Tree of Strangers

wise encouragement. Renée read an early draft. Her enthusiasm kept me going.
Throughout the writing, Michael Talbot-Kelly helped me keep my balance. And Ron Law answered every panicked email with his scarily good research skills. Finally, my gratitude to lawyer Robert Ludbrook. No one in New Zealand has given so much and done so much to overturn the archaic 1955 Adoption Act.
To all of us affected by forced, secret, stranger adoption — may we all find home.

Author’s note
All quotes used in this memoir are an aggregation of memory. Some names have been changed out of sensitivity to those concerned.


First published in 2020 by Massey University Press
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Auckland 0745, New Zealand
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Text © Barbara Sumner, 2020
Design by Gideon Keith
Cover photograph of the author as a young child © Barbara Sumner, 2020
Extracts published with permission:
Page 48: ‘Something Beautiful’. Words and Music by William J. Gaither & Gloria Gaither. Copyright © 1971 Hanna Street Music (BMI) (adm. in Australia & New Zealand by SHOUT! Music Publishing). All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Page 145: Marylyn Plessner, ‘Lady Mink: A Sort of Requiem’, in Vapour Trails. Montreal: Stephen Jarislowsky, 2000.
Page 157: Emily Long, ‘Phantom Child’, http://emilyrlong.com/phantom-child
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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ISBN: 978-0-9951354-0-6
eISBN: 978-0-9951378-9-9