All Five Separated Sisters Reunite For First Time in 62 Years

“It’s a family reunion of the warmest kind: Five sisters together again for the first time in 62 years.

They’re sharing laughter, stories and photos from the childhoods they weren’t able to spend as a family.

On Sunday, the five sisters at last were all together again: LaVina Samuels, 71, of Logansport, Ind.; Sandy Laxton, 70, of Norman, Okla.; Marti Riffle, 69, of Mishawaka; Merle Wampler, 68, of Dayton, Va.; and Lynn Norzinskay, 65, of Logansport.

The sisters have been in touch with each other occasionally over the years, and sometimes even together in twos or threes. But this week is the first time since about 1950 that they’re all five in one place.

LaVina, the eldest child, was born in Chicago in 1941. Shortly thereafter, the family moved to the South Bend area, where the other four girls were born.

Their parents, Theodore and Doris (Newman) Stevens were from the South Bend area.

The couple had a total of 10 children together — these five daughters, a son who died in infancy, and later three sons and a daughter. The last four children and their mother died in a fire in Chicago in 1964.

For reasons that aren’t clear because of the passage of time, the welfare department took the five girls away from their parents about 1950 and placed them in separate foster homes, the sisters explained. LaVina, the eldest, was just 9 at the time.

The girls were shuffled around between foster homes, losing touch with each other. Some of the girls experienced beatings and abuse.

Marti was adopted at age 11 by a kind family.

“I was just passed around to various families and didn’t belong anywhere. I was resentful,” Lynn told the South Bend Tribune (http://bit.ly/Pa1iEc ). She lived as a teen at the Family & Children’s Center in Mishawaka, and graduated from Mishawaka High School.

LaVina was the only daughter who eventually was returned to her parents, living with them during her teen years while she attended Riley High School. Her parents never spoke much about the other girls, whom they lost touch with after losing custody.

It was Lynn’s action years ago that brought the sisters in touch.

“When I was 25 years old, I wrote letters to the welfare department insisting they let me know where my family was,” she said.

Welfare workers wouldn’t give any details about the family or why the children were removed, but they provided Lynn her maternal grandmother’s name and home address. In 1973, she went to visit her grandmother — and found her father and sister LaVina visiting at the same time. They became reacquainted.

“I was aware I had siblings (prior to that), but it was all vague,” Lynn said.

“If Lynn wasn’t persistent, this would not have happened,” Merle said.

Their father later moved to Logansport, so Lynn and LaVina moved there, too. Theodore Stevens died in the mid-1980s.

This week’s in-person reunion was sparked by Sandy’s daughter, Anne Gardner, who last spring used Facebook to reunite her mother with her four sisters. She quickly found three of her aunts or their children on the social network and sent them messages. One of the aunts was able to get a message to LaVina, who doesn’t have a computer.

The next round of communication was phone calls between the five sisters, followed soon by plans for a gathering in the South Bend area.

The moment of reunion itself on Sunday was exciting, the sisters said. “We were all sharing pictures and remembering things,” Sandy said.

“I saw pictures I didn’t know existed,” Marti said.

Since then, it’s been non-stop conversation and laughter in the Granger campground cabin they’re sharing.

They’ve discovered several things they have in common: they all like to read, they’re all Christian and they have a similar sense of humor.

“We pretty much have the same personality,” Marti said.

The five women together have 13 children, 34 grandchildren and 29 great-grandchildren.

Although the sisters live far apart, they hope to make these reunions a regular occurrence. They encourage other people with complicated family backgrounds to make the effort to track down lost siblings and other relatives.

“Don’t be afraid to reach out,” Sandy said. “It means so much.””
5 sisters who were separated by foster care reunite for 1st time in more than 6 decades

[Greenfield Reporter 8/14/12 by Margaret Fosmoe]

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