Latest / Legacy Stories / Coming Home - Bentley Streat Honors Her Birth Mother, Lois Cornish

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Coming Home - Bentley Streat Honors Her Birth Mother, Lois Cornish · Legacy Stories

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  Coming up on legacy stories. So I got off the plane and I
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  knew exactly who she was and she knew exactly who I was.
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  And so I was like, hey. And she's like, hey, she's like,
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  she's in good flight. And I was like, yeah.
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  And she goes, she want to go get a bite to eat.
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  And I was like, start. So off we went.
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  My guest this week is Bentley St.
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  What if you grew up not knowing your legacy story and never
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  feeling like you fit in, and then you discovered it?
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  Bentley shares her amazing journey with us and what she's
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  learned along the way. Bentley, welcome to Legacy
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  Stories. How are you?
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  I'm fine. Who have you come to honor
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  today? My biological mother.
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  And what was her name? Lois Cornish, and she is still
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  alive and kicking. And she is 85 years old and she
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  is really my hero. How wonderful is that?
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  First, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're
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  from and your childhood. I was raised in Richmond, VA.
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  I was adopted when I was six weeks old.
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  When I was young, we've always known that we were adopted.
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  I have an older sister and a younger brother that I was
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  raised with and that was part of the deal that we had to know
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  from an early age. I was raised in a home where the
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  expectations were private schools success.
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  I think my mother wanted me to be a ballerina, and none of
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  those things were going to come to fruition because I was very
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  much a tomboy and very much wanted to be outside in the
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  woods with, you know, hanging with the boys or riding bikes or
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  doing something fun. Do you remember about what age
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  you started wondering about your biological mom?
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  As long as I can remember, I'd ask my mom questions about my
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  biological mom and basically all she chose to tell me was that,
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  you know, she was in a situation that she couldn't take care of
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  me and that I was wanted and loved and all those kinds of
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  things. So it wasn't until probably I
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  was, I don't know, I was about 6 or 7 when I started getting
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  pretty adamant about it and would, in fact, tell my mom, you
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  know, you're not my mom. And one of these days I'm going
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  to find her, period. And so I think, you know, that
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  was very helpful to her. And fortunately, later in life,
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  we did get to be good friends because it was very tumultuous
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  with me growing up because I absolutely was extremely
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  stubborn. I said no all the time.
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  And I was very clear about what I was willing and not willing to
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  do. I mean, my dad and I were very
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  close. My mom and I, it wasn't that we
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  didn't love each other. It's that we were so polar
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  opposites and she had a rather tumultuous upbringing where her
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  mom died early and so she had a very definite idea of wanting a
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  family, what it was going to be like and how we were going to
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  be. And I was just not that.
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  I was not that little pristine girl that wanted to get dressed
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  up and go do parties or have tea parties or whatever it is they
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  do. I think that there's a lot of
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  people who will listen to this show that can relate to the
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  feeling of not being what they perceive their parent is wanting
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  them to be. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's hard.
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  Relationships are complicated and personalities are
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  complicated. So when it's a, when it's a mix
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  that you don't know what half of that mix is.
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  Sometimes I think you have to ask yourself, what in the world?
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  Well, tell us what you know about your birth mom Lois's
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  upbringing from her childhood. Lois was raised on a large ranch
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  in Hoover, South Dakota. There were two boys and two
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  girls and my mom stayed on the ranch till she went into the
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  service. She was in division of the
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  service called the WAVES and when my mom was in the Navy, she
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  got pregnant and the Navy sent her to a home for unwed mothers
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  in Richmond, VA, called Evangeline Booth home.
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  OK. And so she stayed there during
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  her pregnancy. She did not tell her family that
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  she was pregnant. Some of this I may not have
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  perfectly accurate because I'm going from the notes from the
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  social worker whose care my mother was under when she was
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  pregnant. And she didn't know how to tell
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  her family. And her mom would be
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  disappointed in her and, you know, all this.
