{"id":3966,"date":"2007-08-08T21:32:03","date_gmt":"2007-08-09T04:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2007\/08\/08\/3966.html"},"modified":"2023-08-13T23:49:46","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T06:49:46","slug":"post-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2007\/08\/08\/post-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabrielle’s story"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

On December 1, 1997 (almost ten years ago), I received an odd piece of email, from someone I didn\u2019t know, someone in Germany.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The email read [lightly edited]:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 12:14:31 +0100\r\nTo: logos@kith.org\r\nFrom: [email address removed by Jed]\r\nSubject: Attn. Jed Hartman\r\n\r\n*Please don't trash this.  It is NOT junk mail and is very\r\nimportant.*\r\n\r\nI am looking for someone named Peter Hartman and you\r\nindicated on your page that your father is P.H. and working\r\nas a substitute teacher in Tacoma.  The man I'm looking for\r\nlived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco,\r\nCalifornia in the 1960's and knew Penny P-- [last name\r\nremoved by Jed for privacy]. Attached file is a photograph\r\nof him from around 1966.\r\n\r\nThank you for your time and please accept my apologies for\r\nthis intrusion if this is not the P.H. I am seeking.\r\n\r\nMany Thanks.<\/pre>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\"Peter<\/a>
Peter, maybe circa 1966<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
That was a little odd already. It got odder when I opened up the attached image file and found a copy of a grainy black & white photograph that might or might not have looked like my father, Peter, 30 years before\u2014I couldn\u2019t tell for sure. (The photo here in this entry is a better version of that photo.)<\/p>\r\n
I wrote back to the person in Germany:\r\n
\r\n
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 23:55:58 -0500 (EST)\r\nFrom: Jed Hartman <[...]>\r\nTo: [...]\r\nSubject: Peter response\r\n\r\nHi.  My father Peter did indeed live in San Francisco in the\r\n1960s; I'll see if he knew someone named Penny P-- (though\r\nhe's told me he had a fair number of friends back then whose\r\nnames he never really knew).  I looked at the photo and\r\ncan't tell whether it's my father or not; at first glance it\r\nlooked a lot like pictures of him from that time in some\r\nways, but on closer inspection it looks pretty different.\r\n\r\nBefore I proceed further, though, I'd like to know more --\r\nwho you are, why you're looking for him, why it's \"very\r\nimportant,\" and so on.  I try to protect the privacy of\r\nfriends and family; I'm reluctant to give out any more\r\ninformation without understanding the situation better, and\r\nI have to admit that the urgency and specificity of your\r\nnote made me a little uneasy. I don't mean this in an\r\nantagonistic way; just trying to be careful.\r\n\r\n--jed<\/pre>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Meanwhile, I called Peter and asked him about it. He said he didn\u2019t know the name \u201cPenny\u201d but he had indeed lived in that area at that time, and was curious to see what it was all about.<\/p>\r\n
Another note from my mysterious German correspondent arrived:<\/p>\r\n
\r\n
\r\nDate: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 13:10:51 +0100\r\nTo: [...]\r\nFrom: [...]\r\nSubject: Regarding Peter Hartman\r\n\r\nDear Jed,\r\n\r\nThank you for responding so promptly.  I appreciate, and\r\nunderstand your ambivalence regarding my request, and the\r\ndesire to protect the privacy of family and friends.  I\r\nwould do no less.  My name is Gabrielle J--, I'm 30 years\r\nold, an artist who normally resides in Los Angeles. I'm a\r\nself-supporting adult (with two loving parents) and I'm\r\ncurrently on an artist's residency in Berlin (where I have a\r\ncomputer with an isdn connection at my disposal, which has\r\nmade this search possible). The reason I contacted you\r\nregarding your father is that I'm looking for mine.  My\r\nbiological father's name is Peter Hartman, this fact, the\r\none photograph, and that he knew my mother (Penny P--) in\r\nthe Haight-Ashbury district in 1966 are all I have to go on.\r\nWhether this person and your father are the same man is the\r\nquestion.  I've discovered there are a lot of Peter Hartmans\r\nout there.  My motive for looking for him is simply the\r\ndesire everyone has to know where they came from.  Whoever\r\nhe is, wherever, this is all I'm looking for from him.\r\n\r\nWith this information given, I'm uncertain how to proceed. \r\nDo you have any other questions?  I understand that this may\r\nbe a bit unnerving, it certainly is for me.  Let me know if\r\nyou want a better version of the photograph.  All I have\r\nhere in Berlin is a photocopy, the original's in storage,\r\nbut I'd gladly mail you one if it would help. \r\n\r\nThanks again.\r\n\r\nSincerely, \r\n                Gabrielle J--<\/pre>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
