Pietro di bernardone biography of abraham lincoln

Ruth Heide

“Do I have to put my real last name?” the young man asked as I came to him in the row of children whose names I was taking down for a photo.

I had never heard that request before. I thought he might want to put something down like Superman, Spiderman or some other hero. But, instead, it was a different kind of hero whose name he would rather use than his own. His own father, he said, had hurt his sister, so he was no longer part of their family, and they didn’t want to be known as his children. The rest of the family was going to be taking on a new name soon, someone’s name they could be proud of.

He assured me the new last name would be his soon, so he would rather use that than his original surname. His little brother, standing nearby, would use the same new last name, he informed me.

It struck my heart that these youngsters had already gone through such trauma that they needed a different name, a new identity,

•