Today we learned of the passing of Susan Friel-Williams on October 21 in Fort Myers, Florida. Susan was a veteran adoptee rights activist and searcher whose work goes back decades.
I first ran into Susan in the early 1990s on the legendary newsgroup alt.adoption. Until then I didn’t know there was such a thing as a “real” searcher. It was a different time then, with much less technology and mainstream networking than we have now. I guess I thought that searching was something people did pretty much on their own as I did in 1980. Over the next few years, I learned that Susan was a tenacious researcher and expert digger. She helped me in some of my own oppositional projects, but surprisingly, I once found a relative of hers in Australia when she couldn’t! What a flip-flop!
Susan was adopted by her maternal grandparents (something I didn’t know.) She began her life’s work in AdoptionLand after meeting her birthfather and his family. From her obituary:
This journey led Susan to become a private investigator specializing in reuniting families. In the early days of the internet, she created one of the first reunion registries for adoptees and birth parents to locate one another. Eventually, Susan opened her own firm, Search Quest America, in Cape Coral, Florida. Susan was very proud to be a published author, and contributed a story to Chicken Soup for the Soul. As a former member of the Board of Directors at American Adoption Congress, she attended conferences and advocated for the rights of adoptees and birth parents. Together with her team, Susan reunited thousands of families over the years. She believed “an invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of the time, place, and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.”
Susan was a long-time member of the American Adoption Congress, and in later years a board member. The last time I saw Susan was at the 2016 AAC conference in Denver. Although we had some long-standing strategic differences we met informally to discuss the importance of a united “no compromise” voice in the movement, her desire to bring certain factions into the fold., and how we could accomplish that seemingly insurmountable task. She did the heavy lifting. It took a while but yielded the results we have today in the much more united movement that is restoring our rights to our records. Susan’s work, however, gained her the enmity of others who chose to continue an incremental self-defeatist strategy that helps no one., taking the heat from a small group of cranky naysayers who accused her of all manner of evil for taking the high road to the dark side. That is, doing the right thing.
Susan encountered some serious health problems a couple of years ago and was forced to step back from her work, but she and her work are not forgotten.
Bastard Nations sends our condolences to Susan’s family
Rest in Power, Susan.
...Marley Greiner, Executive Chair, Bastard Nation
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
One winter day I sat on my couch scrolling through Facebook posts when I decided to make a random post in a random adoption group myself. I had done it a few times before; “Hi, my adoptive name is Lisa Jo Murray and I was born on October 26th, 1980 in San Francisco California at Children’s Hospital. I was adopted through county services. I am looking for my birth family”. Over the next 30 minutes I got a few likes but then a comment was posted; “I have the microfilm for the San Francisco children’s hospital for the date you were born. If you would like, I can look at it and see if we can find your birth name and birth mothers name?” She made it sound so easy, and for her it was. She knew it was impossible to get your sealed adoption records and she knew the chances of me ever running in to anyone else with any resource to help me was probably zero as well. She did not need to help me, but she did. Vultures in the past had asked for anything from $200-5000 just to “get started” on a search. This literal angel swooped in and had found me my birth mother and 2 half sisters within a few hours; something my own private investigator step dad couldn’t even do for me. By the end of that night I was talking on the phone with my sisters and writing messenger messages with my actual birth mom!!! 6 years later and I am so grateful for what she has given me; she gave me…ME! I had an instant connection with my sisters and would consider one of them my soul mate. I see where my features came from; and apparently the answer to the question I have gotten from others the most throughout my life is, Poppy; my mesmerizing eyes came from Poppy! I am so saddened to hear of her passing; a genuine and true angel who helped so many people find “home” has gone home.
Thanks so much for posting your wonderful memorial to Susan. Such a beautiful story!
I’m so sad to hear of Susan’s passing. She was my search angel finding who I call “Guido” with a flashlight in Pa that completed my search. Susan had very tough news for me…even worse than death and she delivered it with grace and compassion. Then we worked together with TIES. She did some very tough searches gratis (one that I remember involved a priest). Susan…may you rest in peace and know that so many adoptees benefited from your search skills and compassion. ❤️
Thanks for sharing this, Deb! I wonder how many reunions Susan was able to accomplish. Every find, for me, is a big screw you the state, and shows how ludicrous this stupid government-sanctioned and created adoption secrecy scam is. Let people handle their own relationships.
I am so sorry to hear of Susan’s passing. May she know the deep peace that through re-uniting so many families she with resolve and courage, empathy and understanding, to so many, many others. I didn’t know Susan well but I knew her and knew about her. She was one of the good ones, true to her beliefs, to the best in herself, to the best in all of us. She will be missed.