PORT ANGELES — A 17-year-old Port Angeles girl in 1946 gave birth to a baby boy in San Diego and he was whisked away from her sight the night of the birth.
That son, named Sheldon Crane III by his adoptive parents, was reunited with his biological mother, the now 80-year-old Juanita Dobrowsky, at William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles on Tuesday.
Dobrowsky was rendered nearly speechless by meeting her son for the first time since she gave him up for adoption.
“Well, he sure does look like me,” she said.
During the half hour the family spent at the airport before continuing home, her smile never faded, and her eyes never left his face.
Crane said it was the completion of what he’s wanted his whole life.
“I wanted what everyone wants — to know who my mother was,” he said.
“A lot of people don’t even realize they have that because they grow up with their mother.”
Months of searching and years of wondering led to a nervous February call when Crane spoke to his biological half-sister, Juanita Bachman.
Bachman, too, had been wondering since she was 12, when she discovered adoption papers tucked away in her mother’s attic.
Searching on and off
She had been searching on and off her entire adult life for the older brother she never knew.
Dobrowsky was 17 and living in Port Angeles when she met a soldier stationed at the then-Fort Lewis, Bachman said.
A whirlwind romance produced the pregnancy, but the soldier — Dobrowsky said she didn’t want to publicly reveal his name — had already shipped out to fight in World War II, Bachman said.
During the time she was pregnant, Dobrowsky married Andy Dobrowsky, who was her husband until his death two decades ago.
But when her husband said he couldn’t deal with a child who wasn’t his, Dobrowsky agreed to give him up for adoption.
“I made up my mind I wasn’t going to foul everything up because I wanted the baby to have a mother and a father,” she said.
“I came from a broken home, and I didn’t want that for my baby.
“I was really hoping he would have two really loving parents.”
Crane, born Nov. 16, 1946, was given to a family in California and spent most of his childhood in Saratoga, Calif.
Four years later, Bachman was born to the Dobrowskys and two more siblings, Andy and Mary Ann followed.
Son a secret
The baby that had been given up was always kept secret until Bachman discovered the papers.
“Even then my mom denied it,” Bachman said.
“She told me she didn’t know where those papers had come from.”
Once Bachman was an adult, she began searching for her half-brother.
“I took her out to a place in Freshwater Bay and told her I had something very important and that I was doing a search, but I needed more information,” Bachman said.
“She broke down and told me how hard it was.
“It saddened me, but that impact has lead to me adopting two children myself.
“I came to know my mother better, knowing that she had given him up for the better of the baby.”
The family had nothing of the baby except for the papers and a lock of his hair.
Dobrowsky said she thought she had kept the incident secret.
“Well then I found out they had gone through my papers — the silly, little rats,” she said, laughing.
Still the incident was little talked about until Crane managed to find the family through a locating agency.
“When I told her he had found us, she went through the denial again and said it must be a mistake,” Bachman said.
“But I told her there was no way to deny it because she had already told me once.
“I told her that he was not angry — because that was her big fear, that he would be angry at her.
“But he is so excited to have siblings and to know his mom is still alive.”
Bachman said she already feels like a sister to Crane as do her siblings, but there is one difference.
“My mom always said it was strange that she had three dark-haired, hazel-eyed kids and not a single blue-eyed blonde one like her,” Bachman said.
“Well as it turns out Sheldon is blue-eyed and blonde hair.”
Dobrowsky said she was nervous as the time approached to meet her long lost son.
‘Glad he’s found me’
“I’m glad he’s found me,” she said.
“He seems to be excited, and this is what he wants.”
Crane has known he was adopted since about sixth grade, he said.
He began passively searching when he turned 20 and entered the Army, but privacy laws and roadblocks left him stumped.
When his adoptive mother, Alita, died a few years ago, he began a more aggressive search.
Although his adoptive dad, for whom he was named, died when he was young, his mother’s third husband, Alfred Westphal, served as his father.
“He always said he was going to adopt me, but it never did become a legal thing,” Crane said.
“But he always thought of me as his son.”
Ultimately Crane ended up in Colorado Springs, Colo. after hopping around the country a bit in the military — and after a tour to Korea during the Vietnam war.
Four children
He married his wife, Arlette, and with her raised four children.
But he never forgot about searching for his biological family.
“I’d think about it, but then you never know if your parents would be alive or if they have lives and would want you to find them,” he said.
A close childhood friend, Antoinette Romeo, who has been his best friend and confidant since growing up in Saratoga, Calif., encouraged him to search out his family.
“She finally pushed me to do it, so I went through a locator service and from there it went really fast,” he said.
“They found my brother and then my sister and got me in contact with them.
“And we’ve been talking almost every day since then.”
He phoned ABC News and used their locator service to help him.
“Finally they called and asked if I was sitting down,” he said.
“I wasn’t sure if that would be good news or bad — but they said they had found my brother and my sister.”
Crane plans to spend two weeks getting to know his relatives before returning home.
“This time, it is just me coming up,” he said.
“This first time I wanted it to be private — but I hope to introduce everyone eventually.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
