Christina Applegate Who Do You Think You Are? USA

Actress Christina Applegate is going on a quest to uncover

what happened to the grandmother she never knew.

What happened to you, Lavina? Where did you go?

She finds a family's downward spiral...

So they're really not doing well.

..and a contentious battle over her father.

I'm just angry at these two people. I'm so angry at them.

Before her journey is over,

Christina discovers the truth about her grandmother's life...

Oh, my God. SHE GASPS

...and her death.

It's possible that everything my grandfather was saying was true.

Finally closing the book on her father's troubled childhood.

To have a deeper understanding and a deeper love for my dad,

that's why I'm here.

Born into a show business family, Emmy Award-winning actress

and producer, Christina Applegate, began her career in commercials,

films and television series, before landing the break-out part of

ditzy bombshell Kelly Bundy in the hit comedy Married With Children.

The 11-year role catapulted Christina into superstardom.

And, more recently, she's found success on both big

and small screens.

Christina and her husband, Martyne LeNoble,

are parents to two-year-old Sadie, and live in Hollywood, California.

I was born here in Los Angeles.

And I grew up in Laurel Canyon.

My mom and dad separated when I was about five months old.

And he moved up to Big Sur.

So, I grew up with my mom.

My dad and mother split up when I was so young.

I didn't get to spend the kind of time with him

that I think either he or I would have liked to have spent.

But since I've had Sadie, he's spent a lot more time down here,

which has been really nice.

You know, we're bonded because of blood,

but we're also bonded because I'm part of him

and part of his personality.

I know my grandfather's first name. His name is Paul, Paul Applegate.

Now, my grandmother, I never met.

We know she died young.

And my father never knew her.

I want to know why my grandmother couldn't take care of him.

Not just because of her age. There has to be another reason.

He's heard rumours of how she died, and it's pretty awful.

But I want to know if it's true.

A couple years ago,

my sister was able to locate my father's birth certificate.

She was able to get it through records in New Jersey.

And on that, we learned his mother's name, Lavina.

Before that, my father did not know his mother's name if you asked him.

I think I want to go on this journey

because I've watched my father be in a lot of pain of not knowing

who he is, and having to make up stories in his mind in order

to cope with whatever memories he's, he's pushing back.

Um... I don't know if it's great to live a life that long with not

knowing who you are.

'Today, my father's driving down from up north in northern California...'

-Hey, Dad.

-Hey, pumpkin. How are you?

-Good.

'..so that we can sort of discuss what he remembers so I can...'

move forward and open up this book and close this book for him.

-So, all we have is this.

-Yeah.

Believe it or not, this is my birth certificate.

Ah-ha.

New Jersey Department of Health - Bureau of Vital Statistics.

Wow. So it says here that you were born November 10th, 1942.

-I know. And that amazes me.

-Which would make you...71.

Yeah, something like that - 70, 71. But here's the confusion.

-I-I always thought I was older. And let me tell you why.

-OK.

-I'll tell you a little story.

-Wait. No, it would make you 70.

-70, yeah.

-Oh, my God, of course, cos I was born... I'm sorry.

-Yeah, well, math has never been one of our great subjects.

-It's not. OK, so Lavina Shaw...

Yeah. Yeah.

-..was your mother. And Paul Applegate, which we knew.

-Yeah.

Is the mother married to the father? Yes.

OK...

-And the address is 522 Market Street, Trenton, New Jersey.

-Yeah.

OK. So, birthplace, hers was New Jersey and his was New Jersey.

So, both of them were both born in New Jersey.

Paul Applegate, we don't know where he came from.

Your grand... I mean, his parents.

Well, his mother is the one that raised me.

I thought it was HER mother. Oh, it was HIS mother?

What, my mother's mother? Oh, no, no. No, it was his mother.

And then when my grandmother got to the point where she got a little

senile and older, that's when I finally went up to live with my dad,

and...I think I was 14.

You know, him and I never really talked about too much.

-And now what about Lavina?

-Well, she died young.

Yeah. When did you find that out?

Because that I don't remember ever hearing.

Yeah, my grandmother, very nonchalantly at the breakfast table, said,

"Oh, by the way - your mother died."

