On Nov. 5, 1984, in a dorm at San Francisco State University, a student gave birth to a daughter, dropped the placenta down a garbage chute, and stowed the infant in a box in the laundry room before slipping away.

In her cardboard cradle, the baby lay wrapped in towels wet and fouled from birth. As the hours passed — two, maybe three — her body temperature dropped and her skin turned blue. A crudely cut umbilical cord dangled from her belly. Yet the baby did not cry. But she stirred, and the moving bundle drew the attention of a student putting his clothes in the dryer just before 11 a.m. A baby! He turned, walked into the washing-machine room next door, and asked the only student there: “Did you know there’s a baby in a box in here?”

That question set off a chain of events that would resonate to this day, touching off a rescue by the students, a hunt for the parents, and a remarkable life story for the infant.

Today, that abandoned baby is Jillian Sobol, 31. On Friday, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the campus where she was saved and her life began.

“I believe it to be a story of hope, joy, optimism, family and San Francisco State University,” said the former foundling, who today stands 5 feet 10 and, as on her first day of life, turns heads — now because of a glowing smile and a happy, outgoing disposition.

Yet despite her university birth, the idea of graduating from college felt beyond her abilities for much of her life.

“I know I’m a capable person, but I had difficulties in high school,” she said. “I had dyslexia, and some ADD (attention deficit disorder) and learning disabilities. I’ve gone to a lot of tutors, and people who taught me learning techniques.”

Those were the technical fixes, and they helped. But Sobol’s journey to the graduation stage began the moment student Patrick Coughlan laid eyes on the baby who had entered the world in such peril. From then on, good fortune turned her way.

‘Call 911!’

The only other student in the laundry room was Esther Wannenmacher, a studious, 21-year-old nursing student taking a course in newborn care.

“I really don’t believe in luck,” said that former student, now Esther Raiger, 53. “This would have to be divine intervention.”

The nursing student had just aced her neonatal ABCs: airways, breathing and circulation. She swept her finger through the baby’s mouth to make sure her airway was clear. She unwrapped the dirty towels and grew concerned by the baby’s bluish color. She knew the infant was at risk of infection from the crude way the umbilical cord had been severed, and she recognized the potential for hypothermia.

“Go get help!” she ordered Coughlan. “Call 911!” She picked up the baby and cuddled her to warm her. As she massaged, she realized the infant’s skin still had the creamy white substance called vernix usually washed off right after birth. Her weight, though, felt healthy.

Other students arrived offering dry towels. In less than 10 minutes, paramedics crowded in. They placed the tiny girl in a portable incubator, leaving Raiger with her arms empty and her mind reeling.

“My biggest thought was, I hope she does OK,” Raiger remembered. “And, I wonder what her life will be like.”

Baby Jane Doe

To the city that marveled at her story, the foundling became known as Baby Jane Doe. But at San Francisco General Hospital, staffers dubbed her Patricia Verducci, in honor of sharp-eyed Patrick Coughlan and Verducci Hall, the dorm where she survived.

Coughlan, who became a teacher, died in 2014. Verducci Hall, damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, was demolished 10 years later.

As dozens of people applied to adopt the mysterious butter-haired baby, the search was on for her parents. Campus police eventually tracked down a 19-year-old sophomore who acknowledged that she had concealed her pregnancy, even from the baby’s father, a 20-year-old sophomore she had met at a party. Because she had left her baby in a place where the infant could be found, the mother was not prosecuted for child endangerment. She and the baby’s father left the university without graduating.

Meanwhile, the city’s social services department accelerated the adoption process for Baby Jane Doe. Sam and Helene Sobol, who had adopted a son, 8-month-old Jeffrey, three years earlier, were now on the list for a girl. The city called them on Nov. 28.

“I was shivering — I was in tears,” Helene Sobol said, remembering that phone call. She’d had a powerful sensation as she read the infant’s story in the papers: “This is our baby.”

Dr. & Mrs. Sobol

At the time, the Sobols lived in one of the elegant brick officers’ homes in the city’s Presidio, still an active military base in 1984. Sam Sobol, a colonel, was chief of cardiology at Letterman Army Hospital. Helene Sobol owned an Inuit art gallery on Union Street.

They visited the infant in the temporary home where she had been placed, “and there was immediate love and wonderful feeling,” Helene Sobol said.

But Baby Jane Doe was still not fully theirs. On the day after the Sobols got their happy call, the baby’s mother signed papers relinquishing her rights. The father, still a student, signed similar papers on Feb. 7, 1985, but retained the right to change his mind over the next 30 days.

Three decades later, Jillian Sobol would think back on that hesitation as evidence that he cared for her. But for the Sobols, the uncertainty was frightening.

“He wanted to see the baby,” said Helene Sobol. She took Jillian to see him but didn’t want to let the baby out of her arms. Still, she found him “a charming young man,” she said. “Very personable.”

On March 11, the father formally gave up his rights, and Jillian was theirs. Their new daughter proved outgoing and especially determined, befitting someone who had spent her first hours of life warding off hypothermia and infection while awaiting rescue.

“She would crawl, going after things, ferocious on her hands and knees,” Sam Sobol said.

School struggles

Yet success in school eluded Jillian, but not because she wasn’t bright. When she read, letters appeared flipped around, evidence of a learning disability. She suffered from migraines. At 12, depression settled in. Her adoptive father, who had graduated from Yale, and mother, a UC Berkeley grad, loved education and didn’t hesitate to let her try a new school if the old one wasn’t working.

