When Joanne Lowenstern, 80, was sixteen years old, she was shocked to discover the people who’d raised her weren’t her biological parents.
“1954, I found out I was adopted,” she told WPTV.
“I was told two days after I was born, my mother died.”
As can be imagined, learning about the adoption rattled Joanne’s identity to the core. Even though she knew her birth mother was dead, she desperately felt a part of her was missing; she was a stranger to her roots. “She was in pain, and I could see it,” Shelley Loewenstern, Joanne’s daughter-in-law, explained.
“She was always saying I don’t know where I’m from.”
For sixty-four years, Joanne longed to learn about her mother. However, her efforts were thwarted at each turn, and she never had any luck. Then, unbeknownst to the senior, her daughter-in-law stepped in.
The only information Joanne had was her mother’s name: Lillian Feinsilver— information Shelley then used to create an Ancestry.com account.
In a random coincidence, Samson Ciminieri had also registered for an account, submitting his DNA to the online database. When his information was entered into the system, Shelley got a notification saying she had a “hit”.
“She [Shelley] asked me if I knew a Lillian Feinsilver,” said Samson.
“I said, ‘Yes, that’s my mother.'”
Yes, in a bizarre twist of fate, Shelley had managed to locate Joanne’s half-brother. “Without his DNA, we wouldn’t have found her,” the woman noted.
But, you know what was even better?
Samson then informed them his mother was, in fact, still alive— and had been living only 80 minutes away from Joanne this whole time.
As the story unraveled, Shelley discovered that both Joanne and Lillian were under the impression that the other had passed away during the birth. In fact, Lillian’s caretaker Rose Marie Ciminieri recalled Lillian talking about the daughter she had lost.
It’s unclear how the adoption took place, but one thing is for certain— Joanne and her 100-year-old mother are now enjoying all the quality time they have left.
In the video, you see the two seniors coloring together in Lillian’s nursing home.
“They didn’t get to color together when she was a little girl, but it’s never too late to color with your mom,” Joanne’s son Elliot tells the camera.
While Joanne admits their first meeting was a bit awkward, their relationship to each other was clear:
“I look like her, the eyes … I knew that she was my mother.”
At one point, the camera pans down to the woman’s feet and even shows them wearing similar shoes.
According to the Adoption Network, more than 130,000 children are adopted in the United States every year. If you’re an adoptee who is looking to find your birth parents, the U.S. Children’s Bureau has a brilliant factsheet that lists various methods, tips, and organizations to help you in your search. It can be accessed by clicking here.
At 80 years old, Joanne is ecstatic to have met her mother, and she hopes her story will inspire other adoptees to pursue the answers they seek.
“Children should know that if they want to find their roots, they shouldn’t be afraid to do it.”
Hear the heartwarming story below!
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