Editor’s note: The following story is part 2 of a two-part article. The previous article appeared in the Journal Tribune on Saturday, March 31.

SACO — When the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Monday night announced the All American Redheads earned their induction, Saco’s Martha Olsen had mixed emotions.

Olsen, 66, played for the Redheads in the 1960s, and said she was happy for their recognition, but sadness also welled up inside of her.

“I realized I had nobody to share it with,” Olsen said. “Of course I’m happy, but I’m alone, which is a shame. There was no one here to share the moment with me.”

Olsen, who lives in a studio handicap apartment in York Manor in Biddeford, said she thought of her parents, Frances and George Olsen, and her older brother, George. They all died within the last 20 years. They were the people with whom she wanted to share this moment that she said came too late.

“It’s a shame that we have to wait so long to have these moments,” she said. “I think of World War II veterans who are just now getting their medals. It’s sad. They are in their 80s and most of the people special to them who would want to share in the moment have passed away.”

That moment, however, passed as she began to think of those who are around her: Her friends at York Manor, who have jokingly asked for her autographs, and other members of her family.

In 2010, the All Americans, a professional traveling women’s basketball team from 1936-86, were nominated for the hall. When Olsen heard the news, a flood of memories washed over her, she said ”“ both good and bad. Her life, she said, hasn’t been easy. Her father never saw her play basketball until she played in a charity game in her 30s. He missed all of her high school games, and never spoke to her about the Redheads.

“I’m not mad,” she said. “He had two older boys and he didn’t know how to handle having a daughter.”

She said when he did see her play for that first time, he told her he didn’t realize how good she was. It moved her.

She also remembers her battles with illnesses, especially the fibromyalgia ”“ a disease that attacks a person’s joints and causes tiredness ”“ that ended her career with the Redheads.

But one memory in particular struck her. She remembered the son whom she put up for adoption in 1966 on the day he was born.

Olsen became pregnant with her son shortly before her boyfriend, Richard Parker, left for the Navy. She began working for the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass., a suburb of Boston, when she discovered her pregnancy. The school officials told her the options: They could help her find a home for the baby, she could get married or she could have an abortion.

She stood on the Charles River Bridge contemplating what to do next, including suicide.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she said. “Luckily, I realized I wasn’t going to abort and I wasn’t going to end my own life. I had strength.”

She moved to Rhode Island, where Parker was stationed, where they lived together for the next six months, but decided to return to Saco. There, she faced more options.

“My parents told me I could stay with them, but only on the condition that I go to a home for unwed mothers for the rest of my pregnancy and then give the baby up for adoption,” she said.

She spent the next three months at St. Andre’s Home for Unwed Mothers and on March 23, 1966, she gave birth to a baby boy. It was the last time she saw him.

“I just tried to push forward,” she said. “I tried not to think about it for the next 40 years and I dreaded a knock on the door. Every time I heard a door knock, I became scared that this could be the moment that he showed up.”

The figurative knock came in 2010 when Daniel Libby met his birth mother for the first time at age 44.

“It wasn’t a moment of dread, but one of relief,” Olsen said. “I could finally be at peace.”

Libby sought out his mother and said he hasn’t looked back on the past for a moment.

“It was like only a day went by,” said Libby, who lives in Brunswick, where he and his wife raised two daughters.

“I am not angry and I understand why she did what she did. I just want to move forward and continue to be a part of her life,” he said.

Libby said he decided to find Olsen after helping his adoptive parents move in 1999 and a piece of paperwork fell from a box. The documents were his adoption papers, which he’d never seen, although he knew he was adopted.

He decided to find Olsen, he said, because he wanted to meet his biological mother and wanted to know about his past, especially with two young daughters ”“ Morgan and Heather. He wanted to know if they were susceptible to any genetic diseases and wanted them to know their maternal grandmother.

They met on Easter, which is meaningful to Olsen, who in 1986 became a minister.

“When I heard the buzzer and I went out to get him, we just stood there and looked at each other for about 45 seconds,” Olsen said.

“It meant a lot to me,” Libby said. “I couldn’t believe I was meeting my biological mother.”

Libby discovered that he has a younger brother, Edward, 43, who lives in Biddeford. Olsen discovered she had granddaughters.

Libby and Olsen remain close and he visits her at least once a month, and every year on his birthday. Last year, Olsen threw Libby a surprise 45th birthday party.

“He was turning 44, but to me it was his first birthday,” Olsen said.

Now, with the Hall of Fame induction, Olsen is able to get a little closer to her granddaughters. Morgan referred to her as her grandmother for the first time on Monday, shortly after she got word of the induction.

Olsen said she had tears of joy running down her cheeks when she was writing to a friend about Morgan’s acceptance of her.

Olsen and Libby will be going to the induction ceremony in September in Springfield, Mass., and she has invited Morgan to come with them.

“She seemed to like the idea,” Olsen said.

Finding her son and beginning to remember the past was a blessing in disguise for Olsen, she said. In 1999, she wrote a self-published book titled “Trials, Tribulations and Triumphs.” It told her life story, and it was therapeutic, she said.

She didn’t pull any punches in the book as she discussed her difficult relationship with her parents, especially her father, as well as giving up Daniel and her two physically abusive marriages.

Now, she said, she can let go of the past.

“I really want people to know that they don’t need to be hurt by the past, that they can deal with it and move on,” she said. “Now I have a future. I have another son, two granddaughters and if something more comes of it, that would be great, but you never know, so there’s no sense dwelling on the past and worrying about the future. Just enjoy the moment now.”

— Contact Al Edwards at 282-1535, Ext. 323.