A woman was very happy to
finally meet her mother who gave her up for adoption 82 years ago.
Betty Morrell has finally found her 96-year-old birth mother thanks to the persistence of her granddaughter who has been searching for her family for 20 years.
Morrell learned that she has a “baby sister,” who is 65 years old. Morrell was born in 1933 in Utica, New York, to Lena Pierce. At birth, she was named Eva May. Social welfare officials took the baby away because Pierce, who was 13 years old at the time of the birth, was herself in the custody of the state.
Betty Morrell has finally found her 96-year-old birth mother thanks to the persistence of her granddaughter who has been searching for her family for 20 years.
Morrell learned that she has a “baby sister,” who is 65 years old. Morrell was born in 1933 in Utica, New York, to Lena Pierce. At birth, she was named Eva May. Social welfare officials took the baby away because Pierce, who was 13 years old at the time of the birth, was herself in the custody of the state.
Eva May was adopted by a family in Long Island, and grew up as an only child. Her adopted parents changed her name to Betty Morrell.
In her 30s, after her adoptive parents died, Morrell began looking for her biological mother. Since it was a closed adoption, she could not get any information.
Morrell said she had a happy childhood. Morrell's granddaughter, Kimberly Miccio, began helping with the search when she was 12 years old.
"My grandmother had been looking for a long time," said Miccio, 32, who now lives with her husband and three children. "She had never tried the Internet, so I started going through different sites."
The breakthrough finally came when Miccio made contact with a distant relative of Morrell through Ancestry.com, who connected her with her grandmother’s sister, Millie Hawk. When her mother heard that Morrell was found, she just sat in a chair and cried.
Morrell, who now lives in Florida, flew to Binghamton to meet her mother. Her overjoyed mother said that she never wanted to give her up. The family is looking forward to spending more time together.