I called Peter back and read him the email. He said, in a kind of struck-by-a-sudden-memory tone: \u201cYou know, there was<\/em> this woman. . . .\u201d<\/p>\r\n
\r\n
\r\nDate: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 01:07:04 -0500 (EST)\r\nFrom: Jed Hartman <[...]>\r\nTo: [...]\r\nSubject: Re: Regarding Peter Hartman\r\n\r\nHi!  Thanks for the elaboration.  Funny, I had a kind of\r\ninkling that this was why you were writing -- an adopted\r\nfriend of mine recently went through a (successful) search\r\nfor her biological mother, and something about your first\r\nnote struck me as similar, I'm not quite sure why...\r\n\r\nSo anyway, I just called up my father and read him your\r\nemail. His response leaves the question still a little\r\nuncertain: he said that when he was living near Stanyan\r\n& Alma (which I assume is in the Haight) in San\r\nFrancisco in the mid-'60s, there was a woman who insisted\r\nthat he was the father of her [then-unborn] child.  Peter\r\n(I've called him Peter as long as I can remember) believed\r\nthat the child's parentage was in doubt -- he said there\r\nwere at least two other guys who could have been the father\r\n(one of whom, he recalled later in the conversation, had red\r\nhair; there's never been any red hair in the Hartman family,\r\nso Peter figured that could potentially have been a way to\r\nresolve the question). The woman wanted Peter to marry her,\r\nbut he wouldn't.  Eventually she went to live at Tassajara,\r\nthe Zen monastery (?) in SF where they bake bread.\r\n\r\nSo, does any of that jibe with what you know of your & your\r\nmother's history?  Peter was curious\/interested (and awfully\r\nsurprised); if his various pieces of story match yours, he's\r\ndefinitely interested in finding out more.  I thought at\r\nfirst that the red-hair part was an interesting detail, but\r\non further thought I'm guessing that if your mother was\r\nindeed the woman in Peter's version of the story, she\r\nwouldn't have thought he was the father if you in fact have\r\nred hair... (Did that make any sense?  I may not be being\r\nentirely coherent here...) So maybe this is a red hairing.\r\n(sorry, I don't mean to make light of this, just couldn't\r\nresist...  The penchant for puns is a Hartman family trait,\r\nthough probably more environment than heredity I guess.)\r\n\r\nUm.  So let me know whether the above connects at all with\r\nthe facts you know.  I'll happily pass on any further info\r\nto Peter...  And if he remembers anything more I'll\r\ncertainly pass that on to you as well. (Peter doesn't have\r\nemail at this point.)\r\n\r\n--jed, still getting used to the idea that he might have a\r\nhalf-sister, and very curious to find out more...\r\n\r\n(In the Hartman family, Peter is one of four brothers, and\r\nin my generation there are six cousins (counting me), of\r\nwhom five are male.)<\/pre>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
. . . I suppose in the interests of full disclosure, I should add that Peter said something more specific about the red hair thing: he said that he\u2019d always figured that if the baby had turned out not to have red hair, the woman would\u2019ve gotten back in touch. I\u2019m sorry to say that Peter was not always the most responsible person in the world, and perhaps particularly not in San Francisco in 1966.<\/p>\r\n
Anyway. Gabrielle wrote back:<\/p>\r\n
\r\n
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 13:26:59 +0100\r\nTo: [...]\r\nFrom: [...]\r\nSubject: Wow!\r\n\r\nHi Jed.  I have to tell you I'm in shock, my boyfriend is\r\ntaking dictation because I can't stop shaking.  Weird.  My\r\nmother has always said that he lived at Alma and Stanyan, in\r\nfact I've gone there just to look at the building.  Every\r\ntime I've been in San Francisco with my mom she insists on\r\ndriving by there and saying that's where you were conceived.\r\nSo to read your e-mail naming those same streets was almost\r\nfrightening. She also did indeed go to Tassajara to bake\r\nbread while pregnant with me.  She gave me his photograph\r\nwhen I was nine years old, and told me the person I'd always\r\nthought of as my father wasn't \"really\" my father.  It was\r\nobvious then, as it is now, to even the most casual observer\r\nthat this man in the photograph was my father.  The\r\nresemblance was\/is striking.  I'm going to try and e-mail\r\nyou a photograph of myself, perhaps you'll see what I mean. \r\nI'm not sure (again) how to proceed from here, especially\r\nsince I'm so far away.\r\n\r\nI really appreciate your willingness to pursue this Jed, to\r\nsay that it means a lot to me is, of course, an\r\nunderstatement.  I'm not sure what else to say right now. \r\nI'm sure we'll go into life stories soon... Please tell\r\nPeter I look forward to meeting him, (and you) if that's ok.\r\nI'm coming back to the US in April.  My postal address while\r\nhere is --\r\n\r\n[...]