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What are the facts of Joan Wheeler’s adoption? Certainly not the crap she says it was. Here is the truth of it. February 15, 2012

Posted by Ruth in Contradictions of Joan Wheeler, Joan Wheeler Speak - how Joan views the world, Joan Wheeler's abuse and harassment of her birth family, Lies in the book Forbidden Family, Refuting Joan Wheelers statements.
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A lot of this stuff has been blogged about before – but it doesn’t hurt to do it again – in the hopes that it will eventually sink in that think head of Joan Wheeler’s. Because she keeps going on the internet and keeps posting the same delusions – the same erroneous fantastical twisting of the facts of her adoption. And we notice that on some internet sites she says one thing, and on other sites she says different things.

So I will start from the dam beginning AGAIN. – With the cold hard facts.

Joan was conceived sometime in July 1955. Around Christmas 1955, my mother became very sick and went into the hospital. We four kids at home were ages – Gert – (one month shy of 9 years old, Kathy, 4 months shy of 8 years old, Butch, one month shy of 6 years old, and me, 3 years, 4 months old). The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with my mother – she couldn’t keep any food down. On January 7, 1956, she went into labor and spontaneously miscarried the baby in her hospital bed. The baby was placed in an incubator. My mother’s health continue to deteriorate. On January 19, they did exploratory surgery, and she was found to be full of cancer. It was so far spread, there was nothing to be done. They closed her back up and on March 28, she died. Joan has reported on the Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change Forum that the doctors discovered a cancer tumor the same size as the baby – no they never did. At other places she reports the tumor was the size of a grapefruit. Read what I just wrote – she had exploratory surgery on January 19, 12 days after the baby was born. Other places Joan reports that she asked my father if there had ever been any plans to abort her and my father said no. Of course he would say that – because they didn’t know what was wrong with my mother. They had not discovered any dam tumor before the baby was born.

When Joan was discharged from the hospital, she had impetigo – a pimply rash that she acquired at the hospital. She went to stay with my mother’s brother and his wife, who tried very hard to clear up the rash. In her lying book, Joan says that her amom told her that when they got Joan (April 1956) Joan was full of sores due to poor hygiene. This is a lie and a slam against my Aunt Ann and my uncle Richard, who when was told of this a year ago, was very angry. He told me on the phone what happened. He was furious. So much for Joan respecting her godparents and the people who took care of her while her mother was dying in the hospital.

Yes, my mother’s brothers wanted her to go to Roswell Park Cancer Institute for cancer research. Yes, my father refused. It was his decision to make, along with my mother. My aunt Catherine told me that my mother didn’t want it either. My uncles, in their grief blamed my father. These things happen all the time. And yes, in the case of my one uncle, the bitter feelings remained down the years, but at least the two men just avoided each other. None of the family EVER took their feelings out on us kids.

My mother’s sister Catherine went to grammer school with a woman named Helen. After my mom died, my uncle asked my father what he was going to do about the baby. Because his wife was going to have a baby and there were other kids too. Catherine had just given birth to her last child, and had two other toddlers at home. My mother’s siblings had their own kids to raise, my father’s parents were elderly and couldn’t take on the responsibility of an infanct.

Catherine talked to Helen and Helen said her brother-in-law and his wife couldn’t have kids and wanted to adopt – so they asked my father (NOT at my mom’s funeral, like Joan likes to lie about). My father consulted his pastor and then agreed to the adoption. He re-married several months later. He had one year to change his mind about the adoption. He didn’t. The adoption was finalized in January 1957.

So much for Joan’s assertion that my father was “coerced” into giving her up for adoption. Yes, it could be argued he was grief-stricken, but he had a full year to consider the adoption – to change his mind. In that year, he married another woman. Who had two sons, one stayed with her mother and the other came to be with us. And yes, in 1970, 6 years after that woman died, my father married again, to a woman with two daughters, one he legally adopted in 1979. The facts that he gave a daughter up for adoption, gained 2 stepsons, then gained 2 stepdaughters, and ended up legally adopted one of those stepdaughters shows us how unpredictible and transitory life can be. My father did the best he could – making decisions on the raising of his children with the resources (physical and non-tangible) that he had at the time of those decisions. As any parent does. As any person does when making decisions with their lives. That some of those decisions affected another person’s life (for the betterment or detriment) is just a result of the serendipitous nature of life. – I mean, I could make a decision to quit  my present job and take a job at another place – and in 2 years that new place could close down and then I’d be out of work! Unless you’re a very very good psychic with a very accurate crystal ball – you just don’t know what’s going to happen in life down the road. You make the best decision you can, and hope for the best. And that’s exactly what my father did. To hold him – and the rest of the family – hostage to a life decision that he had the right to make (concerning his children that he had sole custody of and responsibilty for) is wrong. Joan is a parent herself. I’m sure she made choices and decisions that affected her children too. Joan just needs to accept the facts of her childhood and MOVE ON! As anyone on this planet has to and does. She keeps looking backwards – instead of forward.

Instead of constantly whining and blaming her birth sisters for her rotten life – she needs to look at the results of the decisions that SHE made the past 30 years. Like publishing that filthy book full of lies.

Going back to 1956 – my father’s second wife came from a large Italian family. She had one brother and three sisters, all were married with kids. These kids became my “step-cousins” and I remember playing with them. Anyway – Joan likes to report on a fantastical tale told to her by her aparents – that the Christmas after they got Joan (would this be 1956 or 1957? Joan never says) her aparents bought a Christmas tree and presents for us Sippel kids because we were so poor. This story is pure BULLSHIT! My father remarried in the summer of 1956. To a woman from a large family. My father was not poor. He worked in Buffalo’s City Hall. Yes, we lived in a cramped apartment – but as the years went on, we moved to better places. This is how ANYbody does. My first “apartment” was a room in a boarding house – then I shared an apartment, then eventually got my own small studio apartment, and each time I moved thereafterwards my apartments were better than the last – and in 1987, I moved to a house, which is now MINE. I went from a room in a boarding house, working my way up to owning my own house. So what’s the problem? My father did the same. By 1965 he bought his own house, but by 1975, he decided he didn’t want the responsibility of it. And it is a big responsibility, let me tell you.

Joan’s aparents lived in an all-white suburb of Buffalo – her father worked as an electrician at Dunlop tires. That was a good paying job. And they had only one child – and Joan’s mom hand sewed her dresses. Joan likes to report that we kids were jealous of that. We may have pointed this out – but not because we are jealous – but to get Joan to see how nice she had it growing up and she should be appreciative of it. Yes, we other kids had hand-me-downs, but we were a large family. Large families do that.

My father’s second wife unfortunatley was mentally ill and spent some time in the psych center. One day, it was all arranged, we kids were at school. The ambulance came and took my stepmother. We kids were picked up at school by case workers and my sisters went to a foster home, my brothers and me to an orphanage – only about 4 blocks from the foster home. My father was with me. I remember. So much for Joan reporting that we kids came home from school for lunch to witness my stepmother screaming in the ambulance.

This would have been the fall of 1959 – as I spent my second grade at the orphanage, then 3rd grade I was back home. My stepmother died in 1964. Joan reports that we kids were placed in the foster and orphan home after she died. And she’s always getting our ages wrong. She chalks it up to “being in the fog.” If that is the case, if she is in the fog and is reporting erroneous things about our ages in her book and on the internet – CAN YOU TRUST ANY DAM THING SHE SAYS ABOUT HER BIRTH FAMILY? Because I have caught her in several contradictions in her book – and in one paragraph, she starts talking about me, then she starts talking about her daugher, then she mixes us both up.  Yep, Joan is in the fog all right.  And because she is, she needs to SHUT UP ABOUT THE FACTS OF MY LIFE, HER ADOPTION, MY MOTHER - THE FACTS THAT SHE KEEPS GETTING WRONG!

In 1960, my brothers and me came back to live with my father and my stepmother. Jo, despite her being ill, loved to embroider. She embroidered our bed linens – pillowcases and the like with all our names in the corner. She liked little flowers on hers and put little flowers on mine. She taught me to sew – or tried to. lol. Every Friday evening, she took me and my brothers downtown to the movies. We liked science fiction and monster movies. After the movies, we went to eat. I don’t always remember what I ate – but I remember always getting a chocolate milkshake. I remember Jo taking care of me when I was sick with the measles, bringing me a tray of chicken soup to my bedroom and patting my head. She took care of me when I came home after getting my tonsils out.

We kids had many many toys. I remember them all. I had my own desk with lots of crayons and differnt color chalks. The first Visible V-8 engine. I remember the doll houses – the kitchen sets – the little dishes, my set was blue with flowers – and they weren’t plastic – they were metal.

Joan can take her lying stories of MY childhood and shove them – she wasn’t there. She doesn’t know how we lived. She’s going by the lies told her by adoptive parents who looked down at us.

