Dear Mr. Plotz:

This is Donor White and, even though some 15 months late, I hope that you will be so kind as to pass on this note and my e-mail address to Beth about whom you wrote in your article regarding the Repository of Germinal Choice (RGC).

I am sorry to be so late in responding, but some allowances should be made for lack of knowledge about the type of Internet search engines that finally led me to your article, considering that I was one of those who went to a college specializing in engineering in the days when students wore their foot-long slide rules dangling from their belts and tied to one leg like a gun fighter in the Old West. Later, when introduced to computers, I carried a foot-long tray of punched cards into a room about the size of a basketball court, all of which was required to hold a single computer. Those of my generation can never compete in cyberspace with younger people who grew up using modern computers.

So that you and Beth might know that I am who I claim to be, please allow me to tell you a little bit about how I became involved with the RGC. In about 1984, I received a call from the receptionist at the high-tech company where I worked telling me that I had two visitors. I assumed that they would be visiting scientists with whom I often dealt, but instead I found two older women unknown to me, one of whom was Dora Vaux mentioned in your article.

They received visitors badges and I escorted them to my office, but I soon excused myself long enough to close the open office door after being told of recommendations from two different persons saying that I might be a suitable candidate to be a donor at a sperm bank they represented. I listened, without saying much, mainly because of being virtually speechless. I would never have thought about such a thing in my entire lifetime and had no idea that I would wind up becoming involved. However, not wishing to be rude, I told them that I would need to think about this myself for some time and then speak to my wife before getting back to them in case there might be any chance of going forward.

In fact, I had already written this off as a strange experience and had no intention of any additional discussions. Over fully the next three months, almost every week, I received a copy of a letter from a grateful recipient, a copy of a magazine article, or a videotape about the RGC. None of this made much difference but might have worked subconsciously because then came the dream that changed everything.

I had also been doing some research on family history and had been thinking about my grandfather who was only 6 months old when his father left for the Civil War, never to return. My grandfather lost contact with his father's family and always regretting not knowing more about them.

The combinations of these things, perhaps, led to a dream in which I was sitting on the edge of an open field with my back against the trunk of a giant oak tree. It was a beautiful day and monarch butterflies were flitting about all around me, when some distance away the outline of a man could be seen coming out of the field toward me. There was a bright light at his back that blinded me until he came close enough to fall within the shade of the tree, at which time I immediately knew who he was before a single word was said. While no photograph of him existed, I knew that this poorly dressed man was my great-grandfather from the Civil War, because he looked exactly like a composite of my father and grandfather.

Without any introduction, he spoke to me as follows: Most of my friends volunteered at the first opportunity to enter the war. I was newly married and waited until there was danger of being conscripted before joining up. Because of that I had a son that I was never really able to know, which is the only reason that you and all of those known to you having my name ever had a chance at life. You now have that same opportunity.

I had never had a dream of such clarity, and there is no doubt that this caused me to agree to an evaluation, which I never expected to lead to anything because I had been told that even many of those with high sperm counts produced samples that did not freeze well. Well, there were a few more delays here and there, but if Joy has a desire to be a part of a large family she would be highly pleased if all of her half-siblings could be rounded up. At the last accounting that I had, there were 19, 11 boys and eight girls. I have seen very pleasing photographs of 11 of these and, in addition to the short visit with Joy of which mom Beth wrote, I have had the opportunity to watch two of the children grow into their teenage years.

As for my wonderful visit with Joy, she was being held by Dora when my wife and I walked up to them, and Joy immediately held out her arms to me to be taken. I held and admired her for perhaps 30 minutes during which time she was perfectly happy. Then she began to want to get down on the carpeted floor, where she quickly scooted over to a stroller that her mom had left and pulled herself up and began to try to step up over the side and get into the stroller seat. I lifted her up and sat her into the stroller, which caused the first hint of unhappiness that we had noticed. I then lifted her out and let her struggle until she was able to get into the stroller by herself, at 7 months of age.

