Born on May 8, 1964, Melissa Gilbert was raised by actress Barbara Crane and entertainer Paul Gilbert, alongside her adopted brother, Jonathan. Her early family life changed when her adoptive parents separated, followed by Paul’s death in 1976. For years, the account she had been given about her biological parents shaped her understanding of where she came from. But that account did not reflect the lives of the people behind it.
Gilbert eventually learned that her biological mother, Kathy Wood, was a dancer, while her biological father, David Darlington, worked as a stock car racer and sign painter. They were not the accomplished figures described to her during childhood. In Prairie Tale: A Memoir, she shared her adoption journey and the discoveries that complicated her family history. Her story reveals how learning the facts of one’s beginnings can mean revisiting an identity built long before those facts were fully known.
