By Scott Wright

LEESBURG — Local man Andy Crow traveled to Germany with his wife in July 2006, but it wasn't a family vacation trip. Not exactly.

Despite the personal importance of the trip he was embarking upon, Crow had the presence of mind to shove a copy of The Post somewhere in his carry-on luggage. Upon his arrival at the Leipzig Airport, he produced the newspaper and composed an entry for the 2006 Post Photo Patrol contest (at left) with a couple of German acquaintances.

Nothing jaw-dropping about the picture so far, right? Just keep reading.

The two men standing on either side of Crow are his brothers. Who live in Germany. Hans and Ralf Bessertt are Crow's brothers, and he had never met before and didn't even know existed until a few months before his hastily-planned trip across the Atlantic.

Andrew William Crow talks and acts about much like any native Alabamian you've ever met. But he was born in Loerrach, Germany on Sept. 12, 1954, and he was 6 years old before he officially became an American citizen.

As soon as we received Crow's contest entry and accompanying explanation, we knew the photo he'd sent us was going to be worth a front page story, at the very least.
And that story will be better if we let Andy tell it.

“I was born in Lorch Germany to a single mother and put up for adoption a month later,” said Crow, whose name at birth was Hans-Peter Schaale. “I lived in an orphanage until I was 11 months old, when I was adopted by an American military family. When I was 3, we moved to the United States to where my adopted father was stationed next.”

Crow said he became interested in finding his real parents after the man and woman who raised him passed away 14 months apart in 2002. He said he has always concerned about his birth mother.

“I wanted her to know I was doing well and that she had nothing to worry about,” he said. “I wanted her to know I was put in the hands of a good family.”

Turns out Crow, whose still didn't know his birth mother's name, was right to feel she might be concerned about him. In a copy of a court document Crow has obtained since his search began, his mother was explicit about her concern for her son's well-being.

When 27-year-old Erica Shaale turned young Hans-Peter over to a juvenile court in the town of Backnang, Germany in June 1954, she wrote in a court document: “I am willing to give my child up for adoption, even to an American family. There is only one stipulation. My child must be situated in a good home.”

He was. Crow lived a good life in America and eventually ended up right here in Cherokee County, where he now works and lives with his wife.

After his parents passed away, a few years back, Crow began the search to find his mother. First, he tried mailing his original adoption papers to Germany. For a while, nothing happened.

“Then, after a long process and many prayers I received an email from an adoption agency,” he said. “They told me they would start looking for information about my birth mother.”

Crow said the search took about five months. Just as he was about ready to give up his search, his email provider delivered him some very good news one morning last fall.

“I got up as usual to go to work and went in to check my emails,” he said. “There was one from Germany telling me that a lady from the adoption agency was doing the research with the adoption papers and would notify me when she knew something.”

Crow's confirmation arrived a short time later, but there was bad news mixed with the good.

“The bad news was that my birth mother had passed away a year-and-a-half earlier,” he said. “But the good news was that she had two more sons.”

Crow learned his mother's name, and that she had only met his father once. Ms. Shaale was unmarried and out of work, and had traveled with her one-month old son to seek a “children's home” in the town of Backnang when she decided to give him up for adoption.

Crow also learned that his two siblings were 14 months apart and six years younger.
“When the lady at the adoption agency asked me if wanted her to look for them, I told her I did,” he said. “She explained that they would also want to have contact with me before we could begin swapping personal information. It took her about a month to find them.”

Crow said he learned his brothers had known about him since doing their own adoption agency search in 1997. They couldn't find him, though, because the paper trail pointing to Crow in America was incomplete, probably misfiled or misplaced years earlier. When the woman helping Crow finally made contact with the one of his siblings, Crow said he was told his brother wouldn't let the woman off the phone until he knew everything she did about his sibling in America.

“When the adoption agency from Germany called my brother, they talked for an hour,” he said. “He wanted to know all she could tell him about me.”

Crow didn't speak German, his brothers didn't speak English. So the next dilemma was figuring out how to communicate when they did finally make contact. Fortunately, his youngest brother, Ralf, had a daughter attending college in Detroit, Mich. In September 2005, she became the bridge between Crow and his long-lost family.

“She was able to handle the e-mail communication between us for about nine months,” Crow said. “That allowed us to get comfortable with each other and learn about the family so we could feel good about making the trip over there.”

Crow said his niece informed him she would be heading home for the summer in mid-July. He began planning a trip to Germany with his wife to visit his brothers and their families.

Fast forward to July 23, 2006 and the occasion documented by Crow's photo contest entry.

“The daughter left for home a few days before we left on July 22, and then they all met us at the airport when we arrived a few days later and she acted as our interpreter,” Crow said.

After airline-related snafu that caused a lengthy layover en route, Crow finally met his two brothers face-to-face the following morning.

“The meeting at the airport wasn't awkward because we'd already been communicating through emails,” Crow said. “But we were all so anxious to see each other that when we finally did, we just hugged each other.”

After posing for a few pictures, the reunited family drove along the autobahn to his youngest brother's house in Riesa, Germany.

“Each night we stayed up late exchanging stories about our families, and they told me a lot about my mother and their life with her,” Crow said. “They took us to where our mother had lived, and explained that she had married their father about a year-and-a-half after I was given up for adoption. They also showed him the nursing home where she lived the last seven years of her life, and we went down the street to the coffee shop where they would take her whenever they went to visit. We went to her gravesite, too.”

All together, the Crows spent nine days on their first German family reunion.
“Leaving was the hardest part,” Crow said. “My niece said that was the first time she'd ever seen her dad cry.”

After all the trouble he's gone through to find them, though, Crow said he has every intention of staying in touch and visiting with his newfound family again. In fact, he already has.

“A few weeks later the daughter came back to the United States for school and she brought her brother with her to spend three weeks here,” Crow said. “They came down here and we took them to the beach for four days, which was something they had never seen before.”

Crow said he is going to start working on his German, and maybe even write down the story of his mother and how he came to meet his brothers.

“My wife reads a lot so we're going to see if we can put this all together in a book.”

Crow said all the pictures and stories he brought back with him from his trip to Germany are priceless in many ways, though he wouldn't mind settling for $1,000 for the one he entered in the 2006 Post Photo Patrol Contest.

Asked what he'd do with the grand prize should he be announced the winner of the contest after the deadline to enter passes in December, Crow didn't even hesitate.

“I'd give all of the money to my niece to help pay for her college next year.”