THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280062
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Profile
SERIES: HAIL TO THE CHIEFS
There's much more to student body presidents that their titles. While
they lead students, they also leaf full lives that are as diverse as
their institutions.
SOURCE: Stories by VALERIE CARINO
Campus Correspondent
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
THINGS WERE never the same for 22-year-old Jodi Smith after she found out she was Hungarian.
The student body president of Tidewater Community College's Portsmouth campus always knew she was adopted five days after she was born in Norfolk. But after she learned from her adoptive mother, Betty Smith, that her biological mother was Hungarian, she wanted to know more.
She wanted to find her.
So Smith, who is a junior physical education major, decided to start looking for her biological mother in March 1992. With the help of a private investigator and her adoptive mother, it took only one month to find her.
Betty Smith told her daughter the woman's name (Judy Varga), her last address and the name of the lawyer who was involved in the adoption. She also told her that Judy Varga had a son, four years older than her, who might be Jodi's biological brother.
``I felt that it was the time when she was talking about it to tell her what I knew,'' Betty Smith said.
The search could have taken even less time, Jodi Smith said, if she had trusted her first hunch. Before she started her investigation, Smith looked in the phone book under the name ``J Varga.'' There was a listing, but she dismissed it.
``It couldn't have been that easy,'' she said.
Smith then visited the lawyer. He wouldn't tell her anything about Judy Varga's whereabouts. He was shocked to see her.
``I went in there and told him who I was, and I think that blew him out of the water for a minute,'' she said. ``As soon as I walked in, he said, `I can't believe how much you look like your father.' It was emotional.''
But the lawyer did give Smith the name of her biological father. A private investigator, whom Smith had hired, ran the man's name through a computer search and found several listings in the area.
Smith went to some of the addresses and found people who knew Judy Varga, but they didn't want to give her any information.
``It was frustrating at first, . . . but it was an adventure,'' Smith said. ``It started falling into place.''
At an apartment on Newport Avenue in Norfolk, Smith finally made some progress. The neighbors told her that Judy Varga didn't live there anymore. Smith decided to go to the apartment anyway. There, she found her answer.
The door was wide open. Smith went inside and found a box on the floor. Inside it was a magazine with Judy Varga's name and new address on it.
Smith checked to see if this address matched the one she had originally looked up in the phone book. It did.
So Smith wrote a letter.
Judy Varga received her daughter's letter on April 1, 1992. At first, Varga said, she thought it was some kind of April Fool's joke. But when she learned it came through a private investigator, she called Smith immediately.
The moment Smith heard Varga's voice, she knew who it was. Her broken English and rich Hungarian accent made it clear.
``I was happy, but I was sad for her,'' Smith said. ``I felt a lot of different emotions.''
The two planned their long-awaited reunion for the middle of April at Varga's house in Norfolk. When Smith got there, Varga was already waiting outside.
Jodi's biological brother, Joe, was there, too.
``I got so excited, I started shaking,'' Judy Varga said. ``All three of us started crying, holding each other. . . .I told her, `I'm sorry,' and she said, `That's OK, I understand. . . .' ''
Varga later told Smith that because she could not speak or understand English at the time, she had unwittingly signed adoption papers. After she found out what the papers were really for, Judy Varga said she had a nervous breakdown. ``I didn't even know who to turn to. . . .I felt helpless,'' she said.
Jodi Smith said, ``It was weird. It was like it was just another long lost friend.'' And she was shocked at how closely she resembled her brother, Joseph.
When people saw Smith and her brother Kevin, 23, whom Betty Smith had adopted from different parents, they used to comment on their resemblance to each other. ``They didn't believe we were adopted.''
But with Joe, she noticed, the resemblance was even more striking. ``When we sat down, we had the same knees. We had the same feet,'' she said.
After two hours of reminiscing, Joe and Jodi were shocked to learn other coincidences. They graduated from high schools whose mascot was a Bruin. And they shared the same nickname when they were growing up: Jo-Jo.
She also learned about another sibling, an older half-sister named Eva, who still lived in Hungary. Eva came to the United States for a year, starting in March 1993, and Jodi developed a close relationship with her.
``I never had a sister before. I think that is the neatest thing,'' Smith said.
Hoping to transfer to the University of Utah next year, Smith wants to become a physical education teacher. She also hopes to study abroad for a semester in Hungary.
Smith thinks the experience of finding her biological mother has helped her become a better student leader.
``I've gained a lot more patience in dealing with so many different people,'' she said. ``It made me more open-minded.''
Betty Smith remembers the day that she met her daughter's biological mother for the first time. It was Mother's Day of 1992.
They and Jodi met to go to church. During the service, the minister asked all the mothers to stand and be recognized. Betty told Judy to stand up.
All three have spent Mother's Day together ever since. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI
by CNB