Pennsylvania Women Meets Daughter

“Mary Beth DeSanto was watching an episode of “Long Lost Family” on March 5 while she cleaned her kitchen.
The TLC program about reunited families comforted her. DeSanto had given birth to a daughter who she gave up for adoption almost 50 years earlier. Unmarried and just 18 at the time, DeSanto, then Mary Beth Wolfe, did what she thought would be best for her baby.

But the decision haunted her.

“I loved watching ‘Long Lost Family’ because I knew at the end there would be a happy ending. But I knew it was something I never was going to have,” DeSanto, now 68, said.

“That morning in March I was cleaning the kitchen and turned on ‘Long Lost Family,’ but I finished cleaning and shut it off before it was over,” she said. “I didn’t see the ending, but within half an hour the doorbell rang and my husband brought in a letter.”

The letter from New York began:

“Hello Mary Beth,

‘My name is Victoria Rich. This may not be the letter you’d expect to receive every day. I was born at the Our Lady of Victory Infant Home in Lackawanna, NY on August 20, 1970.”

DeSanto’s daughter had found her.

I’ve often thought that I didn’t see the happy ending on the show that day, but the letter was my happy ending,” she said.

Mother and daughter were reunited at DeSanto’s Millcreek Township home in August.

Their story was recorded for the online PBS series “American Portrait,” about what it means to be an American today. Mother and daughter are featured in an episode of “Self-Evident,” an 11-part series highlighting American Portrait stories.”

Pennsylvania woman is reunited with daughter she gave up for adoption 50 years ago

[ErieTimes-News 11/27/2020 by Valerie Myers]

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