\r\n\r\nMy mom's memory is sketchy on some points, but I believe she\r\ntold me that he was working at Bethlehem Steel at the time. \r\nAnyway, I look forward to continuing this correspondence...\r\nI guess if all this is true then, yeah, I am your half\r\nsister.  Funny, huh?  Are you an only child? I know this\r\nmust be shocking for Peter too. I've had the last 20 years\r\nto get used to the idea of him.  He doesn't have that\r\nbenefit. Ok, thanks again for your help.\r\n\r\nBest, Gabrielle<\/pre>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Over the next couple days, we established beyond doubt that Gabrielle\u2019s mother was indeed the woman in Peter\u2019s story, and that Peter was indeed the same Peter Hartman as the man in Penny\u2019s story. We sent each other abbreviated life stories, and I gave Gabrielle and Peter each other\u2019s direct contact info. Gabrielle sent a higher-quality scan of the photo she\u2019d sent before (the improved version is the one you can see up above), and I printed out various photos she\u2019d sent and papermailed them to Peter (easier than having her mail stuff from Germany).<\/p>\r\n
Peter was originally unconvinced that Gabrielle was in fact his biological daughter. But he met her a little later, down in LA, and they were both immediately convinced.<\/p>\r\n
Gabrielle and I corresponded occasionally via email over the next few years, and I always intended to go visit LA and meet her in person, but never got around to it. She did meet my brother Jay, though.<\/p>\r\n
The last I heard from Peter about Gabrielle was sometime in the early 2000s; he said she had written him a letter about six months earlier, and that he\u2019d intended to respond to it but hadn\u2019t gotten around to it, and that the letter was somewhere around. Since he had similarly failed to respond to a letter of mine, and I was kinda annoyed about that, I figured he was just never going to get around to getting back in touch with her. And I\u2019m sorry to say that I, too, more or less dropped out of touch with her.<\/p>\r\n
And so when Jay and Holly and Kam and I flew up to Tacoma after Peter\u2019s death<\/a>, I wanted to get in touch with Gabrielle, but I wasn\u2019t sure how to go about it\u2014I think I didn\u2019t have any recent contact info for her. And I thought that she and Peter hadn\u2019t been in touch for years.<\/p>\r\n
But amid the miraculously unburned small stack of letters in the kitchen (\u201cmiraculously\u201d because the kitchen is where Nancy started the fire), there was a note from Gabrielle. It thanked Peter for having sent a gift\u2014and it included a photo of Gabrielle\u2019s then-toddler daughter, Phoebe, whom I hadn\u2019t heard about.<\/p>\r\n
It turned out Gabrielle had even visited Tacoma, and had met Grandma and Grandpa before Grandpa died, and had been welcomed to the family. And she and Peter had, thankfully, had more contact than I had thought.<\/p>\r\n
So after that we exchanged a little more email, and she became a regular reader of this journal. (Hi, Gabrielle! Thanks for giving me permission to post all this; I\u2019ve been meaning to ask you for that permission for years, but never quite got around to it.)<\/p>\r\n
And yet, somehow, I still didn\u2019t meet her in person. I\u2019ve continued to plan to go spend some time in LA, and to meet her and her family there (as well as seeing Jay and Holly, and various friends in that area), but I never quite manage to follow through on that plan.<\/p>\r\n
So why am I telling y\u2019all this now?<\/p>\r\n
Because one of the best things about Saturday\u2019s memorial gathering for Grandma was that Gabrielle came to it, and we finally got to talk in person.<\/p>\r\n
It\u2019s still a little weird. I spent nearly 30 years believing myself to be the oldest in the Hartman family in my generation, and most of us cousins were males whose names started with J. (I don\u2019t think there was any good reason for that J thing; I think it just happened.) To suddenly acquire a 15-months-older sister (whose name didn\u2019t even start with J!) was a bit of a shock to my worldview. Not in any huge way, just a little strange. And then I somehow managed to spend ten years without actually meeting her in person.<\/p>\r\n
But now we\u2019ve met. And it was really cool to meet her.<\/p>\r\n
We didn\u2019t talk all that much\u2014there wasn\u2019t much time before the memorial, and then we ended up at different tables at dinner. But after dinner, we both had the idea of sitting down together and talking, and it was really nice. A great beginning. We\u2019ll have plenty to talk about in future meetings.<\/p>\r\n
And I\u2019m still planning to head down to LA later this year and meet her family. I think Phoebe just turned four last month.<\/p>\r\n
So. The memorial was sad, but it was good to see family, and especially good to see Gabrielle. It\u2019s not every day that you meet your older sister for the first time.<\/p>\r\n<\/lj-cut>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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