I then turned to my wife and said to her: "We really have ourselves something special here." The smart one in my family, by a wide margin, has been my much younger sister. At a very early age she began to speak, not just in words but in complete sentences. She was so remarkable that almost every one who was around her said that she was the smartest child that they had ever seen. However, she could not tolerate being helped and wanted to do everything for herself. I could see that exact same behavior in baby Joy, and my guess is that this never changed. My sister lived up to her early potential, as several textbooks that she has written are used at colleges all across the country. The only reason for me to think that I might be even halfway suitable as a donor is because I had the same potential for inheritance at birth as did my sister.

We are not quite done with my Civil War ancestor yet. Beth has been extremely kind to show her appreciation in numerous ways, as she has said. After hearing of the story about my dream from Dora, Beth carried Joy to the re-enactment of a Civil War battle and found a man fully dressed in a fine soldier's uniform. I have no idea whether he was found at random or how this came about, but somehow a photograph came to be made with this Civil War soldier holding Joy (maybe 2 years old) in his lap. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I felt a tingling all over as I saw how much that soldier looked like the man in my dream. Say what you will about this being a coincidence, but to me it was a sign that my great-grandfather would have been pleased that I had taken his advice given under the shade of that oak tree.

In regard to the two children that I have been able to watch grow up, the kindly Dora Vaux always gave me a bit more information on the White-6 children than the RGC management would have liked. She sent me a picture on one occasion of one of the earlier children, a little boy with his slightly unusual double given name written on the back. Then, about two years later, she told me the birth date of his sister. A few days later, by pure chance, I happened to notice a tiny item in our local newspaper about the announcement from proud parents of a new baby girl having that same birthday, with an anxiously awaiting brother at home with the same double name that I knew. There was no doubt in my mind that these were White-6 children.

I was able to learn from the phone book that their parents lived only about a mile and a half from my house, and over the years the end of their dead-end street has been a perfect place for me to turn around while doing my daily three-mile run. I always make it a point to go by on Christmas morning and on their birthdays, where the garage door is always decorated with happy birthday signs and a party is often in progress….

Not yours, but many articles have been written trying to paint Dr. Graham and my good friend Dora Vaux as villains of some kind, when they had only the best of intentions in their wish to help others. I attended the funeral of Dr. Graham and happened to sit next to an elderly gentleman who asked me if I had known Dr. Graham for long. After telling him that I had not, he told me that he had known him from the early days. He said that while he did not have to, Dr. Graham had given him (and several others who had worked with him on developing his patents for plastic eyeglass lens) a small part of his company and that this had allowed him to have a comfortable retirement. Despite his great success in scientific work and in business, it would be my guess that Dr. Graham would have considered his greatest legacy to have been his establishment of and work at the RGC.

In some respects, Dr. Graham was his own worst enemy, because he went on nationwide TV programs in which he knew that there would be an agenda to make him look bad. This was all done for the good of the work at the RGC. In regard to the repository, Dr. Graham knew one thing that was very important—any publicity, bad or good, benefited his work. After such an appearance in which he might have been asked if he would like to clone Adolph Hitler, or some such thing, there was a flood of mail from those wishing to be recipients, because even in the most adversarial of programs there was usually an occasion in which the camera panned over a wall covered with the most appealing of children. These pictures of the children trumped anything bad that was said. The bottleneck in RGC operations was always a shortage of donors, as there were more recipient applications than could be handled.

I would not wish to end this message before telling Joy how pleased and proud I was to read of her many accomplishments and activities, but I have known that this was likely to happen ever since that day when I saw her work so hard to get into her stroller without any help. I cannot imagine that some of the donors contacted have said that they rarely think about their children, because I think of mine very often. Indeed, I expect that they will be included among my last conscious thoughts on this sweet earth.

My thanks and best regards,
Donor White