And every time Joan puts those lies out there on the internet – we Sippel Sisters will be right here, on this blog to tell the TRUTH of our own dam childhood. Get a life Joan – my life, my childhood is NOT yours for the taking.

1. gertmcqueen –

Gert here…

The TRUTH is always worth repeating!!! particularly when there is a nut case out there that is determine to expose and exploit, for fame and money….our LIVES AND OUR FAMILY

As long as Joan Wheeler keeps those two web site up that exploits and lies about us and our parents we shall continue to tell everyone, everywhere, just what a liar she is as well as all her DARK secrets and all her malicious deeds…

When will Joan Wheeler ever accept the TRUTH? Probably NEVER and that means we will continue on telling the truth.

 

Steak or Hot Dogs? Joan Wheeler hasn’t a clue what the Sippel kids ate – and this has WHAT to do with her adoption? November 9, 2010

Posted by Ruth in Joan Wheeler's abuse and harassment of her birth family, Lies in the book Forbidden Family, Our Family History, Refuting Joan Wheelers statements, Uncategorized.
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From Gert to Ruth:

I just had to address this issue, saw it late last night and stayed up late to do it….so unbelievable even though it is out of sequence I believe that it will serve a purpose… that she is no social worker…so Ruth if you can post this soon….

Joan Wheeler’s book is so full of nonsense it is an overwhelming bunch of garbage.

Taking a peek ahead into the depths of the craziness that Joan has written, I found something that just boggles my mind and felt the need to bring it up now. Chapter 38 is called ‘unequal treatment of 1 half-orphan out of 36 resulted in a traumatic  life outcome – a Social Work Assessment’

It begins with ‘April – July 2009’ meaning of course she wrote it or massively rewrote it just before publication. It continues ‘this assessment is complicated to read, but necessary to understand’. I ask you what has Joan written that has been easy to understand? This entire chapter was an ‘afterthought’ of Joan’s so she could continue with her rants under the guise of ‘social work’. What a joke Joan is! Anyone with or without a degree can tell that Joan is nuts. This is the chapter that she says our father couldn’t understand, which btw caused him to say to others that it belonged in the trash! I’m not ready to comment on this chapter in full…in time it will be addressed…but there is one short paragraph that caught my eye.

Under a title of ‘known and unknown rumors against my natural father’ it defies reason has to what that title or what she has in it has to do with her adoption and how it was an ‘unequal treatment’ and how it resulted in a traumatic life for her, for she wasn’t there. It is Joan’s attempt to prove that her traumatic life is because of all the things she has put into this afterthought chapter.

Steak or Hot Dogs?

I can’t imagine how she can believe or devise these tales but as always she has to put her own spin on it. There are many outlandish tales cooked up by the adoptive family because they had some kind of weird idea about my parents and our economic circumstances and Joan has taken them to be ‘true’ and the reason why she is so traumatized. Bull Shit. Here then is one small paragraph that Joan has written on pg. 542 which caused her trauma!  (Ruth’s note: how in God’s holy trouser’s could what we Sippel kids ate for supper when Joan wasn’t living with us caused her trauma is way beyond me!)

‘One story that has circulated for decades is that in the years before and after my birth and disappearance to adoption, my father fed my siblings hot dogs while he (and presumably my mother and then my siblings’ step-mother) ate steak. When I asked Dad about this, his explanation made sense to me since I, too, raised children. Parents do their best to provide quality food, but when children prefer to eat hot dogs because they taste better to kids, it is easier for parents to give in than to fight about dinner. There is also another explanation – that my father sent my brother to the Broadway Market to buy hot dogs for dinner. He took his time walking home, eating the uncooked hot dogs on the way. There was no dinner for the rest of the family.’ (Ruth’s note: this sentance makes no sense – it does not compute! – When she says that there was no dinner for the rest of the family – does she mean to imply that my father and mother (or stepmother) ate a steak dinner in front of us kids while we went hungry? HOW DARE YOU JOAN! We kids ate supper EVERY FUCKING EVENING! My father and mother/stepmother  was responsible enough to make sure there was adequate groceries in our house for EVERYONE to eat. Not like JOAN and her ex-husband – in another section of her book she says that money was short that often HER kids had one meal a day. That’s a reflection of JOAN’S poor parenting and financial irresponsiblity! She couldn’t feed her kids? Yet she had money to zip around the place attending adoption conferences! Or going to rock concerts! But when money was short, and HER kids ate only one meal a day – did she get off her lazy ass and get even a part time job in the evenings at the Tops Supermarket one mile from her house? Before Joan starts painting the Sippel kids as deprived, she needs to take a close look at how she treated her own kids – like crap!)

This is pure hogwash! I haven’t a clue how she could possible believe such a tale and then put it in a book about her adoption! The basic true story was related from birth relative to adoptive relative and then turned into totally false-hood by the adoptive relatives for reasons of their own. But Joan NEVER researched the truth of the story and instead adds things on, that are of course not true and embellishes it with her own ‘time period’ thought patterns. 

One can tell that it is another ‘Joan centric’ tale because she starts it out with her birth and ‘disappearance to adoption’ as if B.J. (before Joan) had some kind of great turning point in the way our family lived.

Here is the truth and beginning of the tale: My father was raised an only child after an elder brother died. His mother was very protective of him and of his health in particular. She always maintained that her son should have the iron in steak so that his blood was strong and he would not become weak like the son that she had lost. When my father and mother married, his mother would bring a steak to my mother, every week, telling her it was for her son. My mother, being a good daughter-in-law, thanked her mother-in-law and put the steak in the freezer till she had enough to feed the entire family. There is nothing more or less to the story, simply that my mother was no fool. She knew enough to keep her family fed with or without the additional weekly steak that her mother-in-law, my grandmother gave her.

Most of the time during and after my mother’s illness and death we children lived with or were taken care of by our grandparents. Then Dad remarried and his mother came again to her new daughter-in-law, my stepmother with the ‘steak’ for her son. This did not go over well with my stepmother and it was probably she who fed us other meat, again, because she was the wife and in charge of the household and kitchen, not my father.

What Joan tells in this tale is not true and it suffers greatly from total fabrications. She says that she asked Dad about this, well I have no way of knowing if that is true or not but it seems that even if he attempted to give an explanation of it that explanation was embellished by Joan. Dad is a guy and some guys just don’t think about how and what kind of food got on the table. Joan doesn’t think! In the 1950s the world was different, the husband gave the wife the ‘grocery money’ and that was that. So Dad did not feed his kids anything, his wife did! And he ate what was put in front of him!

Joan states, ‘Parents do their best to provide quality food, but when children prefer to eat hot dogs because they taste better to kids, it is easier for parents to give in than to fight about dinner.’ This is Joan’s inner mind working again, subjectively and certainly putting words into someone else’s mouth. This might have happened in Joan’s home with her adoptive parents and then with her children but it certainly didn’t happen in my father’s home. This statement is an editorial comment, has nothing to do with the story at all. Joan was NOT THERE, she would not KNOW that as a child, in my father’s household, if you didn’t eat what was put in front of you, you stayed there all night till you ate it and if you didn’t you had it for breakfast, or, you went without and went to bed hungry!  (Ruth’s note: This is correct, not only in our house, but our grandmother’s house, and in the foster home that we were in for a few years. This is why I will not eat, to this day: oatmeal, lima beans or brussel sprouts. The women in our lives, our father’s mother, our step-mother, our step-grandmother and our foster mother, were strict. They did not cook a meal only to have a child waste it).

Here are some other very important facts that Joan does not know about. While there was the Broadway Market it was not in the neighbor and my father would never have sent my brother or any of us there to purchase anything. There was a local butcher within 4 blocks from home where we went for meat. Joan doesn’t know that because she wasn’t there and the adoptive relatives were not there! All she and they know is the Broadway Market!

Joan then continues saying about my brother that, ‘He took his time walking home, eating the uncooked hot dogs on the way.  There was no dinner for the rest of the family.’ Again, made-up, sounds more like something The Beaver would have done, but not a real kid who was sent to the store to get something. If anyone of us did such a thing forget about dinner, which was called supper at our house, you would have been sent to bed with a ‘licking’.  (Ruth’s note: again, the women in our lives were strict – we got a good smack on our backside when we misbehaved. Something more kids need in this world of kids AND adults not having any self-control or sense of self-responsibility).

Joan knows nothing about what happened in our family because she either wasn’t born yet or she was adopted out as an infant. (Ruth’s note: this sentence makes perfect sense to me – how the hell does Joan know what we Sippel kids ate for supper? SHE WASN’T THERE! I WAS! I KNOW WHAT WE ATE, WHAT WE DIDN’T EAT – AND HOW OUR FAMILY EXISTED! AND SO DOES GERT AND SO DOES KATHY – NOT JOAN. Joan keeps saying that her adoptive family, both her parents and the extended Wheeler family LIED to her about her adoption, and the existence of her siblings. How does she know that they weren’t also LYING to her about our family life? And how the hell do THEY know about it? THEY were NOT part of our family growing up! The only contact between the two families was my mother’s sister Catherine – and she raised her kids the same dam way – her husband always had liverwurst sausage in the fridge and limburger cheese – and NOBODY touched them! – and by god NOBODY touched Uncle Ray’s stuff! BUT, I ate dam well at Aunt Catherine’s house and I ate the same food that my cousins Norman, Ida and Gail had! – so this bullshit about what we Sippel kids ate came from the LYING WHEELERS! – And they sure taught Joan how to lie).