You... And so she would have been like, what, how old, do you think?

-Cos you would have been how old?

-When she passed away?

-Yeah.

I'm going to assume I was like, seven, eight years old,

so she had to be like 28, 29 years old maybe.

Wow. I mean, what...?

This is some of the stuff I'm so interested in finding out.

I know. What happened to her? Why?

You know, my grandmother told me a story that -

I don't know why you would ever tell a child something like this -

but she told me that she was found outside a bar, dead, beaten to death.

And uh...

Yeah, I don't want... I don't want to think my mother was...yeah, died like that.

-Well, let's hope that that's not true.

-Yeah.

Yeah, that's heavy.

Oh, Dad. This is crazy.

-This is going to be crazy.

-I know it is, yeah.

-After all these years...

-I know.

..to finally get the chance to find out who I am. Who WE are.

Christina knows that her grandmother's name

was Lavina Shaw, and that her grandparents lived in New Jersey.

So to find out more, she's heading to Trenton, the state capital.

I am hoping to find why my grandparents, Paul and Lavina,

made the decision to have my father live with his grandmother.

Or did they make that decision?

Was it a state decision?

Why couldn't they take care of him?

These are questions that I think my dad is fuzzy on and I really want to know.

To get some advice on researching the life of Lavina and her family,

Christina is meeting genealogist Joseph Shumway at the Office of Vital Statistics.

Joseph has asked the state registrar to search for Christina's grandparents' marriage certificate,

while he examines Christina's father's birth certificate for any more clues.

Here we have my father's name, Robert William Applegate,

born to Paul Applegate and Lavina Shaw.

And it does say the parents are married. And she was...

-She was 21.

-..21 at the time.

Which I guess back then wasn't that young to be married.

No, it was not. No, it was...

-These days it's...

-It was a pretty typical age.

You know, you wait till you're 40.

And the marriage record should give us very helpful information.

Clues about Lavina before she married...

-And her parents too.

-Right.

-And all of that.

-Hi.

-Hi. We found something for you.

-Great.

We're in luck, we found your grandparents' marriage certificate.

All right,

the full name was Paul Schallar Applegate and Lavina Victorine Shaw.

-What an awesome name.

-Yeah, isn't that an interesting and unique name?

Lavina Victorine. I love it.

And Schallar, or Shallar.

And the other thing that it does give us here, which is very important,

-is her birth date.

-Yeah, that's right. October 9th, 1921.

And she was 19.

And they married Trenton, New Jersey in June of '41. OK.

My grandmother's parents' name is Ovid.

-So this is Ovid Shaw.

-Yeah, Ovid Shaw.

-And Lavina Weaver?

-Right.

Interesting. Those are names I've never heard before.

Christina has discovered her great-grandfather's name, Ovid Shaw,

and that her grandmother, Lavina Shaw,

was named after her mother, Lavina Weaver.

But the question remains -

when and how did Christina's grandparents become estranged?

The residence, at least of my grandfather, I guess,

-was... I can't read what that says.

-Yeah, 271.

271 East Front Street, Trenton, New Jersey.

And she was 522 Market Street.

So they weren't living together prior to that time.

-When they got married. But you wouldn't back then.

-Right.

But it is interesting that she is living at 522 Market Street

which is the same address where she was living when your dad was born.

-So, that...

-OK.

-..is a bit of a mystery.

So maybe she was living on her own?

Because I don't think they were... After my father was born,

I don't think Lavina and Paul were together,

so that's where I would have to find, like, a divorce certificate

-kind of thing to find out where we go from there.

-Right.

What we can do is divide and conquer,

where I can search to see if there was a divorce record.

And so I will work on that to see if we can find information about Lavina after the marriage.

What you can do is, with the new clues that we have here,

it would be helpful to find out more information about Lavina

before she married, because if we learn more about a person's

earlier life, we can gather clues that maybe help us understand...

-Yeah.

-..their choices better.

And I would suggest making the next stop the Trenton Public Library...

-OK.

-..which is a great resource for local Trenton history.

-All right.

-Thank you so much.

-You bet.

