INTRO (NPR Version):

HOST

Time now for StoryCorps….

Growing up, Amy Marshall loved her adoptive parents but always wondered where she came from. 

As an adult with a family of her own…. she decided to find out. 

She requested her birth certificate from Kansas…where she was born. 

At StoryCorps she told her daughter about the moment the envelope arrived….

AM: I opened it and the first thing I saw was: mother’s name – unknown. And father’s name – unknown.

AM: And then the birthplace was the Bungalow Laundromat.

So I sent an email to the Lawrence World Journal and said was there ever anything in 1964 about the Bungalow Laundromat? And they sent back a clipping. It said that there was a baby who was found abandoned, and the people who found me were coming in to clean that morning at 6am, and they heard a baby crying.

When they found me I was blue. because it was 42 degrees and I was on a concrete floor. 

And there was a dime on the phone and the policeman there said he thought that that was there so somebody could call for help immediately.

They took me to the hospital and the doctor that day, it was the only abandoned baby case he ever worked. And he said, you know, every year I think about that baby, and there’s just something so incredible about somebody thinking about you for nearly 50 years and you have no idea. 

So the next day, I called my mom. And I said well I wanted to tell you, I got my real birth certificate. It looks like I was born and abandoned in a laundromat. 

She got really quiet. And she said, I didn’t want to tell you because we never wanted you to feel unwanted. We wanted you so badly. 

And I’ve never felt unwanted. 

MM: Yeah. 

AM  After 48 and a half years, I went to the laundromat. I did leave a note, and I left a dime and I said to my birth mother just call me anytime. 

I can’t imagine how scared she was. After having you and holding you, I don’t care who you are, you got to be pretty desperate to do something like that. 

And I would really hate to think that she… had any guilt. Because in her way that was the best decision. 

I want her to know it’s okay. I have people who love me. And  I’ve had an absolutely wonderful life. 

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Amy Marshall with her daughter Moira at StoryCorps in Craig, Alaska.