Here is a great story told by our colleagues from ABC News Thursday, July 31. In the United States, a brother and a sister were separated shortly after their birth, in 1946, both placed in different host families. After a major research work, they finally saw each other nearly 80 years later, in July 2024. A reunion that filled them with happiness, even if they could have taken place almost 60 years earlier.
“I still can’t believe it”
“I still can’t believe he found me,” says Marian Griffin. She had been separated from her older brother, Donald Hefke, when she was only eight months old, and he, of just over a year. Both lived in Chicago with a third brother, who has since died. When their mother was placed in a psychiatric hospital due to post-traumatic stress, the two children were placed in different host families.
At the age of 19, Donald Hefke contacted the adoptive parents of his little sister, a Lutheran pastor and his wife. But they never accepted his requests. “Our children could have grown together, but we were separated because my parents never wanted to tell me that my brother was looking for me,” regrets the American. His brother left his host family after joining the US Air Force.
“We will have to drink a lot of coffee”
It was ultimately thanks to a 20 -year work led by Donald Hefke’s daughter, and a DNA test carried out by Marian Griffin’s son, that the brother and the sister were able to find himself. The first exchanges were made by phone. “He was so happy. He constantly repeated my name. It looked like a novel, ”said the American to ABC News. Their reunion in person has not yet been able to take place because it lives in Florida and it in California. In addition, his brother is currently in health problems.
But Marian Griffin was able to meet his niece, the one who worked to reconnect. “Even if they did not spend time together, she looked like my father, spoke and behaved like him,” said the latter. The octogenarian hopes to be able to go to Florida as quickly as possible to review his brother and catch up with lost time. “We will have to drink a lot of coffee,” she says with humor.