These tales are fabrications told to her by her adoptive parents and Joan hasn’t got the good sense to keep them out of print. She really ought to be ashamed of herself. She really ought to go after her adoptive relatives and leave the birth sisters alone.

(Ruth’s note: a competent social worker would know not to publish “urban legends” such as the steak/hotdogs or Butch eating hotdogs walking down the street. Better still, a COMPETENT social worker would get to the root of the “urban legend.” But since Joan DIDN’T bother to consider a family anecdote that sprang from either a faulty memory, or out-and-out LIES from her adoptive family, this clearly shows us that Joan is no dam social worker).

Addendum from Ruth:

I have already addressed this family anecdote about us Sippel kids eating hotdogs in my post Photos from the Past  March 15, 2010. You have to scroll down to see what I wrote. But to save you the trouble here is what I wrote:

Joan also says on page 542 that our father fed kids hotdogs while he (and presumably my mother and then my siblings’ step-mother) ate steak. This is a family anecdote that Joan in her “brain fog” has gotten wrong.

What happened was this: my father’s mother was from the old-school, she would send over a steak every Friday for my dad. My mother, and then later my stepmother would say “thank you,” and put it in the freezer and the next week, another steak would come, and then we all would eat steak. and yes there were times that we kids would eat hotdogs.

As to the next “story” that my father sent my brother to the Broadway Market for hotdogs, and he ate them on the way home, leaving no dinner for the rest of the family, this makes no sense. Broadway Market was 2 and a half long blocks up Smith St. and then 5 short blocks over. There was Matty’s Deli right around the corner if we needed something in a hurry. Besides, there was Loblaw’s at the corner of William and Emslie only 5 blocks away and Joan was not there, I was. I went shopping every week with my stepmother. We had money for dinner people. come on. What Joan is doing is having “brain fog” in hearing another family anecdote that my brother was sent to the store and probably did eat the hotdogs. I WAS THERE, I HAD DINNER EVERY NIGHT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! (Ruth’s note, November 8, 2010 – Gert is right – we did call it supper in our house. My husband John and I call it dinner in these present days of 2010).

And if we were so “poor” how come we had one cat, 2 parakeets, turtles, fish, Visible V8 Engine set, chemistry sets, build your own radio kits, a backyard gym/swing set, electric football game, kitchen sets with hoses to a bottle to supply running water, the first Easy Bake oven, Chatty Cathy dolls, Nancy dolls, Janet Lennon dolls, Elsie the Cow doll, some doll, if memory serves, The Breck Doll, sponsored by Breck shampoo, where you learned to style hair, and these weren’t Barbie doll sized, but big – their heads were at least 3 or 4 inches across! I had a Drink and Wet doll who was at least 15 inches long! The first Lite Brite sets. Sno-Cone set. I had a chair and desk set with reversible top – chalkboard on one side, artist easle on the other, paint by number sets, the original Cootie and Mr. Potato-Head.

AND we had our living room set from Ethan Allen furniture (NOT cheap) – colonial style! with a couch that opened to a bed. Colonial style rocking chair, coffee table (of which I had until the early 80′s), colonial style dining room furniture, of which I have TO THIS DAY, one of the chairs – it’s sitting four feet away from me right now! I vividly remember being with my step-mother and step-brother bringing home the living room lamps from downtown Buffalo, Hens and Kelley. AND if we were soooo poor, how come every week, my step-mother took me, my brother and stepbrother downtown to the movies, usually to see the new sci-fi, stuff like “The Cosmic Man” “Hypnotic Eye” “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”  “Invaders from Mars” “Darby O’Gill + the Little People.”  We saw Fantasia, went to the circus, I vividly remember not liking the clowns and my stepmother holding me. And all the junk we brought home. I also vividly remember my stepmother taking ME alone to see the brand new Hayley Mills film, The Parent Trap. My brothers and I had Roy Rogers capgun sets, complete with belts, which my grandmother didn’t like. Rubber Jim Bowie knives, Davy Crockett hats. I had a Howdy Doody doll who came to the hospital with me when I had my tonsils taken out at 7 years old, where I threw a temper tantrum because they shut my tv off just as Chuck Connors The Rifleman came on! (I had to leave my rifle home, dad wouldn’t let me take it).  All these brand new toys, and pets, but we were poor? I DON’T THINK SO!

(Ruth’s note, November 8, 2010: The Wheelers [but I suspect it all came from Mama Wheeler] thinks we Sippel kids were soooo poor. We came from the “inner city?” Oh yeah? Well, so did THEY! We lived on Smith St. They lived on Coit St. – ONE BLOCK OVER, TWO BLOCKS UP! So Dorothy/Doloris (yes, she goes by two names), take your suburbian snootiness and shove it – ‘cos you came from 3 blocks where we lived – THE INNER CITY!)

And pray tell: what does all this have to do with the supposed purpose of the book Forbidden Family – Joan’s adoption, Joan’s reunion with us and adoption reform? - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Gert – November 9, 2010

Ruth states:
‘And pray tell: what does all this have to do with the supposed purpose of the book Forbidden Family – Joan’s adoption, Joan’s reunion with us and adoption reform? – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!’

True, absolutely nothing! Joan is totally against any form of adoption, because, she was adopted and her adoptive parents, lied to her, kept secrets from her, betrayed her and when she was ‘found’ by birth relatives, her adoptive family further betrayed, lied and harassed Joan for having a birth family. Nasty business for sure from the adoptive family, but hey, that is not the birth family’s blame.

Joan repeats, at nauseum, her tramatic life as a basis for adoption reform. NO! Joan’s life is what it is because of Joan, NOT adoption. It’s about time that Joan got out of the fog and get the hell over it! She was dealt a raw deal, well she isn’t the only one. She is suffering now because she CAN’T stand the fact that three birth sisters are finally able to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Joan get a life before you find your self on your death bed all alone and wondering how you got there with no one!

This blog will continue to truth tell and refute everything in that book of garbage!

What is a Birth Certificate Used For? Thoughts on Chapter 13 of Forbidden Family by Joan Wheeler July 22, 2010

Posted by Ruth in Contradictions of Joan Wheeler, Joan Wheeler Speak - how Joan views the world, Refuting Joan Wheelers statements.
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by Gert McQueen

Guess who’s NOT coming to dinner? And is it affection or an invitation?

 ‘If love be not in the house, there is nothing’…Ezra Pound

Do you really need a document to prove your inner self? For what is a document but a piece of paper that states certain facts, vital information if you like, the who, what, where, when and why…why, because you exist therefore you MUST have documentation! Chapter 13, Adoption and Birth facts switched on documents.

 The basic question is, just what is a birth certificate used for, what is it’s primary purpose? Quite frankly for identification purposes and it is the business of Vital Records and Vital Statistics to make the rules governing such documents…not Joan. Everywhere you go, for anything you want to do in the world, you must have ID, and a birth certificate does that basic job. If you are adopted well information must be ‘switched’, that is simply the way the law works that’s the way it is and golly gee perhaps Joan ought just accept it.

Pg 117 Joan shows again her propensity for being smarter and wiser than any form of officialdom. She was in ‘disbelief’ and ‘livid’ ‘that New York State Officials actually typed in’…. those dumb officials don’t they know that they can’t do that!

Joan’s describing the adoption papers is loaded with a sick sort of drama; twisted minds make twisted lives and twisted tales. It’s really hard to read. She uses a form of second-guessing in this drama; ‘was she (adoptive mom) possessive and hostile because she wanted to believe she gave birth to me?’ and the adoptive father ‘he wasn’t my father because he created me in the old fashioned way…but because the Surrogate Court…declared him so by legal adoption.’ By ‘the old fashioned way’ she must mean by the usual sexual means of producing children. Why does she beat around the bush here why not just get to the point, she usually doesn’t have a problem spelling things out, so why not here? Is it because she hadn’t explored the ‘old-fashioned way’ yet? (Ruth’s note – no Gert, she had been exploring the “old-fashioned way” since she was 16).

 She maintains that the records are ‘falsification of the truth’…no it’s the legal means of adapting to a new reality i.e. from birth to one set of parents to adoption by another set of parents, no falsification at all. But Joan, who is a upstanding moral person! feels that ‘there is something morally wrong in the way the truth had been altered, and hidden…couldn’t understand why birth records were legally altered when I (she) knew that falsifying documents are illegal.’ Oh dear me! Does that mean that the department of vital records did something illegal? Joan is always tying her self up into knots over things that are just legal fictions to prove the change of name from this to that. But to her, it is always ‘a slipup…must have made a mistake…’ The reason the adoptee doesn’t see the pre-adoption birth certificate is because it is up to the adults that are making the adoption of the adoptee to inform that child when appropriate. She’s always making something out of nothing and she is off fighting bureaucratic and her families.