So, the marriage certificate was a great wealth of information

just to know my grandmother's parents' names.

But it doesn't explain the question, which is what happened to Lavina,

where did she disappear to,

why was she not in my father's life?

While Joseph is searching for court documents

about Christina's grandparents after 1941, when they married,

Christina is going to the Trenton Free Public Library.

She's meeting the library director, Kimberly Matthews,

to try to investigate Lavina's early life.

Kimberly has suggested looking for any mention of Lavina in the local papers.

They're starting with the Trenton Evening Times.

Since we're looking for that time period, you know,

maybe a little before your grandmother was born,

let's go ahead and put in... Let's say 1918 to 1941.

All right.

There we go. An engagement notice.

1919. OK.

-So there we have your great-grandparents.

-Wow!

Oh...

That's so beautiful to see that.

-Wow, that's Ovid. What a handsome guy.

-Yeah.

He looks like my dad, he looks a lot like my dad.

And look at you, Lavina, my great-grandmother.

All right. Amazing. Wow.

All right. What's this about? 1934.

Uh-oh.

Lavina and Delilah Shaw.

Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

OK. So, my grandmother, Lavina, she had a sister named Delilah.

-Looks like.

-OK.

That is... That's my family. That's my dad's mouth.

It's so awesome just to see it all, the threads... It's incredible.

"Society Business Sessions, Card Parties and Benefit Affairs."

All right, "Daughters of Mr and Mrs Ovid Shaw,

"who have returned from an extended visit

"with relatives and friends in Elizabeth.

"During their visit, they made an automobile tour

"of parts of New York and Pennsylvania

"as the guests of Mr and Mrs Louis Leonard."

What happened, from this well-to-do family, and...

..to not take care of my dad?

So where do we go from here?

I think one of the next places we could go,

since this is 1934 - why don't we check the 1940 census?

-Lavina...

-Shaw.

OK. So here we go.

OK, so there's the Shaw family.

This is when they lived on Market Street.

OK. So Market Street was her parents' house.

My grandmother was 18...

Also, here's an interesting column which is weeks out of work.

-Eight.

-And so she's...

Now, if we glance up, your great-grandfather...

-Was out of work for 12 weeks.

-Mm-hm.

-Wow.

So...

-So it sounds like things are becoming a little more difficult.

-They're not... OK.

So, let's talk about this column right here.

-OK.

-These are the last grades attended.

OK. So...eighth grade for my grandmother.

OK. So, that's it. After eighth grade she was out of school.

-Right.

-I wonder why?

Now, in an urban setting it was actually more the average

that they would go to about the 11th and a half grade.

But, by the time you've hit into the '40s now,

the Depression has, has been here.

-Everyone is struggling. So...

-Right.

..not getting past the eighth grade, that was common

to some degree for families that were struggling.

As soon as the children became able to bring in another income

into the household, they would have wanted them to do that.

But at this point, nobody's bringing anything into the household.

-Mm-hm. It doesn't appear so.

-Oh, God. That makes me sad.

So it wasn't, you know, looking at this family, thinking of

living in this sort of well-to-do family,

this was not what she was a part of, which explains a lot.

What happened to you, Lavina, where did you go?

Where did she drop out?

What I find really interesting is that Lavina remained at this address, 522 Market Street.

She was there when she got married to my grandfather,

she was there when she had my father...

Paul and Lavina, from what it seems, never actually lived together.

So what happened there, this is the big mystery -

why were these two people not together,

why did they not have their child?

I really hope to find that out.

Genealogist Joseph Shumway at the Office of Vital Statistics

has found a large number of court documents

relating to Lavina and Paul's marriage.

To help decipher these court records,

Christina is meeting family law professor Meredith Schalick

at the New Jersey State Library.

OK. So the first document we're going to start with

is actually a complaint...

-A complaint.

-..that was filed by your grandmother.

-By my grandmother?

-By your grandmother.

-So she filed a complaint in 1942...

-OK.

..after they had separated.

-October...

-Of 1942.

OK. My father was born in November 1942,

so my grandparents, they separated...

They separated before he was born.

So this complaint is actually

her attempt to enforce

the separation agreement that they created when they first separated.

