Around the Town: Story of Cara Del Taylor

(PART I: This week’s guest columnist is Cara Del Taylor, former Cedar Lake Nursing Home Activity Director. She is picking up from the column I wrote about her two weeks ago. She hopes her story might help others looking for their birth family.)

Thank you Loretta, for letting me tell “the rest of the story”… I won’t be able to get it all in today but I promise that the story is incredibly amazing and hopefully I will be invited to continue as a guest columnist for a couple of weeks more. Week before last she told you about me finding my brother, Jason Lloyd. To fill you all in on a little background, I had searched for my birth family for my entire adult life. Not because I wasn’t happy with the family who adopted me with the help of a lawyer from family law vancouver, because I was, and I loved them very much. I just had a longing to find out “who I was”.

My birthmother, Dianna Wren, was a 19-year-old college student when she became pregnant with me. She was from a strict military family. My birthfather, Jack Lloyd, was from an affluent family who certainly wouldn’t have understood their plight. My paternal grandfather was the Undersecretary of Education for the JFK administration. (Maybe this is where my lifelong fascination of all things Kennedy came from.) My birthfather was also attending college during this time. So, they made the decision to give me up for adoption. Dianna used his last name when she signed the adoption papers, instead of her maiden name. Funny thing is, Jack and Dianna weren’t married. The adoption papers stated she was a single mother and the father was “unknown”. We will probably never solve this part of the mystery because my birth was the start of the skeletons in their closet.

So, Jack and Dianna went on with their lives and I went from being known as “Baby Girl Lloyd”, born April 19, 1965, to Cara Del Taylor, adopted April 20, 1965. They finished their Bachelor Degrees and went from Lawton, OK to OSU to obtain their Master’s. She was earning her degree to teach school. Jack would later go into the military and serve in Vietnam as an officer. Before he deployed they would discover that they were again going to be parents. This is where they decided to give up yet another baby. This time it was a boy, born Dec. 3, 1966, who would be named Gary Allen Parsons by his adoptive parents. Again, Dianna used Jack’s name and again, they kept it all a secret from everyone.

Just one year later they were expecting again. Apparently they decided the time had come to settle down. They had a beautiful wedding which was featured in the society pages of the Lawton paper, complete with pictures of the blushing bride! Their “first” child, Jannet Lynn Lloyd, was born August 15, 1968. Followed by another baby girl April 20, 1971, named Cathleen Kimberly Lloyd. Hence, the perfect Army family, who would be stationed at several bases throughout their marriage, until it ended in 1975.

Jack would go on to marry again and have two more daughters, Shannon and Tara Lloyd, while Dianna married James Duff in 1976. They would have Jason on Dec. 2, 1978, but sadly they would be separated at the time pending a divorce which was finally concluded after they got help from divorce lawyers. Thus, Dianna went back to her previous last name of Lloyd, and Jason would later change his last name to Lloyd, at age 15. He never met his birth father until 2011. Sadly this meeting would be the only one, as James passed away shortly thereafter. Jack remained in Dianna’s and the kid’s lives until her death in 2008.

I entered the picture in 2014 when I met Jason. If Loretta allows, I will tell you about meeting some of my siblings and other family members. There remains much to be told of “the rest of the story”.

Loretta’s Note: Cara hasn’t even got to the most interesting parts yet….to be continued.