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  So she did eventually call my biological grandfather, and he
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  came to Virginia and told her that if she wanted to bring me
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  back, she could do that. And they would raise me.
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  My grandmother, my grandfather would raise me.
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  But she needed to remember that it was Hoover, South Dakota.
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  And, you know, there would be some stigma attached to me.
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  So she decided to get me up for adoption.
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  The other piece of that was my biological father's family.
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  They were from a pretty affluent family in North Carolina.
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  And Lois was sort of from the wrong side of the tracks, I
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  think is kind of how that went. So he offered my mother money to
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  have an abortion. And my mom, my mom wouldn't do
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  it. She said I'll give her up for
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  adoption, but I'm not going to do that.
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  So then my father wanted to make sure that I was adopted into a
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  Catholic family. Tell me a little bit about the
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  journey leading up to you finding and meeting your birth
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  mother. So I was pretty wild when I was
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  young and I always wanted to find her.
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  And I started to look when I was like 19.
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  And my boss, who is very much a mentor and somebody at that I
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  admired, sat me down and said, look, you're kind of a hot mess.
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  So you know what, think about what you're doing.
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  I would encourage you to grow up a little bit, wait 10 years and
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  then look. And that's exactly what I did.
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  So that tells me a lot about what you thought of your boss.
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  Oh yeah, she was amazing. So I waited almost 10 years and
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  then I petitioned the courts to open my records.
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  And I mean, God, the woman that did the search, her name was
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  Charlotte, and I can't think of her last name.
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  She was part of the welfare department and they did this
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  search for for me. And so it took her two years to
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  find my mother. And so we owe Charlotte a debt
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  of gratitude, I believe. Oh, my God, right.
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  I would call her, you know, every couple of months and just
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  go anything. And so she had called me and
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  said, you know, I'm, I'm sending this one last letter.
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  But she said I don't really know where to go from here because I
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  can't find them. And so she went to the
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  postmaster in Hoover, South Dakota.
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  And it turns out his grandfather had been to Postmaster and his
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  grandfather was still alive. My.
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  He talked to his grandfather and they gave her my Uncle Mick's
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  name and address. And then Uncle Mick called Lois
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  and was like, somebody in Virginia is looking for you.
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  And of course she knew. Yeah.
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  You know, of course she did. So we set a time for us to talk
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  on the phone. And so at that day and time, I
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  called. This was so funny.
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  I called and I'm like, hey, my mom's like, hey, I got so how
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  the hell have you been the last 30 years?
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  And she was like, good. And you and I was like, good.
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  We talked on the phone for four hours.
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  Wow. Right.
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  Yeah, about anything and nothing.
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  And did it seem almost like natural right out of the gate?
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  Like, who would have thought, right?
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  Yeah. That's why I'm so interested in
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  how y'all just instantly talk for four hours.
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  Yeah, crazy. And he.
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  She told me about the ranch. I told her about my parents.
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  We talked about school. We talked about my growing up.
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  We talked about her growing up. How?
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  Old were you when you made that phone call?
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  I was 29. And then we settled on, I'd come
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  out for my 30th birthday, and at the time, I had a partner and we
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  had two kids, but one of them was with us predominantly.
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  So all three of us went out there for that first trip.
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  And I had told Charlotte, too. I said go ahead and tell her I'm
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  gay. Go ahead and tell her whatever
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  you want to tell her. I mean, put it out there and let
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  it fall where it may. Yeah.
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  And so that's what we did. I planned a trip out there and
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  when they came to meet me at the airport, it was my mom and my
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  youngest brother, who was 15 at the time.
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  And I swear to you then all of a sudden I'm like, Oh my God, you
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  better watch them to ask for it, 'cause you might get it right,
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  'cause all of a sudden then I was scared.
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  All the second thoughts happened right, you know.
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  Oh my God, we're here and Oh my God.
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  Right. So I got off the plane and I
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  knew exactly who she was, and she knew exactly who I was.
