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Woman may lose race to prove she's American By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ A staff aide for U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said Tuesday that the senator's office is doing all it can to help a Medford woman prove her U.S. citizenship. But the chances that she'll obtain a passport by next week -- a deadline for her new job as a Horizon Air flight attendant -- appear slim. "The Veterans Administration and the Passport Office in Seattle have been very responsive," Smith aide Donna Hester said Tuesday. "But apparently this is a very complicated case, because they're trying to get a document from Italy. We've tried to get her a limited passport for the time being, but they've been unable to do that." Medford resident Connie Marshall McGregor, 51, attended kindergarten through college in the United States, obtained a Social Security card, registered to vote, married twice and bore children in this country, all without realizing her citizenship was undocumented or might be questioned. Marshall, who will resume using her maiden name when her divorce is final, is the daughter of an American G.I. who married an Italian woman after World War II. The couple split up after having two more children in the United States. All three of their offspring were adopted by an Aromas, Calif., couple in 1952. Her adoptive parents say they never questioned their eldest daughter's citizenship until Marshall applied for a passport and was rebuffed. She needs the passport to start her new job. Obtaining the proof officials seek hasn't been easy. Marshall's natural father, Carl Turley, died in 1988. His veterans records were destroyed in a fire in St. Louis. Her natural mother disappeared nearly 50 years ago after her parental rights were terminated. Complicated? Maybe so, but bureaucratic excuses cut no ice with Marshall's daughter, an Army sergeant stationed in Germany with six years in the service. "I consider her 100 percent American," Sgt. Jamie Del Fierro said Tuesday, reached by phone at her Stuttgart home. "Her daughter's a soldier fighting in the U.S. Army. I realize there's security things and procedures, but there's an obvious line you don't cross. I'm not free to leave here easily, and she can't even visit her daughter in Germany because she can't get a passport." Del Fierro's husband, a Special Forces sergeant recently in Bosnia, was even more succinct on his mother-in-law's plight. "It's silly," Sgt. 1st Class Dan Marshall said. "It's stupid." After a story about Marshall's problem appeared in the Mail Tribune on Tuesday, several readers called with suggestions. Among them was Lea George, an Italian war bride now living in Medford. George offered a translation of the phrase which appears on the only known photo of Marshall's natural parents: "Made June 28th, 1946, Livorno, Italy." George said no passports were required of war brides in that era. Instead, an identification card and a marriage certificate were required. "She couldn't have come without a marriage certificate," George said. "No way. Absolutely." Finding that document could prove a challenge. George said she understood all war bride marriage certificates later were transferred from Italy to Washington, D.C. Smith aide Hester said documenting Marshall's citizenship remained a top priority for the senator's immigration staffers, but the search was slowed by the absence of key government agency employees during the holidays. "It will be a miracle if we get all this information by next week," Hester said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA