The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me
This is the inspiring and "page-turning" (Booklist) true story of a man who discovered that he had been kidnapped as a baby--and how his quest to find out who he really is upturned the genealogy industry, his own family, and set in motion the second longest cold case in US history. In 1964, a woman pretending to be a nurse kidnapped an infant boy named Paul Fronczak from a Chicago hospital. Two years later, police found a boy abandoned outside a variety store in New Jersey. The FBI tracked down Dora Fronczak, the kidnapped infant's mother, and she identified the abandoned boy as her son. The family spent the next fifty years believing they were whole again--but Paul was always unsure about his true identity. Then, four years ago--spurred on by the birth of his first child, Emma Faith--Paul took a DNA test. The test revealed that he was definitely not Paul Fronczak. From that moment on, Paul has been on a tireless mission to find the man whose life he's been living--and to discover who abandoned him, and why. Poignant and inspiring, The Foundling is a story about a child lost and a faith found, about the permanence of families and the bloodlines that define you, and about the emotional toll of both losing your identity and rediscovering who you truly are.
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Community Reviews
I'm always drawn to stories of people searching for their real identity in some form or other. This one is truly amazing.
The author always had this feeling that he didn't belong in his family. Something seemed off. At 10 years old, while rooting around in the basement, he comes across newspaper clippings from 10 years earlier, when his mother had given birth to a baby boy. She was in the hospital holding and feeding her baby, when a nurse came in and said she needed to take the baby. She thought it was strange that she would interrupt a feeding but she handed over the baby...and never saw him again. Young Paul asks his mom about this when he finds the old stories and his mom tells him, well, he was found a few months later and everything turned out fine.
But all was not fine. Paul always had the nagging feeling that there was more to the story. It wasn't until 40 years later, when he had a daughter of his own, that he decided it was time to find out the truth.
The author always had this feeling that he didn't belong in his family. Something seemed off. At 10 years old, while rooting around in the basement, he comes across newspaper clippings from 10 years earlier, when his mother had given birth to a baby boy. She was in the hospital holding and feeding her baby, when a nurse came in and said she needed to take the baby. She thought it was strange that she would interrupt a feeding but she handed over the baby...and never saw him again. Young Paul asks his mom about this when he finds the old stories and his mom tells him, well, he was found a few months later and everything turned out fine.
But all was not fine. Paul always had the nagging feeling that there was more to the story. It wasn't until 40 years later, when he had a daughter of his own, that he decided it was time to find out the truth.
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