In all, Jillian attended four high schools, the last a boarding school in Costa Rica for underachieving students.

“Puberty was tough,” Sobol said, sitting for an interview across the San Francisco State campus from the tennis courts now on the site where she was born. “I was definitely different from my parents. They were more reserved. Professionals. I was more rambunctious.”

The Sobols told Jillian and Jeffrey from their earliest years that they had been adopted. What Jillian didn’t know, though, were the circumstances of her birth.

In 2001, when Jillian was 16, her mother told her the story of the student at San Francisco State “and how she must have been very young and scared,” Jillian Sobol said. “I’m not certain of her actual words. It’s more the feelings of feeling special and feeling loved.”

Then came the shock: “That couldn’t be me!” She and her father visited the library and read the old newspaper articles together. “There was an outpouring of love from the people who found me, and the people at the hospital. And this army of people trying to help me and find (the parents). I do feel so grateful for all of that — and how it led me to my amazing parents and family.”

In 2007, Sobol was 22 and working at a clothing store South of Market when she showed a friend a scrapbook commemorating the story of her birth. One article quoted Esther Wannenmacher, the nursing student who rescued her, saying: “When I am 41, she’ll be 20. I wonder if I’ll ever meet her again.” Sobol’s friend suggested they try to find her. It didn’t take long. Now named Raiger, she lived in Novato.

Connecting with past

Sobol wrote to her: “Even though we have never officially met, you are a big part of my life.”

Raiger responded: “What a wonderful gift to receive a letter from you!” She had three children, she said, including an 8-year-old named Jillian. Her career, she said, was working with newborns on a maternity ward. Today, Raiger is a pediatric nurse at Kaiser San Francisco.

Their families met at the Sobols’ house. For Raiger, “it was a lovely experience. An answer to prayers!” For Sobol, “very emotional. Heartfelt and loving.”

After the meeting, Sobol prepared to move to Norway, where her adoptive mother was born and where she had many cousins. Before leaving, she requested documents that had been available to her since she’d turned 18: the identities of her biological parents. She was told they’d be available in a matter of weeks.

Biological parents

When she returned from Norway for Thanksgiving, Sobol learned the names of those long-ago students and more. Her biological mother was small, 5 feet 3, had brown hair and had enjoyed dancing, hiking, reading, writing and bicycling. Her biological father, 6 feet 4, was blond, wore glasses, and had played water polo, varsity sports and been in a fraternity.

She was nervous as she sent a letter that year to her father’s last-known address in Lafayette. His parents, seeing it was special delivery, overnighted it to him in Hawaii, where he lived with his wife and daughter.

He responded immediately, saying he would fly back to California. His parents, who had no idea that he had a second daughter, joined him for lunch with the Sobols.

“I think they were just in shock,” Sobol laughed. So was she. She learned that her biological father was a massage therapist and that they were of Dutch descent.

“It was great to meet him,” she said. But she wouldn’t reach out to her biological mother until 2013.

By that time, she was taking classes back where her life had begun, at San Francisco State. “The biggest thing I needed her to know was that I didn’t hate her,” she said. “I wrote her a letter to thank her for giving me the gift of life. And letting her know I was going to State, and that I had grown up with a wonderful family. And that I hoped to open the lines of communication.”

She got no reply. But 18 months later, a friend request from her mother appeared on her Facebook page. She accepted, but then no other communication arrived. She unfriended her, and went on with her life.

Meanwhile, Sobol was thriving at the College of Business, studying hospitality and tourism management. She’d told no one at the school about her history there until this March, when she wrote a letter to S.F. State President Les Wong.

Completing the circle

“Thirty years later I am here to face the past, complete the circle, and move forward, into the future,” she wrote. “Hope is the thing I believe my mother had when she made her choice. I’m here today making my own choices.”

Wong shared her story with his colleagues. In an email, he told her: “You will make a difference.”

Last month, Sobol learned that some Facebook messages can be hidden from view, so she poked around to see if she had any. She found one. It had been sitting, unseen, for nearly two years.

“I have something to tell you,” her biological mother had written. “I’m very proud of you. And thank you for being you.”

The stunning message capped off the years Sobol had spent considering her mother’s predicament.

“That’s a horrible spot to be in for a woman, where the only choice she had was to abandon her child in a box,” Sobol said. “I’ve faced it by not letting it dictate my life. The love and support I’ve been raised with has allowed me to embrace it and not run from it or be scared by it.”

Still, she said, she’s not quite ready to respond to her mother’s message. “This summer, I hope to think about it,” she said.

For now, graduating is enough.

Celebratory gathering

On Friday, the Sobols hosted a pre-graduation lunch across from AT&T Park, where Jillian, once abandoned at San Francisco State, was about to receive its highest recognition, a degree. At the table were her parents and her father’s stepmother. Her biological father, now back in California, was there, as were his parents. And so was Raiger.

“We feel that we have come full circle,” Sam Sobol said.

As for his daughter, she’s thrilled to begin the career that made her excited about school. She’ll work full time at an event production company this summer and is eyeing a future organizing conferences, maybe for tech companies, for Moscone Center, or the city’s entertainment commission.

“I take a lot of pride in San Francisco,” she said of the city that once helped her. Now, “I think they need my help.”

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: NanetteAsimov