Sharon Kay Casto Iodice Bryant

My story is significantly different from the rest of the children of Oman and Mildred Casto. I was the only child to be given in adoption to my Aunt Bernice and her husband Anthony Iodice; they lived and raised me in White Plains, N.Y. Bernice was the sister of my birth father Oman and as such, I was raised knowing about the adoption and visiting with my natural parents and siblings regularly throughout my childhood and teenage years. I was born on May 6th, 1952 and adopted at the age of 6 months. Of course, I can't remember that far back and my earliest recollections are sketchy at best. I know that my adoptive father's family was Italian and so I was surrounded by that culture. I was raised as an only child and was given the best of everything by my adoptive parents.

When I was 6 years old, the school guidance counselor told my mother (Bernice) that I should be told of my adoptive status. She was concerned that since we had such close contact with my birth parents and the rest of the family, that one of my siblings might let it slip that I was their sister. The counselor said that it would be much better if I were told of the adoption before I found out by mistake.

I vaguely remember the conversation that my mother (Bernice) had with me when she told me of the adoption. What I do remember is being very resentful that I had any other parents. After all, my adoptive parents were for all intents and purposes "my parents". They were the ones who loved me, supported me and saw to all my needs. I had no need for any other parents. I didn't mind that my birth parents gave me up for adoption, what I minded was that they existed at all. That was not true of my siblings. Being raised as an only child, I was often lonely and wondered what it would be like to have a brother or a sister. I remember my mother considering the adoption of another child, but that never took place. I can't really remember the period of time, but I do know that my sister Dottie did come to live with us for a while. I'm not sure what the problem was, I think she got too homesick, she was in her teens, and I'm sure it was just too big of a change and commitment for her to make. She returned to West Virginia within a year or so I believe.

When we would visit the family in West Virginia, we would stay with my Uncle Howard and his family. He had a number of children himself and I enjoyed time spent with my cousins there. Another reason we stayed there was because I had asthma as a child and it was triggered by a combination of weed allergens and dampness. The area that we visited was part of the Ohio River Valley and as such was a breeding ground for just the combination of allergens that would spawn an asthma attack for me. My Uncle Howard lived on a high hill, and I had fewer problems with my asthma when we stayed there. My birth parents and siblings lived in a low area by comparison. We'd also go visit with my grandparents and stay the night at their house out on Tug Fork.

When I was quite young, maybe 5 or 6, I remember visiting my Grandma and Grandpa who lived by an old Roller-skating Rink, I vaguely remember going roller-skating there with (not sure who) relatives. Then I remember they moved out to a farm on Tug Fork. We have to cross an old swinging bridge that was over a creek to get to the house. If the weather was dry, we could drive the car over to the house but we'd have to go through a shallow spot in the creek called a "ford". I remember I was always afraid that we'd get stuck in the water or that we'd be washed downstream, funny how children see such things as being "scary". I remember that my grandfather was a big man; he could pick my cousin and I up like we were sacks of potatoes. one time he went hunting and brought home a groundhog for Grandma to cook for dinner. I told my mom that I didn't want to eat no groundhog and she told me that I should at least try it not to make Grandpa feel bad. I don't think I tried it though.... never have like wild game meat. One of the things that I found the most distasteful about visiting down south was that there wasn't a lot of indoor plumbing.... in the terms of toilets. Outhouses were the norm down there and I was always afraid of them, even when I was a teenager, I wouldn't spend much time in one. I was always afraid that some creepy crawly thing was lurking under the seat and would reach up and bite me, like a poisonous snake or spider or something. It was just yucky! Grandma and Grandpa had a 3-seater outhouse. My birth family also had an outhouse for a long time until they built their new house in 1968, then they sort of had an indoor outhouse. It wasn't a real toilet that flushed, it was a wooden box with a hole in it and a toilet seat on top of the hole, underneath there was a chamber pot that was carried outside and dumped in the outhouse that still existed. I remember a visit with my natural parents when I was about 9 or 10 years old. We were going somewhere in a car and I addressed my natural mother as Aunt Mildred, because that's how I thought of her. She told me that I should call her Mom because she was my mother and that if I couldn't call her Mom then to just call her "hey you". I don't think she understood how I felt about that and I couldn't explain it to her at that time. I felt that it would be disloyal of me to call anyone else Mom besides the woman who raised me and who I saw as my mother (Bernice). When I was 9 years old, my mother's (Bernice's) husband (Tony) left her. He was an independent trucker and owned his own transportation business so he was often gone for days at a time anyway. It was almost hardly noticeable when he actually moved out. All I knew is that he still took very good care of us and always made sure that I had everything I needed or wanted. They didn't get divorced for many years; I think that was for my benefit. My mother went to work so that she'd have more money. We had a big 4 bedroom house and she rented out several of the bedrooms to help pay for the mortgage and upkeep of the house. She was a very smart woman and knew how to manage her money well. I never wanted for anything!

