, um, who I've connected with, she lives in Florida, and um, you know, she was one of the first ones to write the review that was in, and she was just so tickled by this. And she said, you know, your dad would have been so proud of you, and your dad, I don't he wouldn't have been angry, he would have understood.

Corey 45:51

Well, I think it's great that you've been able to not only solve the mystery but but get a sense of peace out of this. So, you know, congratulations on the book and good luck with the Hallmark version, the fiction version.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

It's easier, I don't have to do as much research.

Corey 46:07

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

I just gotta decide what scenario I want.

Corey 46:11

Right, just let your imagination run wild. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Purely by chance. While going through those newspapers, I read a two-line item in one paper saying the Army Signal Corps was in town yesterday filming the celebration. And then again, back to that emoji of my head exploding, down into the National Archives. We got that movie, we got it digitized, we've posted it on our website, LittleMrVictory.com. And we encourage people, please come by, visit LittleMrVictory.com. There's that movie, there's other documents and photographs, and you know, I'm I'll always be grateful, Tina, for letting me be a part of this story. It's it's been, as you I think you wrote in the book, it's been a hell of a ride.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Yeah. It's been quite the ride.

Corey 47:06

Well, and there's that continued fascination with that time period in World War II, you know. I'll just put it out there, you know, Tom Hanks, go check out the website because he's so fascinated with World War II, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Sorry, the baseball story that's on there too.

Corey 47:20

Um my gosh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Connection to 9-11, because I was working for United on 9-11, and my dad used to work for United.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

And there are people, there was one of the one of the people we interviewed when we found a daughter of one of the other nurses who had been photographed holding Charles. She had only recently discovered that she was adopted. She did not know. And so and we have a couple of instances in the book where people we had reached out to and they said, Oh, yeah, by the way, I have my own adoption story that I that and at least in Robert's case, he knew, but these people had no clue. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

And it's funny, you said Tom Hanks, read the book, but me, I'm thinking, Emerald, read the book, Emerald Agassiz, read the book. Your people are from the same place as my people from Fall River. Maybe someone in his family knows something more. You never know.

Corey 48:16

Thank you so much for share your story. Thank you so much for having us.

Kendall 48:22

One of the things Corey and I talk about often is that DNA can answer a lot of questions, but it cannot answer every question. Sometimes it gives us names, sometimes it gives us context, and sometimes, as Tina and David discovered, it gives us enough pieces to finally understand a story that's been incomplete for generations. Little Mr. Victory is about much more than solving a mystery. It's about honoring the people at the center of it, recognizing the impossible choices many women faced decades ago, and understanding how one family secret can echo through generations. Tina and David, thank you so much for trusting us with this remarkable journey. If today's episode resonated with you, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, leave a review, and share it with somebody who enjoys true stories that are every bit as gripping as fiction. And remember, family secrets are the ultimate potatoes.