Then all of this is none of your business. Here are some people that were adopted. Jesus and Moses were adopted
Since adoption receives negative publicity at times, it’s nice to read about adoptees who grew up to do interesting or extraordinary things with their lives.
Here are 13 examples.
*Important to note: while these names are largely recognizable, every life is equally valued in the eyes of God. Every child who was fostered and/or adopted has the capacity to impact generations regardless of whether or not the world takes note.
1. Babe Ruth
He and his sister were sent to the orphanage at a young age. The good news? It was there that he met Brother Matthias who taught and encouraged him to play baseball. A talent scout became his legal guardian, and Ruth spent 22 record-breaking seasons playing ball. He eventually became one of America’s greatest baseball players … as well as an adoptive dad.
2. Eleanor Roosevelt
By age 15, Roosevelt was a double orphan who was then adopted by her grandmother. Roosevelt would grow up to be the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, as well as a United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. She has been called the “First Lady of the World” in tribute to her human rights achievements.
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3. Steve Jobs
Surrendered and adopted shortly after birth, Jobs was a successful entrepreneur who became the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. He has personally been linked to the technological revolution that has swept the world.
4. Melissa Gilbert
After being adopted as a baby, Gilbert went on to star as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the NBC series
Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1984.
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5. John Hancock
Raised by extended family after the death of his father, Hancock became a prominent Patriot of the American Revolution. His signature is so well-recognized on the Declaration of Independence that the term “John Hancock” has become a synonym in the U.S. for
signature.
6. Michael Oher
Adopted at age 17 after spending years in various foster homes, Oher went on to play offensive lineman for the Ole Miss Rebels and then was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft. He is the one about which
The Blind Side was written and eventually made into an Academy Award-winning movie.
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7. Nelson Mandela
Raised by a tribe chief after his father’s death (when Mandela was 9 years old), he grew up to be the President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. He is known as a revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist.
8. Leo Tolstoy
Raised by extended family after the death of his parents, Tolstoy grew up to be a famous Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, and philosopher whose works are still widely read and appreciated today.
9. Nancy Reagan
After her parents separated, Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins) lived with an aunt and uncle during much of her upbringing. Eventually she moved back with her mom and took her stepfather’s last name, “Davis.” In addition to serving as one of the most beloved First Ladies, Reagan started the well-known “Just Say No” drug awareness campaign.
10. Dave Thomas
Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to a young unmarried woman he never knew, Thomas was adopted at 6 weeks old. At age 5, when his (adoptive) mother died, Thomas moved in with his grandmother. Thomas grew up to become the founder and CEO of Wendy’s restaurant chain, where Thomas used his platform to advocate often and generously for adoption.
11. Edgar Allan Poe
Born Edgar Poe in 1809, Poe’s father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Considered an orphan, he was sent to live with the Allan family in Virginia who raised him to adulthood. He became an American writer known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his mysteries. He is considered the inventor of detective fiction.
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12. Gerald Ford
Leslie Lynch King Jr. was only 16 days old when his parents went their separate ways. A couple of years later, King’s mother remarried and they changed Leslie Lynch King Jr.’s name to Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., in honor of his stepfather (whom Ford says played a wonderful role in his life). Ford went on to be the 38th President of the United States.
13. Simone Biles
After spending time in and out of foster care, Biles was adopted by her grandparents who helped her pursue her dream to reach the Olympics. An American gymnast, Biles became the 2016 Olympic individual all-around, vault, and floor gold medalist. As an integral part of the “Final Five,” she became the most decorated American gymnast with nineteen Olympic and World Championship medals.
Bonus:
Someone you may not readily think of as adopted is Jesus. While Jesus–the Son of God–was born to and raised by Mary, He was also accepted as a son and raised by Joseph. In fact, the book of Matthew traces the genealogy of Christ through
Joseph’s bloodline–as opposed to Mary’s–to establish the qualifications of Christ as Israel’s Messiah. Adoption–both physical and spiritual–is a good and perfect part of God’s plan to redeem sinful man for all eternity.
For more on this, read:
How the Christmas Story Is an Adoption Story
Every orphan could be someone’s
son or daughter.
Simone Biles
During a particularly intimate moment during her time on
Dancing with the Stars, Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles opened up about her own adoption, noting that her biological mother suffered from drug and alcohol abuse. Biles’s grandfather and his wife adopted the gymnast, making them her mom and dad—and making her one of the most famous people who were adopted.
“My parents saved me,” she said. “They’ve set huge examples of how to treat other people, and they’ve been there to support me since day one. There’s nothing I could say to them to thank them enough.”
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Steve Jobs
Adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a couple who had been unable to have children, Apple founder Steve Jobs grew up in the part of Northern California now known as Silicon Valley with his adoptive sister, Patti. Though he never met his birth parents, he did meet a biological sister, Mona Simpson, when he was 27.
He even went on to describe Simpson as “one of my best friends in the world,” the
Telegraph reports. However close he became with her, the tech icon was always quick to point out that his adoptive parents were the only parents he ever knew.
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Kristin Chenoweth
Impacted by the film
Lion, which addresses adoption, Kristin Chenoweth chose to share her own adoption story in a personal essay. “Can honestly say being adopted was one of the best things to ever happen to me,” she wrote on
HuffPost.
“It was never something that was hidden from me, and it is not something I have ever been ashamed of. I recognize how fortunate I am to have parents who love and support me unconditionally. The fact that they are not my biological parents does not change the fact that they are, simply, my parents.”