The older I got, the more time I spent visiting with my brothers and sisters, I had so much fun with them. We'd go swimming in the creek across the road and then go play Robin Hood in the bottom that my sibling's had nicknamed "Sherwood Forest". As a child I played mostly with my sister Peggy who was a year older than me, Darry who was 2 years older than me, and my younger brothers Denny & Steve as well as my baby sister Linda but she was a brat sometimes. I also loved hanging out with my sister Dottie, who could drive and would take us here and there. As I got a little older, I enjoyed being around my older siblings as well. I remember one summer my sister Peggy came back with us to N.Y. for a visit. It was so wonderful having her visit; I didn't have to worry about my friends being away on vacation because I had "my" sister there to have fun with. There was an amusement park on Rye Beach, not too far from where I lived, my mother would drive us there and drop us off for the entire day. We'd go to the beach during the day and then hang out at the amusement park (Playland) in the evening. Being teenage girls, we'd flirt with the cute ride operators, sometimes they'd give us free rides!

I remember spending the night over Uncle Oman and Aunt Mildred's so that I could spend time with my siblings. I remember sitting in the living room with my brothers Dean, Roger and Darry and watching scary movies on TV. I also remember sleeping upstairs dormitory style in the log cabin that they all lived in. To me it was such an adventure! I will admit that sometimes I missed the conveniences of home though. My birth family was poor; they worked hard to put food on the table. They planted huge gardens and canned vegetables to provide for them during the winter months. They raised chickens for eggs and for meat, they also had pigs that were sold or slaughtered for food. I remember that there was always, always a pot of green beans and potatoes and/or pinto beans. It seemed my mother would be cooking from sun up to sundown; of course my brothers had mighty big appetites after a day of hard work.

When I was a teenager, I would spend almost the entire summer with my birth family. Peggy and I would go places with my brother John and his girlfriend Nora Raines (who later became his wife); we had tons of fun together. John would race his friends out on the straight stretch on Rt. 33 where the family lived. I remember that Nora's dad wasn't all too fond of my brother John. Nora would have to sneak out to see John many times, it's a wonder they were ever able to maintain a relationship, but they were in love and everyone knew it. It was so romantic!

