Richard J. Lonsinger is a member of the Ponca tribe of Oklahoma, who was adopted at a young age into a white family of three. He eventually reconnected with his birth family, but when his birth mother passed away in 2010, he wasn't included in the distribution of her estate. Feeling both hurt and excluded, he asked a judge to re-open her estate, to give him a part of one particular asset: an Osage headright. An Osage headright is a share of profits from resources like oil, gas, and coal that have been extracted from the Osage Nation's land. These payments can be sizeable - thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars a year. Historically, they were even larger – in the 1920s the Osage were some of the wealthiest people in the world. But that wealth also made them a target and subject to paternalistic and predatory laws. Over the previous century, hundreds of millions of dollars in oil money have been taken from the Osage people. On today's show: the story of how Richard Lonsinger gradually came to learn this history, and how he made his peace with his part of a complicated inheritance. This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Alyssa Jeong Perry and Emma Peaslee. It was engineered by Brian Jarboe and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was edited by Keith Romer, with help from Shannon Shaw Duty from Osage News. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This is planet money from NPR.
When Richard Lonzinger was in his mid forties, he learned that his birth mother, Barbara, had passed away, and Richard made a choice to try to get a particular piece of her estate to which he felt entitled.
At the time, he believed that securing that inheritance would help him belong, to connect to his birth family or maybe his heritage.
But gradually, Richard came to doubt the choice he made of.
It was in March 2010 that his birth mother passed away.
There had been a service, but Richard didn't find out about that until after it had already happened.
I unfortunately, did not get notified for the funeral.
And it's one of those things where I'm shocked, you know, I'm like, well, why wouldn't they tell me?
Richard was adopted?
He was in contact with his birth family, but they weren't very close.
But even so, missing his birth mother's funeral, that was hard on him.
It was especially complicated for Richard, considering the circumstances under which he was adopted, which are pretty horrifying.
Richard is part of the Ponca tribe of Oklahoma, which is a small native community.
One day, when he was a toddler, Richard's birth mother drove him and three of his seven siblings from their home in Oklahoma across the border into Texas.
The tragedy of that story is we got abandoned in Amarillo at a bus stop, and so the police picked us up, and that's how we got into foster care.
From there, he was adopted without any of his siblings, into a white family of three, a mom, a dad, and a sister.
And it wasn't until Richard was in his twenties that he really started to wonder about where he came from.
I was trying to figure out, you know, what am I supposed to be?
Who am I supposed to be?
Unsettled.