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Man united with son after 34 years
by Robb Fulcher
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Father George Shupe and son Kevin J. Wolf (the tall one) pause for a picture at a party marking their first-ever meeting. Photo by Robb Fulcher |
Hermosan George Shupe received a special holiday gift on Friday. He was united with his only son, who was given up for adoption at birth 34 years ago.
"This is a tremendous relief for me," Shupe said days before his first face-to-face meeting with his son, at a special family event in Hermosa. "It’s like there was a dark room, and now there’s a light in it."
Shupe, 52, who lives a California beach lifestyle working weekends at Mickey’s Deli on Hermosa Avenue, met up with his son, high-powered Washington DC attorney Kevin J. Wolf, after some difficulty.
Wolf’s search for his biological parents led to a "pitched battle" with what he described as a recalcitrant bureaucracy in Missouri, where his mother had gone to give birth. At one point officials insisted in court that Wolf’s father had died.
After six years of court battles and private investigators, Wolf found his biological mother, who is married and living in Orange County, and through her found Shupe. As it turned out, Shupe had been in contact with the woman -- his ex-girlfriend and Wolf’s biological mother -- only through a timely coincidence.
"A friend had given me his old computer and I looked up [my ex-girlfriend] and she had listed herself on an Internet service," Shupe said. "I had just started talking with her, just typing messages, ‘How are you, what are you up to,’ that kind of thing. Then she called me and said ‘Hey, there’s a lawyer in Washington DC who wants to talk to you.’"
Shupe shows off a photo of Wolf, a friendly-looking, spectacled man sitting on a sofa with his wife and two sons, the grandsons Shupe has never met.
"Nice looking guy, huh?" Shupe said.
Wolf was given up for adoption after an 18-year-old Shupe and his then-girlfriend, 16, "got stupid and decided to make a baby," Shupe said. Not long after he went to Vietnam. When he came back from his one-year stint as a Ninth Division infantryman, his flame was set to marry another.
Shupe said he is considered 40 percent disabled following an accidental "friendly fire" explosion of a propellant used to launch mortar shells on the Mekong Delta.
Shupe came home to find a domestic atmosphere of misdirected rage at Vietnam veterans. He took off for Germany, where he landed a job doing ramp service for TWA, then became a load master for the airline.
He shows a faded snapshot of a pretty brunette sitting in a wicker chair.
"That’s Angelika. She’s why I stayed so long in Germany," Shupe said. "Behind her there is my boots and my backpack. That’s all I had when I got there."
Shupe traveled the world while he worked for the airline, and in 1978 came back to Hermosa, where he began working for Mickey’s patriarch Mike Mance.
"I had gone there when I was a kid, since I was big enough to put my 25 cents on the table to get some chocolate milk and a roll," he said.
"The Mance family kind of embraced me," he said. "I’m sort of adopted myself. Angelika’s family took me in, and then the Mance family did too."
Shupe has discovered various similarities with his son. Both speak German and have traveled extensively. In an odd coincidence, Wolf and his wife named their older son Frederick, unaware that Shupe’s middle name is Fredrick, just one letter’s difference from that of his grandson.
Wolf, an attorney who advises corporations on international trade regulations and defends white collar clients in trouble with grand juries and government agencies, works for the firm of Bryan Cave LLP. The firm which maintains offices in places like London, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Shupe shows off newspaper and newsletter articles about his son’s work as assistant special counsel to the U.S. House ethics committee, which investigated then-speaker Newt Gingrich for allegedly violating congressional ethics rules.
The probe, in which Wolf served as the number two attorney, resulted in a $300,000 penalty and the first-ever reprimand of a sitting house speaker.
Wolf, who grew up in a "loving, kind, ordinary" adoptive family in Missouri, felt no curiosity about his "biological relatives" until adulthood.
"I had a strong sense of my self, and self-confidence, and it was never an issue," Wolf said. "My sister, who was adopted from another family, had always felt there was a void."
The sister, who had been adopted from Kansas, found her biological parents with a simple phone call to state officials and, said Wolf, "satisfied a lot of her questions about who she was, where she came from."
Wolf’s mother and sister began urging him to make a search of his own. Then five years ago, when Frederick was born, Wolf became more interested, wanting information on his biological background for general medical purposes.
Wolf’s search, which was hampered by Missouri’s closed records on adoptions, ended suddenly when a private investigator, the second one on the case, located the biological mother shortly after taking the assignment.
"What I was unable to do in six years, she was able to do in three days," Wolf said.
Following separate meetings over the weekend with his biological mother and with Shupe, Wolf said he found his blood relations to be good, generous-hearted folks.
"I’m glad to have solved that mystery and to have satisfied my curiosity," he said. "I’m glad they are doing well, and glad to have closed that loop."
For Shupe’s part, he said he has spent the past 34 years deleting the fatherhood part from his life’s story, out of respect for the other people involved. Now, he said, he has an answer when people ask him if he has any kids.
"I don’t have to change that part of the story any more," he said. ER