Pg 120 Joan tells us that she is ‘hungry for identification with people like (her)’, she starts to make contacts, with other adoptees, but ‘their words stirred up feelings of isolation, anger and resentment’…she ‘wanted to enjoy life’ but she now ‘had THIS to deal with – THIS being … adoption and reunion’. (the capital letters are hers) Drama! So her dramas lead her more into loneliness and sadness and looking in all the wrong places for love as she explored the ‘old-fashioned way’ in ‘a few one-night stands’, and then she starts to date a 18-year-old Black guy that lasts ‘for two years’.

Reality check! The times were the mid-1970s, Joan was a very immature sheltered girl who had no experience living with the racial tensions and riots that swept across the country. I, like many others, did. Interracial couplings were NOT the norm, they were scandalous and NOT for every family. The movie Guess who’s coming to dinner appeared in 1967, most families in America were NOT like the family portrayed in the movie. In real life the late 60’s and early 70’s were filled with much violence as the Civil Rights movement was stabilizing. Many whites might have been okay with mix-race couplings but many were not and the same can be said for the Blacks, if they did they were a minority keeping a low profile, something Joan knows nothing about. In many families the idea of crossing racial lines was just not done and the issue was entirely up to an individual family as to how they reached those decisions. When a child goes against the established core values of their family and the wishes of the parents, for shock value, for acting out, for rebellion, the situation never works out well.

This is what Joan did, she did it for rebellion reasons and she gives ‘lip service’ to it when she says ‘…years later that perhaps I used racial issues as a smoke screen – something to focus on instead of what was really bothering me.’ Again, too bad for me that she didn’t come to that conclusion sooner before she interfered with my parental authority and told my 13 years daughter that ‘your mother doesn’t know anything, don’t listen to her, if you want to date a Black boy do it’! But that’s a story for a later. She says that the interracial relationship and adoption issues ‘drove a wedge between her parents and herself…they fought bitterly.’ That is her adoptive parents.

As I stated in a previous post, as very young children, my parents and us 4 children, lived in the same house with a Black family and we were raised not as racists or bigots. My father, in particular, always allowed us to make our own decisions and if we were happy he was happy. My sister Ruth has had long-term relationships with other races and they were and are accepted within our family. My personal views were that it was not right for myself, or my children, even though they, my children, were free to have friends of different races and religions. As a parent I have the right to make the ‘established core values of the family’ and no one has the right to contradict them to my minor children, as Joan did.

On pg 122 Joan tells of a phone conversation with me, ‘the eldest…which made her an authority figure’, in which I tell her that ‘it’s your choice and you alone will have to live with the consequences, but you are young and don’t know what you’re doing…you can’t dislocate yourself from your family…society isn’t ready for it and you have to live with the rules of society’. That’s correct, I said it or something like it and it was sound advice, then and now. But to Joan, she ‘…hung up the phone in disbelief…Gert must have been chosen to be the spokesperson to represent the entire Sippel, Herr and Wheeler family clans.’ Not true! I was stating my own personal opinion and speaking as a parent myself. It is only Joan who feels the need to find someone to point the finger at to say that they are the cause of her problems. So Be It!

So she gets back to having more dramas. ‘There was a Reunion in Progress but no one knew how to proceed.’ Did she? no she just lets more of her inner life talk to her and she comes up with ‘my families hated blacks, therefore, they hated me. I was a sinner in need of repentance….’ and on and on and on. She ‘was getting caught up in the world’s social causes, she didn’t see what these causes were doing to her.’ Personal note: Joan never gave anyone the opportunities to continue with the ‘in progress’ because she was so argumentive and aggressive in her positions and would not allow others, particularly the adoptive and birth families, to have their own opinions and views on any social issue, it was always about Joan.

 Pg 123 ‘then I suffered gastrointestinal problems, sinus infections and backaches.’

 Pg 126 adoptive ‘mom was admitted to the hospital with stomach ulcers.’

Pg 129 adoptive ‘father was admitted to the hospital with another bleeding ulcer.’

What does that tell you?

Also, while deciding whether to go to Egypt for a year she ‘was terrified of the Arab society in which women weren’t held equal to men…(was advised) to be aware that an outspoken woman in an Arab country would be a target for ridicule, assault and rape…I wasn’t sure it would be worth it…’ If she couldn’t take the pressure of family responses to her dating a Black man, in this country, what planet was she on when thinking she would be safe on Arab turf in the first place?

On Pg 124 Joan finally tells us the real reason she wrote this book! She makes contact with someone at ALMA who wanted to have her story in his up coming book A Time to Search. ‘The idea of being in a book excited me’ but was told later that he ‘can’t use your story after all…your reunion took place outside the realm of ALMA and its registry’. So Joan says, ‘the nerve of him…my story wasn’t good enough because I didn’t have a reunion with ALMA, I’ll show him, I’ll write my own book, my story was unique enough to stand on its own, that’s how the seed was planted in March 1976, two years into my reunion.’ So much for altruistic reasons!

Then there’s more drama with adoption issues and interactions with birth family members that she can’t figure out how to take and makes things up according to her own views. Pg 128. In 76, during a visit with our brother he tells her that he is moving west; now she is ‘losing him’. My brother drives her home one night and in the driveway ‘…he leaned over and kissed my cheek. I was stunned. I didn’t grow up with sisters and brothers….I didn’t know how it felt to be kissed by my brother…it felt odd.’

Then she tells of a visit with me in which she states ‘…that after the kids were in bed…we drank…wine…she (that’s me) rolled a few joints.’ Here we go again, tell the world that I smoked a few joints. I wished! But she continues on with the story ‘…we talked about…then the discussion turned intense. She sat close to me on the couch. She made advances that I interpreted as sexual. I was confused, drugged and drunk. I missed Momma, as she did, she told me not to tell anyone.’

Jesus Christ Almighty! So here it is folks, I, big sister, confused her, drugged her, got her drunk and then made sexual advances to her, and mind you, I told her not to tell anyone! Never happened! First she admits that she was ‘stunned’ when her brother kissed her on the cheek, ‘it felt odd’. True she did not grow up with other siblings so she hasn’t a clue about affection between siblings. She can’t figure out that we siblings also had feelings of joy and affection for her and that sometimes a hug is just a hug, a kiss is just a kiss! Everything that happens to Joan happens from the Joan filter!

At this particular time frame, summer of 76, I was going through some pretty intense stuff in my life and Joan was not part of it! My fiancé, not my boy friend, and I were to be married that year, he was to adopt, oh dear me, adopt, my children and we were to have more children. But he got cancer and this particular summer he was sick, sick and sick. In addition, my ex-husband at the time was badgering me weekly to ‘hurry up, get married, and adopt those kids, so I don’t have to pay the child support’. My world had started to crumble that summer. My fiancé died in November. I was numb for almost a year, just doing my job so I could support my children and going through the motions. Joan meant nothing to me! And she was getting ready to go to Liverpool, England and she gave little thought to my troubles and me.

 But, Joan is good, in a sleazily way, I have to give her credit; she is laying the groundwork here for some event that comes later on, or else she has taken ‘liberties’ and combined one event onto another, either way, what she has said is not a true representation. But oh, what a storyteller she is, too bad most of it can’t be relied upon. I cannot of course comment about events and stories she tells about my other siblings and other family members. If I wasn’t there, at any event, gathering etc, I cannot comment, that being said, I truly have to wonder about the authenticity of other ‘events’ and hope that my sisters make their own observations known here.

Pg 128 she relates ‘…my college roommate, Lucy…we spent some time with…(Ruth) and her…boyfriend and his brother…we went dancing…’ Wrong, lie! According to Ruth, it was not Lucy it was the black boyfriend and at a bowling alley they got into an argument and he threatened her. He had already beaten her up; she was terrified. When they got home, Joan slept on the couch and the boyfriend stayed in the car, for Ruth didn’t want any problems with her neighbors.

Pg 129 Joan relates that ‘…my adoptive mother and I threw a going-away party for B and M (brother and his wife).’ According to Ruth, this is a lie, she herself has answered this issue, but for the record here and now, the party was at our father’s in Sept and Ruth has pictures! There is some doubt as to whether Joan herself was there but certainly her mother was not. Joan’s adoptive mother NEVER was at our father’s home. Ruth was never at Joan’s adoptive home. (Ruth’s note: I was at the house perhaps 3 or 4 times). I was only at that home a couple of times and we have no real knowledge about whether or not our brother ever was at that home. Kathy was already in England and never was in that home. We have no real knowledge about the so-called visits that Joan retells that occurred at our father’s home with our stepmother and other siblings.