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Nelson Mandela
One of the most influential and famous adopted people is South African activist, former president and Nobel Prize winner Nelson Mandela. Nine-year-old Mandela was adopted after his father passed away in 1927. He joined the family of Jongintaba Dalindyebo, a leader of the Thembu tribe who lived in the South African village of Mvezo. Dalindyebo saw the potential in Mandela and encouraged him to become a young leader within the tribe. The rest, as they say, is history.
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Frances McDormand
Academy Award winner Frances McDormand was adopted when she was 18 months old. Her parents, Noreen McDormand and Rev. Vernon McDormand, worked as a nurse and an evangelical preacher, respectively. The McDormands also adopted two other children and moved around the country quite frequently to help reinvigorate congregations that needed assistance.
Another interesting fact about McDormand’s life is that she, too, adopted a child. Her son, Pedro, joined her family in 1995.
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Keegan-Michael Key
A Michigan native, actor Keegan-Michael Key was adopted at a young age by two social workers and raised in Detroit. When he was 25 years old, Key found his biological mother. “I know my biological mother quite well, and we have a wonderful, wonderful relationship,” he said in an interview with
NPR.
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Maya Angelou
Born Marguerite Johnson, treasured poet
Maya Angelou lived with her parents in St. Louis, Missouri, until she was 3 years old, when her parents divorced and sent her to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with her grandmother. Although her grandmother did not legally adopt her, she spent much of her childhood under her roof.
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Jamie Foxx
On his Fox game show
Beat Shazam, Jamie Foxx brings the funny during the lighthearted (but tense) rounds of contestants trying to win money. During one particular episode, however, Foxx got teary-eyed by a couple trying to win money to send their adopted children to college and shared his own story.
“You know what’s amazing?” he said. “I was adopted at 7 months, and I’m going to tell you what that means. My grandmother? That’s not actually my biological grandmother. That’s somebody who said, ‘I see something in that little boy that’s very special.'”
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Debbie Harry
At the age of 4, Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry learned that she had been adopted as an infant. In an interview with
MOJO magazine, Harry admits that the relationship she shared with her parents wasn’t always smooth, particularly when she decided to pursue music as a career. ”Unfortunately for me, or unfortunately for my parents, I was determined to be an artist,” she says. “And of course, they weren’t artists, and the whole idea of it was barbaric. My mother came from a family that thought artists were the slime of the Earth. I think it was frightening for them because they, of course, were trying to protect me.”
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Ted Danson
Adopted at a young age, actor Ted Danson went on to later adopt children with his second wife, Cassandra Coates. As for his own childhood, Danson told
AARP that he always felt like money was tight. The family didn’t own a TV, and he generally looked like a “ragamuffin.” But his parents had the important stuff down. “There wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t told that I was loved in one form or another,” he said.
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John Lennon
Next on our list of famous adopted people: prolific songwriter and beloved musician John Lennon. Though not formally adopted, John Lennon was raised by his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George after his parents separated—an arrangement that deeply shaped his early years. The couple took him in at their home in Liverpool, where Mimi became a steady (and famously strict) presence in his life.
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Faith Hill
As a child, Faith Hill’s parents told her she was adopted, but the story behind how and why that happened was misconstrued, likely to spare her feelings. Hill’s biological parents went on to marry and have another child after she was given up for adoption.
In her 20s, she found her biological mother but “kept the relationship at bay,” she told
E! News. She eventually found and met her biological brother as well.
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Colin Kaepernick
Teresa and Rick Kaepernick adopted son Colin Kaepernick when he was 5 weeks old. The NFL player’s parents came under fire when they initially remained silent about the controversy surrounding Colin’s decision to kneel during the National Anthem because of his views on the way the U.S. treats minorities.
“As his parents, it pains us to read articles and tweets saying that his family does not support him; this could not be further from the truth,” Teresa and Rick said jointly. “We want people to know that we are very proud of our son and admire his strength and courage in kneeling for the rights of others.”
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Dave Thomas
Perhaps one of the most public proponents of adoption was Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas. He was adopted at just 6 weeks old. After experiencing career success with the fast-food chain named after his youngest daughter (Thomas had five children), he set up the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, helping unite children in foster care with their forever families.
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Sarah McLachlan
When she learned she had been adopted, Sarah McLachlan recalls taking the news in stride. “I think I was about 9,” she told
Parents (in a now-archived interview). “And even then, it wasn’t a big deal. It was like, ‘Oh, OK, good to know. You’re still my mom and dad.'”
Later in life, McLachlan did meet her biological mother, an artist who gave birth to her at the age of 19. Speaking with
Rolling Stone, she explained, “I don’t want to hurt my birth mother either, but my mother is my mother. To me, it’s fascinating to know my birth mother,
gene-wise. That’s really it. My mom and dad gave me a wonderful life.”
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Ray Liotta
For Ray Liotta, knowing he was adopted shaped some of the roles he chose throughout his acting career. For example, his part in
The Identical appealed to him because of his personal history. “I found my birth mother, and found out I have not an identical twin but a half brother, five half sisters and a full sister that I didn’t know about until 15 years ago,” he told
The Hollywood Reporter in 2014.
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Liz Phair
Musician Liz Phair has been very vocal about being adopted, applauding the way her parents relayed the information to her and her brother, who is also adopted. “My parents were very responsible,” she told
Women’s Health. “They said, ‘We wanted you more than anything in the whole world.’ They were perfect about it.” Phair has never tried to find her biological parents.