Wait a minute. When did they FIRST separate?

Well... Do you want to take a look?

"Complainant, Lavina VS Applegate, says that following the said marriage,

"she and the defendant resided in the said city of Trenton, New Jersey

"until or around the 10th day of August." Wow. Oh, really?

-Mm-hm.

-OK.

-So for a couple of months.

-And then they separated.

"The defendant after his marriage to complainant..."

OK, wait. Oh...

"..began to treat her cruelly and brutally,

"accusing her of immoral acts,

"charging her that she was guilty of adultery

"by reference calling her vile and indecent names..." Oh, God, Grandpa.

"..and on various dates struck and...

"and beat her..."

"..on account of which she left him on or about the 10th day of August."

SHE SIGHS OK.

"In October 1941, defendant left the city of Trenton

-"and took up his residence in Wilmington, Delaware."

-Yes.

So, my grandpa left. OK, so...

"But subsequently on or about the 10th day of January 1942,

"Lavina returned to him in Delaware."

OK.

And I think it's important to say

that she went back to him

-upon his promise to treat her properly.

-Upon his pro...

"Not withstanding his promise,

"the defendant did not treat her properly...

"..but resumed and continued his cruel...

"..brutal and abusive treatment of her,

"and did on or about the 13th day of May

"pack most of complainant's clothes and personal effects

"and tell her to get back to Trenton." So he kicked her out.

"On the following day defendant called for complainant

"and took her to the office of an attorney in Wilmington

"where an agreement was drawn and signed by both of them.

"Complainant did on the 14th day of May 1942,

"in consequence of cruel and abusive treatment

"leave him, and has ever since lived apart.

"Under the terms and provisions thereof defendant

"covenanted to pay complainant the sum of 15 per week."

-So he then started giving her money.

-Well, he was supposed to.

-He had to. OK. So he was supposed to give her 15 a week.

-That's right.

-"Defendant has not made any of the weekly payments..."

-Right.

He didn't pay for anything.

At least according to what she's saying.

Oh...

It all is just like... It's making so much sense now.

Like, she probably had my father,

-and she can't take care of him because she's 21 years old.

-Mm-hm.

She can't get work.

Of course, my dad has to be raised by his grandmother.

-All right. Let's see what happens here.

-OK.

So, what we don't have a copy of, but what I know from reading these documents,

is back in the beginning of 1945 they divorced.

At that time, the judge awarded custody to your grandmother.

And Paul filed with the court

asking for custody of your father, in June of 1945.

-So this is what we have as the most complete statement from Paul...

-OK.

-..about what's going on and why he thinks he should have custody.

-OK.

"In answer to my former wife's petition for alimony and counsel fees,

"I say that I have read her petition and affidavit,

"and the contents thereof are not true.

"Particularly it is not true that my former wife

"is without means of support except from her exertions."

OK, so he's saying she is making money, she has a job.

-I shouldn't have to pay her alimony.

-I shouldn't have to pay it. OK.

-OK.

So next, my grandfather Paul claims that even though

he and my grandmother Lavina separated in May of 1942,

he repeatedly asked her to reconsider,

but she said no.

"On January 10th, 1943 I learned that my wife had moved

"in with Michael Constant."

-So now he's saying that she's now living with this guy and my dad.

-Yes.

"They were arraigned on the charges of adultery."

Because at that time adultery was against the law.

-OK. So he had them arrested.

-Yes.

This is not even... Is this like a joke?

This is insane.

"She at that time made a statement

"that she thought she would happier if I would grant her a divorce."

So, my grandfather goes on to say that,

although he agreed to divorce, he was still very much in love

with my grandmother and hoped to reconcile.

Paul claims that one night Lavina asked him to pick up their son

and take him to her apartment while she was out.

So Paul says he waited for her there

until early morning, at which time Lavina allegedly came home

in a drunken stupor, and they ended up having sex.

So clearly,

they were still having relations, according to my grandfather.

But it also looks like Lavina

was still involved with this Michael Constant.

My God, this is just nuts.

"All this time the divorce was pending.

"Finally the hearing came on.

