Abandoned at birth, now a college graduate

Big deal: Last Friday, Jillian Sobol, 31, graduated with a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University.

It was a big deal because Sobol almost died in a campus laundry room on Nov. 5, 1984. That’s when her scared mother gave birth and left her in a cardboard box. Student Patrick Coughlan saw movement and asked the other student in the laundry room, “Did you know there’s a baby in a box in here?”

Providentially, the other student was Esther Wannenmacher, 21, who was studying nursing and taking a course in newborn care. The San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday quoted that student, now Esther Raiger, 53, saying, “I really don’t believe in luck. This would have to be divine intervention.”

Chronicle reporter Nanette Asimov tells how Esther picked up the bluish baby, made sure her airway was clear, and cuddled her to fight hypothermia. Paramedics soon arrived and placed the baby in a portable incubator.

The foundling became known as Baby Jane Doe. Newspaper stories prompted dozens of people to apply to adopt her. Sam and Helene Sobol did that on Nov. 28, and the baby’s name became Jillian Sobol. Meanwhile, campus police tracked down the 19-year-old birthmother: Since she had left her baby in a place where she could be found, officials did not prosecute her for child endangerment. The baby’s father left school without graduating.

What happened then is a long story that the Chronicle tells well. The Sobols were loving but reserved parents, and for Jillian, “Puberty was tough. I was definitely different from my parents. … I was more rambunctious.” But she made it through the hard years, and in her 20s contacted her birth parents. She settled down and entered San Francisco State.

Last Friday, the Sobols hosted a pre-graduation lunch, and her biological father, her biological grandparents, Esther Raiger, and her adoptive dad’s stepmother—but not her birthmother—all attended. Then Jillian Sobol received her diploma on the campus where Raiger saved her.