I have been quite suspicious, as I read, of all these ‘visits’ between natural father and adopted parents that she relates; they seemed so out of character of everyone in light of how Joan relentlessly portrays the emotional instability of her adopted mother. So what does this prove? That Joan’s ‘recollections’ are flawed, at best a combination of several different events put together to make a whole that ‘fits in’ with Joan’s sense of reality. Her recollections are not to be trusted!

Who knows better about the truth of my own life? Me, who lives it, or the pathological liar Joan Wheeler? July 8, 2010

Posted by Ruth in Lies in the book Forbidden Family, Refuting Joan Wheelers statements.
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Joan Wheeler is so upset that I started this blog. I started this blog because in November 2009, I read a statement of hers on the internet that involved me. And it was NOT the truth. So I rebutted her statement. The owner of the website would not publish my comment. Because it was one of those anti-adoption forums and the web-host was a “friend” of Joan’s. So much for the militant adult adoptee reformers who keep claiming they want the “truth.” They only want THEIR truth published, not anybody else’s, and certainly not someone who is presenting an opposing opinion of one of their militant members. They don’t publish the real TRUTH, they only publish their twisted versions of their interpretation of the TRUTH.

I certainly know the TRUTH of my life. I know the FACTS. I know I didn’t get my driver’s license until 1976. I well remember what apartment I was living in – the back upstairs apartment of 293 Amherst St. I well remember meeting my first husband Abdo in May of 1975, and I was still living in an apartment at the corner of Elmwood and Allen. I walked to work, and used my BICYCLE to go places. I well remember using my bike to go to Abdo’s house on Grant St.  And when Abdo and I moved in together in July of 1975 on Amherst St., I then took the Grant St. Number 3 BUS to work everynight. I left my house at 10:00 to get the bus. During the winter of 75-76, we got stranded downtown and nearly froze waiting for a bus home. That’s when we made the decision to get a car. We bought it in March 1976. Even though neither one of us could drive. So how does Joan account for her saying in her book Forbidden Family that I drove her around in 1974? This is her truth? Nope, this is a falsehood. Or a faulty memory working here. So how do YOU people who bought her book know what she is saying is the REAL truth? She can’t even remember correctly the so-called “facts” she presents in her book. Can you trust somebody like this? I sure can’t. And I won’t.

So this is why I have this blog – to get out the TRUTH and the FACTS of my own life – something I know a hell of a lot better than Joan. Because she hasn’t lived my life – she doesn’t know my life – all she knows is how to lie.

Like telling people that I have a criminal record. Where is your proof Joan? I have proof that I do not have a criminal record. Joan also says that she has had multiple orders of protection against me – and I have submitted scanned court documents right here on this blog that proves that she did not. She relates a fantasy court battle in the year 1994, and an incident that occured at the water fountain when the court broke for lunch. I have submitted on this blog, court documents from 1999 that show we never were in court in 1994, it was in 1995, and it was not HER that institued the court case, it was ME. And I submitted my summons to appear at 2 in the afternoon, which is AFTER lunch.

Joan then reads my blog and complains that I am harassing her because I dare tell the TRUTH of what happened between us. And other TRUTHS. She keeps saying that I am harassing her, interfering with her, doing things to her.

It isn’t a matter of “doing” something to her. It is a matter of the TRUTH coming out. It will be the TRUTH that will do something to her. It is Joan’s own LIES being uncovered that is “doing” something to her.

People sometimes wonder why I can’t bury the past. You cannot bury the past when the LIE affects the present.

Therefore, I and my sisters will continue to write our TRUTH here, and if Joan doesn’t like it, or can’t take it, well, so be it.

There will be a posting in a few days from another Sippel Sister – Gert McQueen – stayed tuned for some more TRUTH-telling.

Joan Wheeler – The Forbidden CHILD indeed! July 2, 2010

Posted by Ruth in Lies in the book Forbidden Family, Refuting Joan Wheelers statements.
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 At long last, my companion piece to Gert’s post “Forbidden family or forbidden child?”  I have just been so busy, and then in June I was very sick. Please click on the link to read Gert’s post first.

Gert’s post Forbidden Family or Forbidden Child starts with page 90, so I will start there too.

Joan had related a request from our sister in England to bring some souvenoirs when she came over to England to visit. Edith/Kathy asked or a cowboy hat and mocassins for an aunt and uncle of The Beatles’ Ringo Starr.

Joan starts her whining early in life. She didn’t know where to go buy these items. Never mind she was a member of the Buffalo Indian Dance Group, a Native American dance group. They routinely wore mocassins, and I personally saw Joan perform with this troupe. And she herself wore a full Native American costume, complete with all things: MOCASSINS! Where did she get those mocassins? Why didn’t she go there for some mocassins? And if she couldn’t find a cowboy hat, why didn’t she ask someone in the troupe to help her? The dance troupe came out of The Buffalo Museum of Science. I’m sure SOMEBODY would have known where to get a hat. But no, Joan relates in her book that time spent in stores made her nervous, and she became agitated and worried. WTF? She tried for weeks, but couldn’t find the items. Oh- and the “demands” on her were too high! All Kathy did was ask for a couple of souveniors. She wasn’t asking for her first-born!
   Was it the fact that the souveniors were for a celebrity? (and actually they weren’t for a celebrity, they were for relatives of a celebrity). Was that what made Joan nervous? I hardly think so. She fired off plenty of fan letters to Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek’s Mr. Spock) and Peter Noone (Herman, Herman’s Hermits). She met Leonard Nimoy at the local annual children’s hospital telethon in 1971 or 1972. In 1975 she and I attended a local broadcast of Dialing for Dollars to meet actor Keir Dullea. She showed NO fear of celebrities. And she does say in her book that on November 5, 1974, she came home to Buffalo from college to attend a concert by Herman’s Hermits at Uncle Sam’s, a local disco. She had a backstage pass to meet the group. Oh, wasn’t she “nervous and agitated” to meet them? Nope. At the disco, she ran into me and our cousin Gail, and lucky us, we got to go backstage with her and meet the band! Gee, I don’t recall Joan being nervous and agitated to meet actual rock stars, and these weren’t even a rock stars aunt and uncle!

addendum – July 11, 2010

On Page 116, Joan is describing events at the 1975 Star Trek conventions. She says that during one of her bathroom stops (oh please, have some class – do readers of a book have to hear she’s going to the bathroom?)!!! Anyway, she relates how she bumps into the late science fiction author Isaac Asimov.  She says he hugged her and they posed for pictures. He signed his autograph for her. And they would meet again during future science fiction conventions.  She doesn’t say that she “nervous and agitated” meeting Isaac Asimov, or down the road in the early 1980′s when she and I met noted writer Harlan Ellison. And Ellison has a reputation for upsetting fans. While we were forming the autograph line, and Ellison walked past us, for some reason, he reached out to me and tweaked my cheek, saying “You’re so cute.” (He also has a reputation for being somewhat strange). When I approached the autograph table, I reached out and tweaked HIS cheek and told him, “You’re so cute.”  He was speechless. A fan reciprocrated his silliness! So I have the reputation of rendering Harlan Ellison silent. Joan was the next in line. Was she “nervous and agitated,” especially since her sister just rendered Ellison speechless? Nope!

So returning to the souveniors that Kathy requested:
What does Joan mean she tried for weeks to find the items? What stores was she looking in? Come on! This is an intelligent (?) young woman? But she sure knew where to get marijuana to smoke in her bedroom didn’t she? And she did NOT get the marijuana from us. 

Now remember people, this was in 1974, and we had just met Joan. “time spent in stores made her nervous. She was agitated and worried.” So she was this way when we met her. OBVIOUSLY she was not raised right. She had a severe lack-of-social-graces, and was exibiting signs of mental instability. In the beginning, this was not obvious to me or others at all. But as time went on, and we were exposed to her “quirkiness,” we began to see that she was, well, “wierd,” is how we put it. We still didn’t attribute it to any kind of mental instability, she was just….wierd. BUT…..WE ACCEPTED HER ANYWAY!

Joan is very contradictory on her expectations of how her adoptive and birth families are and her wanting everyone to be. And these “fantasy” expectations of people continue to this day, and this includes people who are not related to her, whether by birth or adoption. By the years 1980 and 1981, her true colors began to emerge. But we are still discussing 1974 here.

Page 92 and page 97 shows just how unrealistic her expectations of people are. She starts with telling us an interesting history of my mother’s family tree. A few generations ago, there was even a marriage between the Herr family (my mother’s family) and the Wheeler’s.  And my mother’s sister Catherine was a life long friend of a sister of Edward Wheeler, Joan’s adoptive father.

On page 92, Joan says she is shown a photograph of my parents and us Sippel kids. Apparently, my Aunt Catherine had sent this photo to the Wheelers, because Joan had seen it in the past. She didn’t know who the family was, but now, she is shown the same photo by her birth family and she feels an agonizing sense of recognition, and was “instantly repulsed at the level of betrayal from the parents who raised me.”