"After I refused support for her,

"she accepted the money from me for the support of my son."

So child support, no alimony.

All right.

So, these are the exhibits that attached to it,

and then this is the doctor note.

OK. "To whom it may concern.

"This is to certify

"that I treated Robert William Applegate for pneumonia.

"It was also my opinion that he was suffering from malnutrition."

Malnutrition...

I'm just angry at these two people. I'm so angry at them.

-OK...

-OK.

All right. Let's see what's going on with her.

So this is...

-Lavina's side.

-This is Lavina's side to the whole thing.

-That's right.

June of '45. 1945.

So Lavina refutes Paul's accusations,

claiming that she never DID live with Michael Constant.

Then she alleges that my grandfather was always drunk

and threatening, and that he never contributed to their baby's welfare.

She asserts that she was a good mother, that she's never been

in a drunken stupor, and that in my dad's two and a half years

of life, the bout of pneumonia was the only time he was seriously ill.

OK. But the doctor also said he was, he had malnutrition.

And she's saying that she always cared for my father.

They're... OK.

"I never left the baby alone.

"And when, for any reason, I was obliged to go out,

"I placed him in the care of my mother, or Mrs Ann Graham,

"who occupies the apartment above." OK.

She included statements from Ann Graham.

-This is her neighbour and landlord.

-This is all?

Right. Sort of background about who she is.

All right. "She's a good tenant.

"She's never had any disturbances. She's always paid her rent.

"There has never been any man in her apartment that stood there overnight.

"In fact, I've never seen any other man there except for Paul Applegate.

"I know that Mrs Applegate...

"idolises her baby

"and that she practically lives for him.

"The baby has a sweet disposition and is as healthy as babies come."

What's interesting to me, though,

is in her rebuttal, she never makes mention of the abuse any more.

Wouldn't you think that

if you were trying to win a custody battle, that you would say

this guy is an abusive... beat me to a pulp, alcoholic.

That's interesting.

-Because if it was me, I would. Know what I mean? Let's skip on.

-OK.

This is the last court document we were able to find.

-OK.

-OK.

-All right. Goodness.

-So this is the...

-The final order.

-..final order from...

-This is...

-June, so...

-..June 1945.

After reviewing both sides,

-this is what now the judge has come to an agreement on.

-That's right.

Of what's going to happen to my father. OK.

So just before we go on to sort of what the judge ordered, just a little bit of context.

At this point in the United States, when children were young,

the courts almost automatically always gave custody to the mother.

So, the only way that Paul could get custody

was to prove Lavina unfit.

-Interesting. OK.

-OK?

"After duly considering the petitions,

"it appears that the defendant has failed to show,

"by a preponderance of evidence, that the petitioner is unfit

"and unqualified to retain custody of the infant child.

"And that his welfare is best served by remaining in the custody

"of the mother."

He's going to continue to live with his mother.

He said he never knew his mother

and yet he lived with her for all of these years.

-OK.

-Well, at least until...

-At least until this was signed.

Right. This is about, he's about two and a half.

Because maybe she is completely unfit,

and they have to take him away from her.

-OK.

-Unfortunately, this is the last

court order that we were able to find.

But I want to know how he ends up at his grandmother's.

I would love to be able to tell you right now.

"Here's a court order from 1947, and this is what happened."

But we don't have that. And there could be lots of reasons

why there aren't any other court orders.

You know, they could be lost.

It could have been a private arrangement.

The other thing is that Lavina may have passed away.

And that could be why custody was changing at that point.

Yeah. That's what happened.

So, do you know when your grandmother passed away?

OK. My dad said he was probably around eight.

-I think that we can go next door...

-Yeah, OK.

-..to the State Archives.

We might be able to find out when your grandmother passed away, if there's a death certificate.

-OK.

-All right.

-All right. Let's do it.

How about we go next door?

'I think I knew coming in that there was something that was going to be'

relatively undesirable.

But I don't think that that prepared me at all

for what I found out.

'It's hard to really be attached to one side of the story

'or the other side of the story.'

And I don't want to think ill thoughts about either of these people, but...

you know, I do.

And it's sad, because those are my grandparents.

