This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories, and you're listening to our Mother's Day special.

Up next, we have the story of a truly remarkable mom, Mary Sparks, as told by her son, Sparky.

Here's Edie Hand to help tell the story.

Mary Sparks exhibited strength of conviction throughout her life.

But oddly enough, it all started with an affair, a stolen baby, and her Catholic faith.

Here's your son Sparky to recount his mother's tale.

I guess the time to start this story is in 1943.

My mother fell in love with a married man who was about to ship off to the war.

Mary couldn't bear the idea of losing her love, so she attempted to join the Women's Army Corps,

a wax for short.

And when she joined the wax, she took her physical and found out she was pregnant.

My grandfather, great police gentleman, he shipped her to Chicago to a home for unwed mothers

where she worked like a dog for several months and then had my sister.

My sister who always made fun of me growing up and told me I was adopted.

My grandmother took the train from Terre Haute, Indiana,

to Chicago to pick up my mother,

who had just had this child.

And my mother had been very weak and very, really, I think she, they were, they abused her

from the standpoint of making her cook and clean for other people in this home.

So my mother and grandmother had put my sister up for adoption. And the people were

supposed to be there that afternoon to pick up my sister. But on the way to the train station,

...