Aaron Schmidt

My birth certificate says October 7th. I don’t know if that’s true.

I was born in Springfield, at St. John’s. Well, it used to be called St. John’s.

The man listed on my birth certificate is the one who gave me his name. I was always told he wasn’t my biological father. He died about ten years ago.

I never met my real biological father. I don’t know who he is.

We hopped around a lot when I was a kid. I’d guess I was about ten when I went into foster care the first time. I stayed there about a year, then I went back home for another year. I don’t know if my mom did the things they asked her to do, or if they just got tired of waiting. Either way, I ended up back in foster care again. That time it was permanent.

I have a biological sister, but we never really grew up together. We stayed together for a little while, but most of the time we were in different places. She chose the Greene County foster home, more of a residential setting. I didn’t want that.

Looking back, I was probably in ten different foster homes. I couldn’t tell you a bad one. There were places I probably didn’t want to be because I was a kid and didn’t like rules, but every home I stayed in was good to me.

When I was twelve, Greene County didn’t have any foster homes available, so they brought me to Lebanon. I think it was only supposed to be a short term placement until something opened back home.

I fit in here.

The family I stayed with when I first got to Lebanon kept me about a year. I went to Gasconade Schools and graduated eighth grade there.

Then I moved one last time, to the family I’d stay with through high school, and started at Lebanon Schools.

I was young for my class. I didn’t turn sixteen until October of my junior year. There were freshmen driving before me.

That family had a rule. They didn’t keep teenage boys and teenage girls in the house at the same time, and they already had girls living there. I figured my stay would be pretty short.

My parents broke their rule.

They’d had a group home in Arizona back in the seventies, before I ever knew them. I think God called them to do it, and they just kept answering, for well over thirty years. Hundreds of kids came through their door.

I stayed four years. I still see them several times a week. I had lunch there yesterday.

They adopted me in their hearts. For more than 40 years they have been my parents. They are my children’s grandparents. Their children are my siblings. They are my family.

I met Melissa my junior year of high school at the Brentwood Restaurant. I was washing dishes, and she came in as a bus girl. I told her she was the prettiest bus boy I’d ever seen.

I swooped her.

She’s three months older than me, so I always tell people I married myself a cougar.

We dated through college. She went to Southwest Baptist, down in Bolivar, and I went to what everybody called Linn Tech back then, up by Jefferson City. The funny part is I thought it was in Linn Creek when I decided to go. I drove out there and realized it was a whole lot farther than I thought.

I guess going to different schools was fine because we dated the whole time I was in school. The year I graduated in May, we got married that December.

I had a degree in machine tool technology and I knew I wanted to work at Copeland. They were still pouring concrete on the building in Lebanon when I graduated. While I waited for them to hire, I took a job at Tracker. I started in the warehouse, moved into research and development, and then Copeland called.

I’ve been there thirty four years now. I think there are only two other people I can think of who are still there that started when it opened.

Melissa’s been building something of her own too. She started her own preschools, then went to work for Jordan Valley before she ran for state representative. She thought about running for a long time before she did it.

I told her one night driving home, if she really wanted it, she should just do it. She did.

We have two kids, Isaac and Abby.

Our son Isaac works for a high-end eyewear company out of Burbank. He manages stores all over the country, flying somewhere most weeks. Our daughter Abby is a counselor at the elementary school here in Lebanon. She’s got a therapy dog that goes with her to school every day.

When I look back now, I realize how much steadiness Melissa brought into my life.

Nothing stayed the same for very long when I was growing up. Different homes. Different schools. Different people. When we started dating, life became steady.

Neither one of us has been perfect, but we’ve been good as a team. We’ve done well.

I still talk to my biological mother sometimes, on the phone. She lives in Louisiana now.

I haven’t really seen her in about thirty years. She came through Lebanon once, years back. She called and said she was in town. I drove over and said hi. We didn’t stay long.

When I applied for a passport, they wanted my biological mother’s maiden name, where she was born. I didn’t have a clue. I called my aunt and had her spell out what she remembered. I wrote a letter explaining I was raised in foster care and didn’t know half these people. Got it notarized. I eventually got a passport.

Our son bought me one of those DNA kits a few years ago. Mostly I was just curious. I ended up meeting cousins in Springfield I never knew I had. My biological mother was adopted, and from what I understand, so was my biological father.

There are parts of my story I’ll probably never know. I’m okay with that.

Melissa had gotten to know the Fostering Hope Closet and Live 2 Give Hope through her work. She’d volunteered at a few events. That’s how I first heard about it.

I told her, if they were ever looking for another board member, let them know I’d be interested. Just a few months later I joined the board.

This is close to the heart for me.

When I was growing up, there wasn’t anything like this. I remember Greene County having a Christmas event for foster kids where we got a couple of presents. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Now I look around and see a community making sure kids have clothes, backpacks, scholarships, driver training, Christmas gifts, and people who care enough to show up. That’s a pretty great thing.

When I was a kid, you didn’t tell people you were in foster care. Kids could be mean, so you kept that part of your life pretty close to yourself.

Today, I’m okay talking about it.

It doesn’t define me.

But it did define me.

Aaron Schmidt
Board of Directors, Live 2 Give Hope