Meredith has already called ahead to Joe Klett,

who's an archivist at the New Jersey State Archives.

She's asked him to see

if he can find a death certificate for Christina's grandmother.

But since Lavina may have remarried,

Joe has been looking for a Lavina Applegate, Shaw or Constant.

Christina's dad says he was about eight

when he was told his mother died.

So, Joe's been looking for death certificates from around 1950.

I don't know if that's the right certificate.

-Yeah, this is it.

-We didn't find anything under the other names.

-This is it.

This is her, because this is 522 Market Street.

522 Market Street. Deed of Death, February 18th, 1946. OK.

-But...

-Wait a minute. What?

Oh, this is her mother. Yeah, because there's Jacob Weaver.

-Oh, yep.

-She's a Weaver.

-OK.

-So, this is all we got.

Well, it did say that she died in 1946.

-She dies in...

-So that was soon after the custody battle.

-Right.

And I'm remembering Lavina said that her mother used to watch Bob

-for her a lot while she was working.

-Yeah.

-So maybe now her mother has passed away...

-Right.

..in addition to one of the childcare providers for her son.

And that could be when my dad went

-to live with his paternal

-grandmother. Maybe.

All right. What does this mean for me here?

Maybe we should look online, to see if we can find maybe any newspaper articles or something,

-you know...

-OK.

-..involving her name.

And see, you know, maybe we can hit something there.

-Want to try that?

-OK. Let's do that.

-OK.

Why don't we do newspaper archives for New Jersey?

I think maybe we should search by just her first name,

-because her first name is so unusual.

-It's odd, yeah.

OK.

OK. And then, let's see. Let's do "died".

-1955.

-So let's click on that

and see if that first one gives us anything.

-No. Walton?

-Lavina Walton.

Oh, my God. "Mrs Lavina V Walton, aged 33,

"died at her home yesterday after a brief illness.

"She was the wife of Charles Walton.

"In addition to her husband, she is survived by son, Robert Applegate."

There is no... Can't find a death certificate. Oh, Lavina Walton.

-Well, now we have a last name.

-Thank you. OK.

-Now we have a different last name to search under.

-OK. Let's do it.

-Let's see if we can find Joe to...

-Aged 33. She was married to...

Did you find some new information?

Yes, we did. We want to look under a Lavina Walton.

-Walton?

-Uh-huh.

-And what's the date of death?

-1955, April 1st.

OK. Well, we'll see what we can find.

-Great, thank you.

-Great. Thanks, Joe.

So, does '55 match up with about when...

-Uh-uh.

-..your dad has a memory of? No?

-Uh-uh.

-'55, my dad would have been 13.

-13.

But he says he lived with his grandmother the whole time before that.

So his mother dies when he's around 13.

And I know he went to go live with his father when he was 14.

Was he, like, still living with her, or...?

But no, he swears up and down it was his grandmother.

-He was with his grandmother at the time.

-So, his grandmother raised the kids.

-I don't know, maybe this will open something up for him.

-Maybe.

-I think we found your certificate.

-Oh, my goodness. OK.

Oh, my God.

-"Lavina Walton, died March 30th, 1955."

-OK.

"She died of pulmonary tuberculosis with effusion

"and cirrhosis of the liver, due to chronic alcoholism."

Wow.

So...

..it's possible everything that my grandfather was saying was true.

OK. She's buried...

-OK.

-And it says...

-At Riverview...

-..Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey.

-So, she's here.

Yeah. Less than a mile away from here.

All right.

I guess we'll have to check her out.

Ay-yi-yi!

-Well, I know it wasn't all the answers you wanted.

-No.

-But I think it gave you...

I know. I know that we can't, we can't find the whys...

-Unfortunately.

-..but, at least, you know,

my father can know that her death wasn't something, you know, brutal.

And that she just died of a disease. She died of a really bad disease.

All right, thank you so much.

Well, it was really great to meet you.

Thank you. It was nice to meet you, too.

'It's a sad story of a woman who had to be sacrificed

'because of this disease. It can destroy many families.'

And, consequently, lines of people after that.

'And, you know, my father has lived his life thinking that it was

'something really horrible that happened to Lavina.'