My life in N.Y. was so much different than what I experienced when I visited the family in WV. When I visited WV, I felt special; I'm not sure why folk down there thought everyone that lived "up north" were somehow smarter or better than they were. At the time, I didn't care either; I just knew that I got an extraordinary amount of attention when I visited. I even had boyfriends in WV. My first love was a boy by the name of Jerry Cunningham. We would write to each other and had quite a romance going on for about a year between the time I was 14 and 15 years old. I think my mother (Bernice) was glad that I had a "long-distance" boyfriend. I remember one summer when my sister Peggy and my niece (who was older than me) Toey and I spent the night out in Cottageville with my brother John and his wife Nora. When they went to work the next day, we got bored and wanted to go home so we started walking. I'd never walked so far in my entire life! I believe we walked a good 10 miles before someone that we knew came along and gave us a ride the rest of the way into Ripley. Considering the size of our family, it was a pretty good bet that there would be at least one of them in town at any given time so that we could catch a ride home. Some of my fondest memories revolve around playing cards with my brothers and sisters, we had such a good time and boy, they would get into some lively arguments about the games too. The game of choice seemed to be Rook and it was played in teams of 2. There would be Barb, Dottie, Joann, Peggy, Dean, Roger, Darry most of the time, sometime my brother Donald and his wife Alice would join in the fun. Donald was a real clown, I remember he'd chase Peggy and I around and pinch us on the butt really hard and we'd go complain to Alice to make him stop.... looking back it was funny, but we just didn't see the humor in it at the time. I certainly wasn't any angel as a teenage, when I look back I feel so bad about the troubles I put my mother and family through. I was a spoiled brat! I know my mother and father meant well by giving me everything my heart desired. I also know that my Mom felt guilty about my father not being there for me and that contributed to my lack of discipline. I got used to having my way about everything, so when I decided that I didn't like going to school…. I just didn't go. I skipped the first 6 weeks of my junior year in high school. I was able to do this because my mother drove me to school each morning before she went to work and gave me money to take a taxi home. I'd wait for her to leave, go into the school and call a taxi and go right back home. It's amazing to me that I got away with it for so long, but by the time my mother found out about it, there wasn't any way I'd be able to pass my junior year. My punishment was to be sent to WV to live with my birth family and go to school down there for the remainder of the year. The goal here really wasn't to punish me, but my mother knew that there was a vast difference between the school systems in N.Y. and WV and that I had a good chance of actually passing if I finished out the school year in WV.

During the 8 months that I spent living with my birth family in WV, I learned a lot about life in a big family. At first it was a lot of fun, I shared a room with my older sister Peg and it was more or less like it had always been when I visited. Then the newness started to wear off for both my family and myself; who were not used to me (a spoiled brat) being around. We lived 5 miles from town, which was a definite problem for me. I was used to walking all over town at home since we lived in the city. Out in middle of nowhere, I was always looking for a ride to town. There still wasn't much to do in Ripley, but at least I could hang out at the soda shop with friends.

I remember that I used a lot of foul language that my birth family wasn't used to hearing. My brother Darry would chase me around with a bar of soap and threaten to wash my mouth out. He should have and came close to it several times. Some of the best times I remember were spent at my sister Barb's house playing cards with a bunch of my older brothers and sisters. During the 8 months that I was there I spent time living with Barb and also with my brother John and his wife Nora (who lived in town). It was difficult being out of the environment that I grew up in. There are so many differences between living in the city and in a rural area of the country. It was quite an experience though and one that I will never forget. I did manage to come to appreciate my birth parents more during that time. They were good people and they provided well for their children. Maybe they didn't give them everything their hearts desired, but they worked hard to supply their needs with love.

I can't remember a lot of the details of that time, I just know that I didn't behave very well, and that I caused problems for myself and my family. For that I am very sorry. I did manage to pass my junior year in high school even though I didn't work very hard at it. The classes were easier down there, but I really took advantage of that too… to my own loss I'm sure.

As an older teenager I was out of control for the most part. My mother was very good to me, too good perhaps. Looking back, I realize that I was totally undisciplined. My mother had to go to work after my father left us and it's hard for a working mom to discipline her child properly, after all, she's just not there all the time. I also think that she let me have my way a lot out of a feeling of guilt because my father was no longer with us. As an adult, I can understand these things and recognize their effect upon my development. That lack of discipline early in life had its effects throughout my adult life. One might say I might have been better off if my aunt & uncle had not adopted me. That could be true, but then again. All things happen for a reason, I am thoroughly convinced of this truth, and by the grace of God, I've lived to tell about it.