Laura L. Engel originally hails from Biloxi, Mississippi but moved to San Diego, California over fifty years ago. In 2015 she retired from a thirty-five-year career in the corporate world with plans to quietly catch up on hobbies and travel with her husband, Gene. Within a year an unexpected miracle took: her firstborn son—the child she’d been forced to relinquish to adoption in 1967—found her. After that, Laura stopped guarding her painful secret and started telling the world about the miracle of meeting her son. Laura is currently President of the San Diego Memoir Writers Association. She is also an active member of the International Women’s Writing Guild and a member of San Diego Writers Ink, San Diego Writer’s Festival, and SD Writers and Editors Guild. She has five adult children and ten cherished grandchildren. Check out her website at www.lauralengel.com. She lives in El Cajon, CA.
“Laura Engel tells her emotional and compelling story of becoming a
pregnant, unwed teen in the Deep South in the 1960s, being shut
away in a home for wayward women, and being forced to give up her
first son to adoption. Then, after years of shame and guilt, she
tells the heartwarming and inspiring story of reuniting with her
long-lost son after forty-nine years. A powerful true story of
historical, societal, and cultural stigmas against women, the
complicated but strong bonds of family, the difficult road to
self-acceptance and forgiveness, and the fierce love between a
mother and her lost, but never forgotten, child.”
—Nina Neilson Little, author of Spirit Baby: Travels Through China
on the Long Road to Motherhood
“You'll Forget This Ever Happened will break your heart and
exhilarate your spirit. Honest and vulnerable while offering hope
and love, Engel speaks to and for many young women of a generation
that had little choice on how to cope with teen pregnancy at a time
when shame was buried deep and heartbreak was never to be spoken
of. Engel's prose is lyrical, and her storytelling is filled with
rich and imaginative details. Endearing and heartwarming, this book
is a treasure.”
—Madonna Treadway, award-winning author of Six Healing Questions: A
Gentle Path to Facing Loss of a Parent
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a deeply moving,
heart-wrenching, and visually alive memoir exposing the pain Engel
experienced after becoming pregnant at a young age and being forced
by her southern parents to give up her child. Ultimately the story
is one of resilience, forgiveness, and acceptance, with an ending
made for a movie.”
—Roberta S. Kuriloff, author of Everything Special, Living Joy
“When seventeen-year-old Laura finds herself pregnant, she hopes to
find a way to keep the baby—even if it means raising him as an
unmarried single mother. Unbeknownst to her, her parents have other
plans, and Laura is forced to relinquish her son shortly after his
birth. Fifty years later, thanks to DNA technology no one in the
’60s could have imagined, Laura and her son are reunited. You’ll
Forget This Ever Happened is a triumph of the human spirit and a
mother’s enduring love.”
—Lauren Cross, writer and reproductive rights advocate
“You'll Forget This Ever Happened is a powerful, gripping memoir
that grabs a hold of you from the first few words and keeps you
turning pages to find out what will happen next. Engel travels back
in time to when she was a young teen in the Deep South and was all
but forced to give up a baby she wanted. She deftly captures her
heartbreaking struggle—and explores the way she faced down shame
and buried secrets to find herself and her long-lost son. Told with
heart and grit, honesty and wisdom, You'll Forget This Ever
Happened is a poignant read about a mother's unending love that
will stay with you long after you have read the last page.”
—Marni Freedman, author of 7 Essential Tools, and Permission To
Roar and cofounder of San Diego Writers Festival
“Laura Engel’s You’ll Forget This Ever Happened: Secrets, Shame and
Adoption in the 1960s is a gripping and ultimately redemptive story
about a teenage girl forced to relinquish her newborn son in a New
Orleans home for unwed mothers in the 1960s. With beautiful
descriptions and poetic, engaging writing, Engel breathes new life
into a long-gone time in the South. This memoir is hard to put down
in the best of ways. Full of surprises, plot twists, and
you-can’t-believe-it's-true moments, this book is a testament to a
mother's enduring love. Grab a glass of sweet tea and prepare to
fall in love with this moving and uplifting memoir.”
—Tracy J. Jones, content writer, editor, and writing coach
“I can remember when young girls, classmates, would disappear from
school. They were usually ‘helping take care of an elderly relative
in another state.’ They would reappear in a few months and resume
their lives. Laura Engel was ‘this girl,’ and she may have resumed
her life, but with a painful memory of a firstborn that would grow
up to never know or be known by his mother. At times this is a
painful, difficult book to read, but the voice of the author gets
you through the sadness to the complete joy of the reunion between
mother and son. This is so much more than ‘a woman's book.’ It
deals with universal questions and truths for all readers. An
important read.”
—Jim Edwards, former English and journalism teacher
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is the heart-wrenching story of a
young, pregnant southern girl sent away by her mortified parents to
have her baby, then misled into believing that she would return
home with her love child. Laura Engel reveals her inner self with
such clarity that we can feel the sadness, remorse, anguish, and
guilt that rack her soul daily for decades. She never allows us to
forget the love she left behind, even after the births of three
additional children. Her secret is uncovered by chance, allowing us
to cheer with hopeful tears as she struggles and manages to
navigate the gap of those missing years with optimism. This story
of life in the 1960s will resonate with some and educate others. We
applaud the changes today that allow us to heal the wounds endured
during those times.”
—Suzi Schultz Gold, author of Look at the Moon
“This is a story of a bewildered teenager who grows into a loving
mother who is blessed during her grandmother years in ways she
never dared hope for. It is a story of confusion and shame evolving
to hope and joy. It could have happened to anyone.”
