From America Through Time comes this incredible true story
Little Mister Victory is the story of co-author Tina Drzal's decades-long search for the woman who abandoned her father on VJ Day. Using cutting-edge DNA analysis and good-old-fashioned detective work (burrowing into newspaper archives, ecclesiastic and government documents) we found the mother, along with a surprise; abandoning her newborn baby was not the most shocking act of her life.
That afternoon, the unthinkable happened
Sixteen year-old newsboy Charles Spataro was watching the celebration, waiting to begin his shift at the nearby Park Street subway station when a woman - a stranger to him - asked if he would watch her baby while she performed an errand. She pressed two dollars into his hand and she promised to return shortly.
She never did.
During a week in which the most deadly and costly war in American history had finally ended, the story of the abandoned baby would make the front pages of Boston newspapers. The timing of the his abandonment was not lost on war-weary Americans, and several papers took to calling the boy “Little Mr. Victory,” a nickname which endeared him to the hearts of Bostonians.
Neither the mother or father ever came forward. After two weeks the baby was placed in foster care, and was later adopted. When he grew up and learned of his troubled start in life, he began a search for his biological parents. After he passed in 1987. his daughter Tina picked up the search. By chance, she found David's 2005 Boston Globe article about the abandonment. A collaboration began and together, with the help of a genealogist, they cracked the case and found the mother. That was when they discovered a surprising coda to the story.
Abandoning Tina’s father was not the most shocking act of her life.
Press & Podcasts
On August 14, 2026 Tina and I were guests on the WGBH program “The Curiosity Shop.” A bittersweet day as it was just before the 81st anniversary of VJ Day, when Tina‘s dad was left in the arms of a stranger during the celebration for the end of World War II. (Just had to add that radio sure has changed a lot since I was a broadcast engineer.) WGBH posted our interview on YouTube.
In mid-August, 2026, with the anniversary of VJ Day coming up, Channel 5 (our ABC affiliate here in Boston) broadcast and posted this story on our book.
Tina and I and were very excited to be a part of this podcast series, which is all about DNA detective stories, such as the one that we solved with the search for Tina‘s biological grandmother and grandfather.
What a treat to be interviewed by metal legend Frankie Hollywood on his Melted Chapsticks Podcast. Sorry Tina couldn't join us but it was a fun conversation you can listen to here.
WBZ Radio
Wow. So humbled by this fantastic review, which read, in part, "This is a detective story of the first order...digging hard into Boston history [David] along with Tina, the adult daughter of the abandoned baby, use the very latest in DNA analysis to discover the mother's true identity, which leads to quite a few rather shocking surprises. A terrific history of the people of Boston at the end of the war. " Listen to the review here..
This was my second time on Jordan's podcast, and I was thrilled to have co-author Tina join to talk about the book and what the experience unearthing the true story of her father's abandonment has meant to her and her family. No registration is required to listen here.