Together at Last : Son Given Up for Adoption Meets Father, 27 Years Later

Jeffrey Lowe stepped off a plane at Burbank Airport on Saturday and greeted the father he had never met with a simple declaration: “Nice to see you,” he said, before both men embraced and wiped tears from their eyes.

Lowe, who had been given up for adoption nearly 27 years ago, arrived in Southern California from Texas for a week of introductions and reunions, meeting with half-sisters, a grandmother, a father and a mother he had spent two decades wondering about. Stephen Beach, Lowe’s father, said the event satisfied a 26-year-old dream. “I want him to feel a part of the family,” Beach said.

The two men came to the meeting by way of the information superhighway, which carried Lowe’s search for his parents onto an Internet talk group--an electronic meeting room of computer users nationwide. Once Lowe posted his request, another hooked-in computer user gave him the crucial puzzle pieces within hours.

Beach, who has been married twice and has four daughters, had tried more conventional methods of finding his child and was stymied. And although Lowe began by using those same methods, he had his personal computer as an additional tool.

Using a searching service, Lowe came up with what is known as “non-identifying” information, bits and pieces that describe some characteristics of the birth parents but protects their identity.

The searcher found his parents’ ages, their siblings’ names, their physical descriptions and a list of their interests. There was also a space for their feelings about the adoption.

“They said they had a hard time giving me up,” Lowe said. “They didn’t want to, but I guess they had to.”

Lowe was also given his birth name--Steven Beach--which he later discovered was a misspelled version of his birth father’s name.

Then Lowe turned to the Internet and quickly found an adoption talk group. He posted what information he had and people responded with advice and support almost immediately.

One respondent, from a group called Reconnections of California, took Lowe’s posting and electronically searched public documents and returned with names and phone numbers within a few hours.

“I still would not have found him by now if it weren’t for the Internet,” Lowe said.

Lowe’s searching service called Beach, who assured that he indeed wanted to make contact with his son, and the two spoke for the first time a month ago.

“I thought it would just be a satisfaction of my curiosity, but it turned out to be a lot more than that,” Lowe said. “It’s been filling voids in me I didn’t know were there.”

Lowe also learned the story of his birth.

Lowe’s parents were high school sweethearts. His mother became pregnant when the two were attending Glendale High School. Her parents sent her to the San Francisco area, adamant that she give birth there and then give the baby up.

She did and never saw the child again. She returned to Glendale, gave a few pictures to Beach and the young couple drifted apart when her family moved away and Beach entered the Army.

At the airport, Beach’s mother, Mildred Chavez, carried those dusted-off, mounted baby photos and a letter from the adoption agency describing Lowe’s adopted family.

“They loved the baby the moment they saw him and could hardly wait to take him home,” the agency’s director wrote on Aug. 9, 1968. “I hope it will be satisfying to you to know that your baby is in a secure, loving home.”

The pictures and the letter, Chavez said, had been at the bottom of a dresser drawer in Glendale all these years.

“It was a different time then, and he’s turned out to be an exceptionally fine young man,” Chavez said, looking for the plane that would bring back her first grandchild. “I want to tell him we’re glad we’ve found him and that he completes the family circle.”

Beach twittered nervously while a crush of news cameras and photographers, there to record the emotional event, followed his every move.

His 20-year-old daughter, Erin, said she has always wanted an older brother.

“I thought about him, about where he could be, and what he looked like and what his name was,” she said. “I’ve anticipated this moment for a long time and I never thought it would happen.”

Beach planned a gathering at his Palmdale home on Saturday for Lowe and his wife, Annie. Today, the group will head to the Bay Area to see Lowe’s adoptive parents--following a visit to meet Lowe’s birth mother, who lives near Stockton.

“I don’t think we could have done as good a job,” Beach said. “Everything happened the way it was supposed to. He seems well-adjusted and happy and happily married. I couldn’t have asked for it to turn out better.”