Call Me Ella is a memoir about the author's twenty-four year search for her roots. More than just one woman's search for information about the biological mother she believed had died in childbirth; this book explores the mind and feelings of an adopted child.
When her friend gushed over how much her son’s graduation picture looked like her dad’s portrait, she smiled. Her friend did not know she was adopted. Then she took another look at the two photos, sitting side by side on her mantel, almost identical. Could her adoptive father have been her birth father? After Joanie’s mom had passed away, she set out to discover the truth behind her adoption, never anticipating her twenty-four year journey would involve Sopranos-like tales of organized crime, gambling, and infidelity.
Joanie grew up thinking she killed her mother. As a child, when her adoptive mom answered her question, “Where did I come from?” by saying her birth mother died in childbirth, she believed in her heart she killed the woman who gave her life. She kept asking her mom the same question, hoping to get a different answer. Maybe she’d learn her birth mother had been ill, that it wasn’t her fault she died. When Joanie finally got old enough to figure out it took two people, a man and a woman, to have a child, she asked a new question: “What happened to my birth father? Did he die too?” That’s when her mom shot her foot through the kitchen wall screaming, “Don’t ever ask me that again.” It took her years to realize why that question hit a nerve.
In New Jersey, when a baby is adopted, their original birth certificate is sealed, making it seem as if the child did not exist before the adoption. Joanie never even knew her birth mother’s last name until she discovered her adoption papers a week before her mom passed away. Unfortunately, when her mom died with her secrets intact, she thought she’d never learn about her ethnic background or medical history. A year after her mom’s funeral, she learned her birth mother hadn’t died in childbirth after all. As a matter of fact, she discovered her birth mother handed her to her adoptive father. That seemed very odd. The birth mother always hands the baby to the adoptive mother. Or so she thought. She needed to know more. She needed to know why her parents lied to her. With determination and the unexpected help from a self-proclaimed “romantic” stranger, Joanie set out to find her roots.