Happy Reunion: A Palm Springs Man Finds His Birth Mother 59 Years After Being Put Up for Adoption

After 59 years apart, Palm Springs resident Jerome Joseph Gentes has reunited with his birth mother.

Gentes, 60, was given up for adoption when he was about a year old by his mother, who was 20 at the time. He reunited with her in Seattle last year.

He had been searching for his birth mother since the age of 18. “As an adoptive child, you always think about researching your birth family,” he said.

Gentes is not alone. There are approximately 5 million American adoptees, and 2.5 percent of American children younger than 18 were adopted, according to the Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon. Many adopted children and adults have lingering feelings of being unconnected to their roots. The American Adoption Congress Search Institute found that 72 percent of adopted adolescents wanted to know why they were adopted; 65 percent wanted to meet their birth parents; and 94 percent wanted to know which birth parent they looked like.

Gentes credits Ancestry.com for helping him make the connection.

“For the last five years, I was getting DNA matches and messages from people from Ancestry who asked how I was related to them,” Gentes said. “I didn’t reach out unless the match was very close. Then in December 2021, right before Christmas, I got a message from someone with a strong DNA match. It was from my Auntie Dolly, my birth mother’s sister.”

After chatting with Dolly, and exchanging emails containing facts and photos with her, he found a copy of his birth certificate—with the full name of his birth mother.

“Boom, the record came up, and I realized that Selma Matte was my mother,” he said. “When she found out, Dolly texted me, saying, ‘She’s in shock.’ So was I.”

He didn’t phone Matte right away, because he was overwhelmed and needed to take everything in before working up the courage to call her.

“I couldn’t believe that after all these years of wondering and imagining and longing for it to happen, and even sometimes despairing that it would never happen, I was connected to my birth mom,” he said.

They agreed to meet in Seattle in late September 2023. “I took a 7 p.m. flight, and I got into Seattle at 10 p.m.,” he said. “I was excited and nervous. I remember staring out the window a lot, trying to stay calm and centered. I couldn’t believe I was flying to meet my birth mother!”

The reunion was delayed by a day—because Matte’s car broke down. They decided to meet at his cousin’s house near Seattle. (Gentes first met that cousin earlier in the day.)

“I was bummed that my mom and I wouldn’t get the ‘Hollywood’ reunion in the airport; we even had a plan with each of us carrying a red rose to be able to find each other in the airport,” Gentes said.

It was 2 p.m. the next day when his mom’s car pulled up to the house. He was upstairs, holding the stair banisters for balance, when he heard a bunch of relatives spilling into the house with his mom. “I heard the front door open, and my mother’s voice called out: ‘Is that my son?’”

Gentes described the moment as emotionally overwhelming. “I couldn’t believe that the person I was hugging was my mom—not just a person I was related to, but my mom,” he said. “‘We look exactly alike!’ I said to her, then we hugged and hugged and hugged. I was crying; she was crying; all these other people who were related to me were crying. It was like we were just stepping back into a hug, and we’d been hugging our entire lives.”

Gentes had a good childhood, he said. He was adopted by Mary and Joe Gentes, Roman Catholics in San Jose; he described his life with them as “really happy.” They couldn’t have children of their own, and they supported him in his search for his birth parents.

“My adoptive parents always said to me, ‘You were special and came to us as a gift from God,’ which made me feel special,” he said.

Mary Gentes died suddenly due to an embolism in 2019. “I was incredibly sad,” Jerome said. “I had such a special bond with her.” He remains close to his father and nine siblings.

Matte, now 80, was born and raised at the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana with four sisters and three brothers. She was 19, living in San Francisco and working at Bank of America, when she got pregnant. Jerome’s birth father promised to help after the baby was born, but instead returned to his Indian reservation in North Dakota before the birth, because his grandmother was ill. He never came back. (Gentes’ birth father died two months before the reunion with Matte.)

“I felt alone and abandoned. How was I going to raise my child?” Matte said. “Back then, it was different being unmarried, and I felt ashamed.” She also had a drinking problem, and she decided it was best to give her son up for adoption via Santa Clara County Social Services.

Years later, she stopped drinking, went back to school in her late 30s, graduated from college, and worked at a Veterans Affairs medical clinic. Gentes was her only child; Matte said she thought about her son every day.

“I always kept in touch with a clerk at the Santa Clara Services. She told me my son was a real smart boy, and his adoptive parents were taking good care of him,” Matte said.

Later, after the laws on adoption information changed, she asked for her son’s information, but never received a response. Discouraged, she didn’t try again—but fortunately, Gentes was trying.

“I’m so proud of him—just amazed,” Matte said.

Gentes, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University, is now the owner of TigerBear Productions, where he writes and produces with theater and film companies. He also produces the monthly Indigenous Magic art series at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.

Gentes flew Matte to Palm Springs for Mother’s Day, and they frequently talk on the phone.” He said he now calls her “Mom.”

“I felt like a piece of me was missing,” Gentes said. “I’m whole now.”