Friday, December 22, 2006

Who is he?


He knows people at the orphanage called him, "Kenneth." But should Tom Vilsack find out more? He told me he doesn't know.

The Gov told me today he read a letter from a nun from the Sisters of Charity in Pennsylvania last Sunday. He almost threw it out thinking it was a charity asking for money near the holidays.

But the letter said the nun found records from the Roselia Foundling Asylum and Maternity Hospital in Pittsburgh. That's where the Gov now knows he was born. Vilsack said his birthmother left him to be cared by the nuns after he was born.

His adopted mother, Dolly Vilsack, told him a fire destroyed the records. Vilsack says he's not mad at her (she and her husband, Bud, are deceased) "She was probably fearful I would be interested and that's understandable."

The nun told him the records could give him information about his natural mother's health, education, age and heritage at the time of his birth. He told me he's never really pushed to find out much about his mother. And he said he now worries it would be disrespectful to his adoptive parents.

He said he'll decide over the holidays about what to do. What would you do?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

By all means....do it. You need to know your medical background, if ro no other reason!

Anonymous said...

WHO TV has been wonderfully balanced and I love John Bachman and Dave Price. However, I am sick of the incessant campaign by the DM Register to inform of us things about Vilsack's childhood most Iowans would keep to themselves. We never heard of stories about Gov. Brandstad like this. Why is this comming out now? Only to prop him up this is why is in 4th Place in the caucus poll. Whether or not we find out his birth mother or not does nothing to fix his mess with the Board of Regents. Nothing to fix the billion dollar deficit in our state's budget. Nothing to fix CITEC. Nothing to fix the racial discrimination complaints in state government and whole host of other things. So if he finds his mother great that is his personal thing but dont bother all of us about it.

Anonymous said...

In response to the second anonymous comment, I think you are just angry.

The Vilsack adoption is not a Republican or a Democratic story. It is a human interest story. How can you not be interested in how this plays out?

A successful man from meager means and how he handles the opportunity confronting him. No matter what he does someone will say he did wrong, but I feel his history has played a large role in the man he is today.

Don't be so angry. We will never go forward in this country with such hatred and division.

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget Vilsack is still our Gov. -- a public figure... That's the reason it's newsworthy.

Also, isn't he running for prez? Why wouldn't we be interested in this?