Oh for heaven’s sake. Remember people, the Wheelers and the Herrs were distant relatives, and EVERYBODY in 1956 was sad because a woman, just 30 years old, very well liked and admired, with 5 little kids, one an infant, was diagnosed with cancer and within 3 months DIED. Perhaps that picture that the Wheelers had was their way of honoring and remembering her.

On page 101, she relates (and Gert brings it up in her post also) about how she sneaks around her parents home to find this photograph and says: “IT WAS MINE NOW, AND STEALING DIDN’T BOTHER ME.”  — remember this people, that STEALING DOESN’T BOTHER HER, because Joan steals several times more. From me, from our sister Kathy. Even stole beadwork off our dead mother’s wedding gown!

On page 93, Joan relates how jealous she is because Aunt Catherine’s kids and her Aunt Helen’s kids went camping together in earlier years. Um, the 2 woman were life-long friends, they grew up together. Why shouldn’t their kids go camping together? Just because Joan was adopted, Catherine and Helen should suddenly stop being friends?

On page 96, Joan relates how on a visit to an adoptive aunt, (after the reunion) stories were freely flowing about the connection between the Herr and Wheeler families. She relates how the Wheelers lived in the same neighborhood as her birth family (it’s a small world). My grandfather delivered coal to the Wheelers. Joan then wonders why this suddenly stopped when she was adopted. – but wasn’t she complaining because Catherine and Helen DID NOT stop their “connection?”

Well, the connections between the Herrs and the Wheelers suddenly stopped, because for one thing, the Wheelers bought a nice house in the suburbs. They moved away from the inner city neighborhood where they had their start. AND, yes, Dorothy Wheeler was possessive of Joan. But not all contact stopped, as Joan relates about the photograph Aunt Catherine gave the Wheelers.

But Joan can’t make up her mind about how she feels about these connections. First she complains that the connection between Catherine and Helen did NOT stop, then complains that other connections DO stop!

On page 100, she relates how 2 days before she left to start college (1974), I drove her to meet our Aunt Doris. WRONG. It wasn’t me, it was our cousin Gail! I didn’t learn to drive until 1976. In 1974, I was living in my first apartment, and I did not own a car, nor did I know how to drive a car. Get your facts straight Joan, if you are writing a “non-fiction” book!

Page 103 shows again, how she is full of a lack of self-esteem and sense of worth. She is invited to be part of a wedding party of one of her adoptive cousins. She bitches because she is asked to dye her hair to please the bride. I agree with her on this point, I wouldn’t want to change MY hair to please somebody else either. But she goes along with it, and feels out-of-place during the preparations of the wedding. She couldn’t get into the spirit of it. During the wedding reception she “senses” people talking about her. AHHH, the first hints of paranoia.

Oh, she knows what people are speaking about without being part of the conversation. She doesn’t say she HEARS them talking about her, she SENSES they are. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Not only do we see the first signs of paranoia, we see the groundworks of another one of her contradictions: she is ostracized! oh boo hoo, she is being ignored! She is being talked about – she is NOT being ignored, oh boo, hoo. Again, Joan, make up your mind. Joan WANTS to be the center of attention, then bitches when she IS! She wants HER privacy maintained (but cares nothing about my privacy, or anyone else’s), – she wants to be left alone. then bitches when she is left alone – she sees that as being ostracized! You just can’t keep up with her.

She then says, that after knowing the bride for 18 years, she would never see her again, because she was too embarrassed to keep up a relationship with her. Why? What was she embarrassed about? she doesn’t say. She blames her embarrasment on — people talking about her? Please, the bride didn’t notice. Brides don’t notice. They have their minds on a thousand and one things. I myself can not remember one word of my vows. I do remember the tears in John’s eyes. I remember one of my bridesmaids Sarah, taking pictures. She was behind the judge making fun of his wig and I was trying very hard to keep a straight face.  I don’t even remember half of what was said at Athen’s restaurant at our dinner that evening. Getting back to the wedding that Joan attended, the bride involved was probably sitting at the head table with her new-husband, she couldn’t understand every converstion in the room. Newsflash Joan: you are NOT in the thoughts and minds of everyone around you 24/7. Get over yourself.

Gert brings up the following point in her post: “The main source of trouble and later harassment is shown on page 99, it is the adoptive father’s brother John Wheeler. It is things that he does later, to Joan, which my sisters and I get the blame for. It is also quite interesting to note the family’s dynamics at work within the Wheeler family. The antagonism is palpable, the intimidations, the betrayals; all learned and practiced within the Wheeler family complex long before Joan knew she was part of our family. Joan is the product of her upbringing; …”

You know, what Gert observes and writes is the absolute truth! NOBODY in the Sippel family practices antagonism, intimidation, betrayal, theft. My goodness. I think back on my relationships with my siblings – let’s see, nope, no stealing, lying, intimidations, betrayals between me and Gert, me and Kathy, me and my late brother Butch, my step-brothers Jim and John, my step-sisters Joselyne and Mariel and my half brother Steve. Nor between any of those I just mentioned! There is in our family, as I find in a lot of families, the usual tensions between step-siblings. It seems to be a common occurance that older siblings are pushed out of the way in favor of the younger ones. But we are not talking about the dynamics of step-family members here on this blog, we are talking about the continual back-stabbing and other despicable things going on in the Wheeler family, or at least a couple of them, AND the main perpetrators of it all – Joan and her adoptive mother herself – Dorothy/Doloris Wheeler. (yes, she goes by two names – and they are both listed in the public records of Erie County Hall on her deed and mortgage records – remember this fact – it is important in an event of December 1994). 

So getting back to the Wheeler dynamics – Joan doesn’t even get along with the extended Wheeler family – cousins she grew up with are now her enemies. Why is this? My goodness, to this day, I am constantly finding and re-connecting with cousins from my mother’s side of the family via facebook. Cousins I haven’t seen for years – some I haven’t EVER met – yet we’re getting along! A couple of them have been quite vocal in their affection for me. At a relative’s funeral in December 2009, three young men approached me – son’s of my late cousin Ida. I hadn’t seen them since their mother’s funeral in August 1990. I could see their love for me in their eyes. Why does this not happen to Joan? Because Joan continuously disrespects people and because in the Sippel and the Herr families, we were taught to respect each other.

To sum up what is wrong with Joan in just a couple of words: SHE RESPECTS NO ONE. NOT EVEN HERSELF. And when you do not respect others, you aren’t going to get much of a loving relationship. Joan got just what she learned at the feet of Dorothy Wheeler – she is on the outside looking in.

On page 110 she relates going to Jamestown New York for a family reunion. Gert already pointed out that inaccuracy in her reporting of how Joan got there. She claims Gert drove to Erie Pa. to get her and took her to the reunion. Gert and her children were not there, nor did Gert drive to Erie to get her. I don’t know how Joan got to Buffalo, but I DO know it was my cousin Gail who drove her to meet our Uncle Mike. (it wasn’t me, I didn’t know how to drive then). How do I know it was Gail? Because I remember Gail telling me that at the dinner table, Aunt Doris was smoking and Joan butted in and said “I have to ask you to stop smoking because I am allergic to cigarette smoke.” and Aunt Doris the Barricuda (family nickname) said, “This is my house, and I will smoke if I want.” When Gail told me the story, I laughed, and said, “gee, she didn’t have any problems smoking that marijuana with me last month.”

Also on page 110 she’s got me in the car with cousin Gail and her mother, Aunt Catherine. Again, I wasn’t there. For a NON-FICTION book, and a TRUTHFUL book, there’s sure a lot of discrepencies in it! And where was the car going? She says “on the drive home.” She doesn’t say until a couple pages of later that she was to be in Buffalo from college on Christmas break. All we get is she got picked up in Erie, then she’s on the drive home. How do the readers know why she’s not going BACK to Erie for xmas break when she doesn’t say for another page or two?  Poor and inaccurate writing skills are evident here.

Anyway, she goes on to talk about a conversation about Uncle Mike’s dislike of my father. I wasn’t in the car, so I don’t know about it. But on page 11, she’s got the car turning into her driveway and me getting out with her and telling her that she has misspelled the name Sippel on a Christmas card she sent me. I don’t remember this happening. It may have happened, but it certainly was NOT at that event, because, as I said, I wasn’t there.

On page 112, she relates her confusion as to how our mother died. She has been told over and over again that she died of uterine cancer. The immediate cause of death was carcinomatosis (cancer) and hypernephroma, kidney failure. This is listed on the death certificate. Joan says that she found a descrepancy in the information passed on through the adoption process. NOPE. This is NOT a discrepency. This is FACT! And she has been told this time and time again.