So, it's really unfortunate.

'It's very possible that

'when my great-grandmother passed away my grandmother had to

'give him up because she couldn't take care of him.

'I mean, that's what I feel happened. But I will never know.'

But it's been worth it for me to see

who these people are and really, at the end of the day for me,

the lesson of who my father is, you know.

'And to have a deeper understanding and a deeper love for my dad.'

That's why I'm here.

I have asked my father to come here to Trenton

so I can sit down with him and share with him the information.

'I know some of the story is going to be really difficult for him to hear.'

-How are we doing?

-I'm good. How are you?

-Good, good.

-OK.

-Yeah, here we go, huh?

-Yep.

All right, let me preface this by saying that

I have received a lot of information.

But I think that everything that I've abridged it down to here is

going to kind of help you understand, I think, who your mother was.

OK.

The first stuff that I, that I found is they put a picture in the paper.

So this would have made your mother about 14.

And there's your mom.

There's your mom.

HE SOBS

-Oh!

-I know.

'You know, we're not unique, this Applegate family.'

We're just one of the darker ones, you know.

'But what we all want to do is move forward, you know,

'keep growing and changing and becoming better.'

June 7th of 1941,

your parents were married.

'I mean, I hope that over time, that he can heal from this.

'And we right the wrongs.

'And the good in the scenario is the word forgiveness.'

I hope that he's found some forgiveness to his mother.

Your mother passed away in 1955.

She was 33 years old.

Wow.

-This is an awful death.

-You were 13 years old.

-13?

-You were 13.

-I thought I was younger.

-Uh-uh.

Pulmonary tuberculosis

and cirrhosis of the liver from chronic alcoholism.

Oh, God. My mother was an alcoholic.

Yeah.

That's not what I expected, obviously.

Is there any good in here, anywhere?

Want me to tell you what the good is?

-I'd like to have a...

-All right.

-..moment of happiness, yeah. Jeez.

Here's the good, Dad. The beauty of this

is that you can be incredibly proud that you broke the pattern.

And that you raised all of us

with giving us strength

and intelligence

and talent and fight in us.

And you did that with no help from anyone, Dad.

Yeah.

And that's pretty amazing.

That's how I feel at the end of this whole thing.

This is the good part of the story.

Well, that's, that's good enough for me.

-Yeah.

-Thank you.

You're welcome, Daddy.

Wow.

I hope that he has pride, because he was given nothing to work with.

'But there is so much light that's happening now.'

There is so much goodness.

And I hope he can take that with him, you know.

'So, my dad and I are heading out to Riverview Cemetery

'and just hoping we can have some closure for my father

'that he's been looking for for his whole life.'

All right. Here's Lavina Shaw Walton.

OK.

These are our burial cards.

So, we have those on each of the individuals.

And then, based on this,

we can go to the lot card.

-This is the, the lot number...

-171.

171, which is here.

Now, there's no monument there.

It would be shown on this.

-So you're going to have to...

-Kind of look down on the ground.

-Right.

-OK.

And on this card, you can find out who's been buried here.

Oh, my God.

OK.

What's that?

They bought a plot for you.

My mom bought a plot for me?

She wanted you to be buried with her.

Oh, God. I wish I would have known her.

Yeah.

Yet, not ever even knowing her,

she cared for me.

She loved me.

-Daddy.

-Yeah.

OK, Mom. What can I say? Thank you.

OK. Let's go find this.

OK. What, look down here? Yeah.

-171 is the one that we want to...

-171.

-..see.

Right here.

Oh, God.

I'm going to get you a monument, Mom.

I promise you.

'As dark as it is, there will be, on the other side of this,

'a man who's 70 years old who knows who he is.

'And he knows where he came from.'

And I hope, I really, really hope with all my heart

that at the end of the process, he really sees what a miracle he is.

-OK. I'm going to take these out.

-Yeah.

Give them some colour.

-I want to arrange them.

-OK.

'We've hugged more in the last couple of days than we have in 41 years.'

He's looked at me with different eyes, you know.

I've looked at him with different eyes.

And we're for ever bonded because of this.