Pam Zaebst, Rest in Peace

We lost another good one!

On June 13, 2026, Pam Zaebst, long-time adoptee rights activist and Bastard Nation Founding Foundling, died peacefully at home in Westerville, Ohio,after a short illness.

I’m not sure when I met Pam —sometime in the mid-1990s, probably, but it could have been earlier—going back to the 1980s when I attended Reunite meetings, the old Columbus adoptee rights/search organization. Whatever…I really became acquainted with Pam first online later , and then in person, when Bastard Nation and our Ohio subgroup, Mad Ohio Bastards, hit the streets.

Pam was a dedicated Bastard. She was thoughtful, funny, articulate, well-informed, and always polite. She had the gift of patience, explaining in much simpler and kinder language than I, adoptee rights and the adoptee experience. With that talent, I thought she’d make a great first grade teacher or therapist.

Pam and I drafted literature for the Ohio adoptee rights movement and worked Columbus RegDay,. She attended and testified at hearings at the Ohio State House. During the 1998 attempt to unseal Original Birth Certificates in Ohio that failed through the last-minute interference of evangelicals and Ohio Right to Life, she was interviewed by the Columbus Dispatch:

“We know most of us were born to unwed parents, and we see no shame in that. We just want the same information that’s available to any other citizen.”

Pam was a treasure drove—a repository– of the history of the adoptee rights movement in Ohio. She lived it for well over 40 years.

I remember particularly her account of going with one or two others to the estate auction of a longtime adoption agency operator—a secret-keeper of major proportion—whose name I unfortunately forget at the moment, to bid on mystery boxes which they hoped contained personal adoption files maintained by the director. They didn’t, and Pam believed that the files were destroyed by the executor of the estate before the sale

On a personal note:when, I needed to board my cat Abbie for a month when I went back to Russia on vacation Pam visited her a couple times a week to check on her welfare and play with her. That’s the kind of person Pam was.

Pam is survived by her loving husband of 36 years, Clinton Dashiell; sister, Rita Donaldson, Laconia, NH; nephew, Bradley (Alicia) Pernaw, Manchester, NH; niece, Darci (Corey) Dormitzer, Amherst, NH; numerous cousins and extended family. A Memorial Service will be held at 3:00 P.M. Saturday, June 27, 2026, at Schoedinger Northeast Chapel, 1051 East Johnstown Road, where friends may call one hour prior to the service from 2:00 to 3:00 P.M.