1. my mother got pregnant. 2. during the pregnancy she developed the cancer. – or else she had the beginnings of it BEFORE she got pregnant with Joan. 3. By the time she delivered the baby, the cancer was too far gone. 4. On January 19, 1956, she had exploratory surgery, where the cancer was found to have spread. There was nothing to be done, so they closed her up, and  over the course of the next few weeks, she went downhill. 5. The immediate cause of death is correctly listed – kidney failure. Her organs had started to fail. Her heart could have been the organ that failed first. If it had, Joan would be now obsessed with heart disease, which she should be concerned with, as my dad has had open heart surgery, and The Three Sippel sisters all have high cholesterol and the signs are there that we need to be extra careful with our tickers.

Joan’s obession with the kidneys is because she has had a lifelong problem with bladder and kidney infections. Why? I don’t know. She also has a lot of allergies. These could be because she was born premature and this is just the way she is. Why must she be obsessed with changing the cause of my mother’s death?

She goes on to say she had been worrying about uterine cancer and having PAP tests done every 6 months. What kind of doctor was she going to that didn’t reassure her? Why the need for PAP tests every 6 months? Look people, MY mother died of uterine cancer. When I became sexually active in 1972, I took care of my gyn needs as needed. I was NOT obsessed about it. When I tried and couldn’t conceive, I did make plans to start having tests to find out why. * Then I had my miscarriage, and I accepted it. (it may have taken me a couple of years and a session with a counselor, but I did accept it). And in 2001, when the need came to have a hysterectomy, I said, “fine. get rid of it. Never worked right anyway. Never let me have a kid. Out with it.I can now be free of the monthly mess.” NO OBSESSING NEEDED.  * note to Joan – making plans to have tests to find out why I wasn’t getting pregnant, then having just the basic tests done by a regular gynecologist does NOT mean I went to a fertility clinic/specialist and had infertility tests done. Joan reports this on page 302. Joan – get your facts straight about MY dam life before you go around reporting on it! Better yet – STOP REPORTING ON MY LIFE! Because I don’t see where MY gyn concerns has any bearings on YOUR adoption, your adoption reunion, or your adoption reform activities.

The next few pages she’s going on about her getting involved in the adoption movement. She says “the confusion and rage within me began to consume me and change me into a radical adoptee.” and “That militant part of me grew in ways that were unhealthy.”  Remember people, this was all taking place in Erie Pa. AWAY from her birth family. She is admitting that in early 1975, she was consumed with confusion and rage, and it was growing in ways that were unhealthy. So why does she in later years blame her birth siblings for her mental problems? And she admits to the whole world here that she is unhealthy in her mind!!!! Can someone who is unhealthy in her mind and who is a self-admitted thief, and sees no wrong in stealing be a proper spokesperson for the adoption reform movement? Can a person like this be trusted even in everyday life? Can a person like this be even trusted to write a truthful book? I don’t think so, and the proof is in the pages of her book.

For example, on page 115, she describes an event that happened on Valentine’s Day 1975. As we were both Star Trek fans, we made plans to attend the Star Trek Convention in New York. We were taking the Greyhound bus. She boarded the bus in Erie. The bus pulled into Buffalo, where I got on and took us on to New York. Joan states, “We spent the 12 hours on the bus…” No, SHE spent 12 hours on the bus, I spent only 8 hours on the bus. She was on the bus 4 hours longer than me. Nitpicking? Nope. When you set out to write a TRUTHFUL book, it better dam well be the TRUTH! This is just an another example of how Joan gets the little details wrong – like having me drive her around 2 years before I learned to drive. It just makes you not trust ANY thing that comes out of her mouth.

On page 113, she relates that she asked Gert to send her any newspaper or magazine clippings on adoption. She says, “Irma (Gert) complained that this wasn’t her thing, so she said she’d cut out a few articles to get me started.” She then goes on to say that she began reading the articles, so obviously, Gert clipped some and sent them to her. Gert says in her post, “”But she (Joan)  doesn’t understand family members non-interest in the adoption issues; she has to point out that I ‘complained that adoption wasn’t her (my) thing’. Is there a point here?”

Yes Gert, there is most definitely a point. The point is Joan is showing the whole world thru her book, her lack of RESPECT for those who do not share her obsession with adoption. And this anecdote shows Joan for the little sniping pisspot she is: her book is littered with little digs like this against her own blood-kin! Go back and read what I quoted from her book: “Gert COMPLAINS” BUT Gert must have sent the articles because she was reading them in college.

Here’s another little dig, aimed at me: I mentioned earlier that when “we” got out of the car (after the family reunion that I wasn’t at), and I corrected her misspelling our last name on a Christmas card, she says that when I said it, I must have tried to be helpful, but it didn’t come out that way and I sarcastically quipped it. Excuse me for being human. And making a mistake. And this mistake of mine has WHAT to do with Joan’s adoption, her renunion, or her adoption reform work? No, she went out of her way to point this flaw in me out to her readers. Because she has to start to show everyone that I’m a bitch. She is laying the groundwork for her accusations against me that I have harassed and interfered with her life “for decades.” Remember this people, how she starts the put-downs, the little digs against her blood-kin. She needs to point out our flaws here, to justify her lies later on in the book.