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  And so I was like, hey. And she's like, hey, she's like,
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  she had a good flight. And I was like, yeah.
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  And she goes, you want to go get a bite to eat?
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  And I was like, sure. So off we went.
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  I mean, it was so weird because it was like as easy as coming
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  home from college. That's what that felt like.
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  I was coming home from college to visit.
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  Instead of meet meeting your mother for the first time.
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  Right. Yeah, I don't know how in the
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  world you would ever look at your life any other way, as
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  before I met Lois and after I met Lois.
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  Absolutely. And so when I met my biological
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  family, I've met all these people that are exactly like I
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  knew. Our personalities are very
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  similar. We tease each other mercilessly
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  with no I'll intent. We have a wonderful time when
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  we're together. And I just it fixed something in
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  me. It definitely because I didn't
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  feel crazy anymore. My parents always trying to look
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  for a reason why I was such a you know.
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  Difficult child. Let's go with that.
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  And then I met all these people, and I'm like, oh, I get it now.
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  It all makes sense. Yeah.
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  But so my mom, she had married a man named Bill Cornish.
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  And the day we got home from the airport, he was sitting up at
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  the counter and he looked up and he said, well, it's about time
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  you got home, darling. And that was the end of like
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  there was no your step kids, your kids, that kid, that kid,
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  you know it, None of that. You know, there's nothing that
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  can be said that runs deeper, I think, in a person than knowing
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  that they belong, right? And, and I think it's a
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  beautiful thing that you've had the opportunity now to live your
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  life knowing you belong. I'm completely grateful I got
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  the best of both worlds. I I was very much loved when I
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  grew up. I really was, you know, I had a
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  good education. I got an opportunity to do a lot
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  of things that I would not have been able to do had I been on
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  the ranch. But I have this beautiful
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  relationship with my biological mom now and my sisters and my
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  brothers, and I would not trade them for anything.
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  When you think about your birth mom, what values do you think
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  she has instilled in you even though you met her when you were
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  already an adult? Highness Tenacity, she gave
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  several of us musical talent, which I'm very grateful for.
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  She loves music, loves to have fun seeing the world through
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  very realistic eyes. In terms of like, like you don't
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  worry about dying because everybody's going to go out of
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  here the same way. So you enjoy the trip there.
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  You don't worry about, you know, Yeah.
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  I get it. Yeah, I'm very much that way.
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  My biological mom has a very, very sweet side that she doesn't
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  always let everybody see all the time, and I'm the same way.
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  Kind of the concrete marshmallow effect.
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  Let's talk a little bit more about you saying that meeting
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  her fixed you. What does it mean to be fixed?
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  It let me know that my understanding and my
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  interpretation of the world was not wrong, that there were a lot
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  of right things about my interpretation about the world,
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  and that it was OK not to voice it as like everybody else.
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  You be you. Yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah, I was just on an interview with a woman whose take away
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  from what she's learned from her family member was you do you.
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  And if you can learn, do you? Do you?
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  All kinds of blessings can come from that.
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  It's true. It's a good thing to feel
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  comfortable in your own skin. You know, If you're always
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  worrying about what somebody thinks or what you know, how
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  you're supposed to measure up to somebody else, or then you lose
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  a lot of authenticity. Right, Right.
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  Yeah. It is so neat.
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  I'm still struck by our conversation about what your
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  stepfather said when you walked in the door.
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  It has really hit me that it's that just sense of belonging,
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  that hey, we're a family, we instantly love each other and
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  we're going to value every moment we have together from now
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  on out. That's it in a nutshell.
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  That's it. Well, Bentley, this has been
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  really fun. Thank you for taking time with
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  us today and talk about this on Legacy Stories.
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  It's good to talk to you and thanks for having me.
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  Yeah. Thank you.
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  Thanks for listening. Visit us at Legacy Stories dot
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  US to see Bentley's photos with her birth family.
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  The joy on their faces will lift your spirits.
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  And join us next week for another story from another
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  wonderful life. Take care.