—Kathleen McCabe, Writer, award-winning artist
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is the compelling story of a
young woman being told to ignore giving birth and giving up her
son, as if it’s an event easily erased—like turning off a light
switch. Laura shows how living with the secret of her son’s birth
impacts her world and how releasing the untold secret enabled her
to move forward. The story is vulnerable, heartbreaking, and
triumphant.”
—Jeniffer Gasner, writer
“This courageous, devastating memoir describes the dark side of the
adoption fairy tale: the trauma of forced separation of a mother
from her child. Engel’s story is stark testimony to the failures of
an adoption system that is built on coercion, lies, and shame.
Highly recommended to those wanting to understand more about the
true story of adoption.”
—Alice Stephens, author of Famous Adopted People
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is gripping and well
written. Laura’s determination, grit, love, and faith are admirable
and genuine. Don’t miss this important book.”
—Leslie Johansen Nack, author of The Blue Butterfly
“Powerful memories wrenched from the soul of one birth mother in
the 1960s who was forced by family and society to relinquish her
child for adoption. Not only did she never forget what happened,
her heart finally healed when she met her adult son, the child she
gave away. A true redemption story.”
—Julia Brewer Daily, author of No Names to Be Given
“Laura Engel tells a heartbreaking story of a young
mother—separated at birth from a child she never knew—who finds the
courage to confront her guilt-ridden past and seek redemption. In
her moving and deeply personal account, the author makes peace with
a long-lost son, and ultimately with herself.”
—David Sheffield, screenwriter of Coming to America
“A searing energy begins on page one and continues to the
unflinching final word of Laura Engel’s memoir, You’ll Forget
This Ever Happened. Engel’s triumph is in her unwillingness to
turn away from the hard stuff. Devastating and stunning—alive
with attention to the abundance of the heart—this memoir will stay
with you.”
—Julie Maloney, award-winning author of A Matter of Chance
“In her powerful memoir about making peace with the past,
Laura Engel brings the hot summer of 1967 to life. That year,
seventeen-year-old Laura is sent to live in a New Orleans maternity
home with a rotating cast of pregnant teen girls who are assured
they will “forget this ever happened” but of course never can.
Losing her firstborn son to adoption changes Engel’s life but does
not crush her spirit. In time, she finds love and a career and
creates the family she always wanted, which then welcomes the boy
she named Jamie when he contacts her decades later. Engel’s
transformation from lost girl to grounded matriarch is deeply
moving, a story that stays with you long after you reach
the last page.”
—Eileen Drennen, writer and editor
“In Laura Engel’s compelling memoir, we experience the terrible
irony framed by the title: she will not forget this
experience of giving up her newborn son at the age of seventeen as
an unwed mother. Engel cannot forget––and doesn’t want
to. And the reader will never forget this finely crafted journey of
recovery. Through her narrative, insightful self-revelations,
struggles, and willingness to expose her trauma, Engel creates an
experience of intimacy for the reader that establishes a soulful
friendship.”
—Kelly DuMar, author of girl in tree bark
“Heart-wrenching but filled with purpose, this book satisfyingly
unreels our emotions to the bright sounds of the ’60s. Laura’s
richly detailed story makes us laugh, cry, gasp, and pray for those
caught in that cruel time warp that plunged unwed mothers into the
lowest, most loathsome level of ‘proper’ society.”
—Linda Bergman, screenwriter, producer, and educator
“Exactly ten years apart, two scared eighteen-year-olds were forced
to surrender their newborn sons for adoption in a home for unwed
mothers on Washington Avenue in New Orleans. The first was my birth
mother, Julie Francis; the second was Laura Engel. For five
decades, Engel thought about her son constantly and wondered what
had become of him. Then, miraculously, she found him—only to lose
him again. You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a
heartwarming and heartbreaking memoir about a mother’s undying love
for her son. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Brooks Eason, author of Fortunate
Son and Redemption
“Laura Engel’s memoir reads like a conversation with a best friend,
both genuine and familiar. She anchors her story with references to
the music, hair styles, and fashions of the 1960s, while
unflinchingly sharing her pain and humiliation. When Laura got
pregnant at seventeen, the trajectory of her life was altered, and
she was not allowed to make any of her own decisions. These
experiences left permanent scars that she kept hidden for
decades—until a defining moment changed everything. You’ll
Forget This Ever Happened is Engel’s story of resilience, of
moving forward and building a different life but never, ever
forgetting the secret baby she left behind.”
—Deborah Reed, coauthor of The Chamber and the Cross
“This book is the reason I read. I couldn’t put it down and when I
did, it stayed with me. You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is an
incredible story beautifully told.”
—Lindsey Salatka, author of Fish Heads and Duck Skin
“Nearly fifty years after giving up her baby, the past finds her.
When Laura Engel’s son, now grown and with a family of his own,
locates her, the journey moves from trauma and despair to joy and a
bittersweet, imperfect healing. Engel describes it all with
poignancy and honesty. You’ll Forget This Ever
Happened is achingly lovely, written by a woman who knows her
heart, makes up her mind, finds her way, and creates life on her
own terms.”
—Lisa Shapiro, coauthor of The Chamber and the Cross and
author of No Forgotten Fronts: From Classrooms to Combat
“You’ll Forget This Ever Happened had me hooked from the
opening words. I was fully engaged and on the journey with teenaged
Laura. Engel paints the details of popular song and the
companionship of other girls in such a way that highlights their
youth and lack of agency over their bodies or futures. This is an
important book, especially today.”
—Louise Carnachan, author of Work Jerks: How to Cope with
Difficult Bosses and Colleagues
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