And I need to point out here, that she never brought this up to me. She never once said that I made her feel “ashamed and stupid” with that remark. I certainly had no intention of doing so, and if I did hurt your feelings Joan, I do sincerely apologize for it, right here and now. But I have to wonder – did this little incident grow in her “unhealthy” mind? Was it the basis (along with an incident in 1987) that made her want to hurt me over and over and over and stab me in the back, not once, but several times? – but we will get to those later.

~~~~~~~~~~~ picture time ~~~~~~~~~~

Here is me, my first husband Abdo (right), his brother Ali (between me and Abdo) and our good friend Tony. We were sitting on the hood of my first car. Abdo and I bought it in March 1976, before we even knew how to drive. Ali didn’t drive either. Tony was the only one who could drive. Ali, Abdo, and me were learning to drive together.  Now I ask you, if I didn’t own a car until March 1976, or even get my license until July 1976, how was I driving Joan around in 1974?

On page 116, she describes events we attended together in early 1975.  Like attending the afore-mentioned Dialing for Dollars show to see actor Keir Dullea. She describes us seeing Pink Floyd and Beatles’ movie marathons at a downtown theatre, we hung around Allentown, we went dancing at Uncle Sam’s. She doesn’t say how we got to those places. We took the city buses. That’s how we got there. And later, when we went dancing at Uncle Sam’s disco, it was when I was living with Abdo and she came along with us. Abdo and I had many friends with cars and we would all hang out together. So who drove us to Uncle Sam’s? I don’t know. It may have been Fayez, it may have been Farouk, it may have been Tony, or Jimmy (Mahmoud),  or even Steve (Abdullah). All I know is: it sure wasn’t ME, because I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE!

My first husband Abdo, his brother Ali, and our good friend Tony, on Abdo's and mine, first car, April 1976. The only person in the picture who could drive at that time was Tony (far left).

Cyber Stalking or merely reading a blog on the World Wide Web -Dictator Joan issues another selfish decree! May 20, 2010

Posted by Ruth in Contradictions of Joan Wheeler.
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roflmao! So we are accused of cyber stalking again. um, correct me if I’m wrong – but if a thing is put out on the internet, then it is meant to be READ? And just how would Joan Wheeler know what is on our blog, and that we are “cyber-stalking”? By reading something here on our blog? Well, as you see, DICTATOR  Joan Wheeler wants to come here to read our blog, but she declares that we CANNOT read hers. geez!

Joan, my dear, you do not own the internet. And if you are putting MY name on YOUR adoption discussion forum, than I claim the right to see what is being said about ME! YOU do not own MY name, I do. If you talk about me on the net, I want to know about it.

Oh, but whiny little Joan Wheeler, all over her book bitches and moans when she finds out (or even imagines) when people are talking about HER. But she thinks she can talk about ME and doesn’t see that is a double standard.

Grow up Joan. “oh, they’re talking about me again.” Well, you talked about me on May 8, 2010 and directed your buddies here. It’s ok for YOU to cyber stalk ME and put MY name out on discussion forums, but we can’t do the same? And FYI: We are NOT doing the same.  We are not going on a bunch of websites talking about you. We could care less about you. And this blog is NOT about YOU: it is about ME and MY SISTERS, refuting YOUR lies. And we are not talking about YOUR life, we are talking about OUR lives. Your life gets mentioned when it has affected ours. And by they way, YOU talked about OUR lives in your book! So what’s your beef? What an idiot! Joan can talk about MY life, but I can’t talk about hers. Joan can go on the internet and talk about ME, but she doesn’t want ME to go on the internet and talk about HER. Talk about being a bully! Joan Wheeler – consummate cyber bully. Like she has been all her life. She has no self-esteem, so to get her way, she resorts to bullying. Do as I say, not as I do, is her command! Joan, YOU DO NOT COMMAND ME! I do as I see you do. uh, I mean, isn’t that what you want? Us to think like you? No? Well what the hell DO you want? pshaw, I don’t care what you want. You sure don’t care what I want, and never did. I was just a piece of dirt to you. A piece of dirt you thought you could steal from and get away with it. well, in a sense you did, because you never repaid the money you stole, but you know, what goes around, comes around. You’ll pay for all the crap you did to me and my sisters. And I think it’s coming round.  If isn’t evident at the moment, it will shortly. I don’t know when, but things are going to blow up in your face.  lol.

oh, and thanks for the publicity to my blog. oh! sending more people over here to read all about the crap you did to us and the lies you’ve told about me and my family! roflmao! stupid is as stupid does. thank ye, thank ye, thank ye! lol — well peeps, you are all quite welcome to come here and read anything you want! That’s why it’s here! I WANT people to read it. Why else would I be typing this stuff up and publishing it? Just to practice my typing skills? lol.

by the way, Joan, nice job obtaining John’s birth certificate. thanks a bunch. lol. Miss Know-it-all, knows all about birth certificates. Promised John to help him get his, but couldn’t.  Why not? I thought she was the EXPERT in such things. tsk tsk. No worries, we went and got it ourselves, with absolutely no problem.

everybody, on three, sob for poor little Joanie. She can dish it out, but can't take it. boo hoo. cry for the little Joanie. sob

Comments»

1. Gert – May 20, 2010 [Edit]

Joan has said ‘They read my website now, just have they have done to my other blogs. If they don’t want me in their lives, they have no business reading my website. They are obsessed with me and are determined to bring me down. I will not let that happen.’

This is Gert talking and I have NOT been on Joan’s site. It is no us that is obsessed, how would Joan know what we are saying if she is not reading our blog?

The above statement by Joan and other things are out there on the internet! Free for all to see, can’t be controlled! Listen carefully, Joan, no one is stalking or bullying you, it is all in your ‘inner life’. The purpose of this blog is so that us three sisters can have our own voices heard, without being charged, by you, of harassing, stalking or bullying you. Those days are over!

You wrote a book great! It is NOW the subject of a great deal of reading, pondering and writing reports about its contents. That is what happens when you ‘go public’, you are subjected to praise and criticisms, it is not harassing, stalking or bullying. Face the facts that it is you and only you that is afraid of what we are saying about the contents of the book.

An evil deed, like freshly drawn milk, does not turn sour at once….
Dhammapad

Joan your evil deeds over the years of slaundering us, telling lies, fabricating nonsense with malicious intent about us, browbeating, harassing, and varioius deeds of omission (so you don’t look bad) are coming to fruition. You were the one who wrote a book, now deal with the fall out from it!

I will say what has to be said and no one Joan will stop me. I have only just began and I will not stop until I have addressed every single page of your book of lies and fabrications that deal with the lives of myself, my children, my sisters, my parents and everyone else that you mention in this book of filth.

2. Ruth – May 20, 2010 [Edit]

I agree with Gert.
Go back and read the title and subtitle of this blog:
Refuting a Book of Lies: Forbidden Family
what Joan Wheeler doesn’t want us to do: expose her lies and tell the truth about us and our family

everything has a link in a chain of events:
1. Joan wrote a book. that book was full of falsehoods and slams against her own blood kin.
2. Joan goes on the internet and slams her own blood sisters – as far back as September 2008
3. A blog is put up to TELL THE TRUTH behind the falsehoods in the book and what Joan says on the internet

Cause and effect, my dear, cause and effect.
and as with most bullies, Joan can dish it out, but can’t take it. too bad, my dear. as Gert just wrote: “You were the one who wrote a book, now deal with the fall out from it.”

Joan Wheeler is all mixed up on page 128 of her book Forbidden Family March 30, 2010

Posted by Ruth in Refuting Joan Wheelers statements, Uncategorized.
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On page 128 in her lying book Forbidden Family, Joan writes; ” On Sunday, August 22, 1976, my adoptive mother and I threw a going away party for Buddy and Monica.” (my brother Butch and his wife Marty who were moving to Arizona). Joan states that our older sister Irma (Gert) and her kids came as well as me and my husband Abdo. Wrong! The farewell party that I attended was held at my father’s apartment on Marine Drive. The picture below was taken by me at that party. see how sad Marty looks. See the table just a few feet from the entrance door? This was in a small apartment. I have also included 2 more pictures taken in April 1979, showing the table full view, which would be going left from the first picture of the party. The third picture shows a further view left, showing the kitchenette. Joan’s house is a full, 2 story single family house, with a spacious kitchen.
   So getting back to the party that I was at, I don’t remember if Joan was there, I doubt her mother was there.   I don’t think her mother ever went to Dad’s house, correction: APARTMENT. perhaps Butch and Marty went by themselves to her house. Gert says she doesn’t remember going to a farewell party for Butch and Marty at Joan’s house. I know for a fact that me and Abdo didn’t go there.  As a matter of fact, I don’t believe Abdo ever went to Joan’s house.

    As to me speaking about Uncle Dominic and hypnotism, I remember talking to Joan about it at my house on Amherst St. She was having her anxiety attacks and insomnia, and I was teaching her about self-hypnosis and relaxation techniques, and showed her some material and cassette tapes that Uncle Dom and given me. Since Butch and Marty were also into metaphysics and astrology, she may have spoken to them on another occasion when I wasn’t with them.
    But again, we see how Joan, either acting from a faulty memory, (which demonstrates that this book is poorly researched), or she is out and out lying, which negates this book as a truthful account of her reunion with us.

1. party at my dad's (not Joan's). See how sad Marty looks. see how close the table is to the door.

my stepmother, sister and me at my dad's table, turning left from the first picture, (here door is to the right)

#3.

Steve, Joselyne, Ginette, Ruth, in the kitchenette. Turning left again from the last picture, we are now opposite of the door.

Guest Post From Gert McQueen, birth sister of Joan Wheeler March 4, 2010 March 27, 2010

Posted by Ruth in Joan Wheeler's abuse and harassment of her birth family, Uncategorized.
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My oldest sister Gert, who has no computer,  (got that?) recently went to a public library and emailed this statement and asked me to post it here. — Ruth

From the eldest Sippel sister Gert, in respond to Joan’s book of fiction.

Having finally gotten my hands on this book of revelations! Do not relatives of Joan have the right to have their own emotions related to what she writes about them or their life or are we suppose to just allow someone to continue to lie and misrepresent us. If people have individual web sites, where they speak their own minds, like Joan, why is it that Joan’s family members are not allowed to have the same rights as she does and speak their mind. I am speaking my own mind, I have that right just as she does. No one can silent another, that went out with the Inquistion. I use techniques of Constructive Criticism and Higher Criticism when I read and comment on any book. I learned that from my years of research and writing and it is used routinely in the scholarly world.

On page 645 of Joan’s book she says she has worked in the field of social work. Would she please let her readers know when and where she worked? I’m really curious where she worked and gained her experience and you should too if the work she presents is to be believed. I took training at a Domestic HotLine center for a month and attended a couple of group sessions where my stories helped other people, does that give me creditials to say that I worked in those fields, even though I don’t hold any degrees. I also held a job for three months helping abused children, does that give me creditials to say I’m a social worker and have great experience working with abused children.

On the title pages of the book, she writes ‘some very traumatic events have been omitted’ as if to say hey there is much more that I can and will write about. Really folks all that statement says is there’s a ‘hint’ that the content of her book is going to be so sensational you must read it. It’s a come-on statement aimed at getting attention.

She says what she writes is from memory ‘without embellishment’. Really now! Who doesn’t tell a fish story when retelling from memory! If it isn’t embellished it certainly is highly subjective in nature and anyone who knows anything about ‘non-fiction’ knows that it better be object in nature if it is to be believed to be a true representation of the topic. This book should be listed as fiction.

In her acknowledgements she sure likes to drop a lot of names, as if that makes her important. It’s another publishing gimmick people, just like the foreward by a named Doctor. He calls the book a ‘reunion in progress’, but from whose point of view, totally from the adoptee, not the families! That’s biased people! You can’t have a work of non-fiction without being objective and unbiased.

She says in ‘why she wrote the book’, it was ‘to tell the truth from my point of view’ again that is totally subjective in nature and can not be considered non-fiction. Anyone’s point of view by nature is subjective and therefore does not meet the standard of truth. She ‘invites’ others, namely her family members to do ‘the hard work’ of telling their truth by writing a book. Wrong thinking. Writing a book is not the only way to tell the truth. Speaking for myself, I am doing the hard work by living my life and I don’t have any inner need to exploit the rest of my family by writing a book of fiction to play with myself.

Even on her facts she doesn’t get it right. My father went to night school to get a degree in engineering. He was a city engineer for about 30 years. He was not poor, he probably was part of that class called the ‘working poor’ like many people, including myself, have been in at one time or another. He was never out of work, like Joan is. He never cried poverty like Joan portrays him as.

There will be more from me as my life allows me the time to look at this book of subjectively fiction