Below is an article that appeared in the Ridgefield Press about my connecting with my biological sister after both of us were separated via adoptions many eons ago - enjoy!
Anne Scott and her new sister, Nancy Young Cumming, in Ridgefield Press January 17th 2009
Ridgefield Woman Opens Mail and Finds a Family
Written by Kate Czaplinski, Press Staff
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Ridgefielder Anne Scott (right) was adopted as a baby and recently discovered she has a sister, Nancy Young Cumming, living in Georgia. Ms. Scott visited her “new” sister there this past December.
Like the plot of some fascinating television movie or a 20/20 special, Ridgefielder Anne Scott was home with her foot in a cast this past October when she received a letter that changed her life.
It was addressed from New York state.
“I thought ‘Oh no, it’s some kind of bill,” Ms. Scott recalled laughing.
Meanwhile, below the Mason-Dixon Line, another woman who shared Ms. Scott’s shade of golden blonde hair and has similar facial features, was opening the same letter. The woman, who Ms. Scott would soon know as her biological sister, was coincidentally home with an injured foot when she opened the identical letter.
Ms. Scott, who was adopted from the state of New York as a baby and raised by a family in Westchester, learned from the letter that a woman named Nancy Young Cumming shared the same biological parents. Neither knew about the other until they received the letter four months ago.
The 30-year resident and vice president of sales with William Raveis in Ridgefield, met her sister, Ms. Cumming, for the first time in December.
“It was such a shock and you just don’t know what to do,” Ms. Scott said of learning the incredible news. “I was home alone when I opened the letter. I just kept shivering. I had to put my coat on.”
She describes her adoptive family as very loving and she never had more than a passing curiosity in finding estranged biological family members.
After an untimely death in Ms. Scott’s family, her daughter encouraged Ms. Scott to request her medical records from the state of New York. The New York Health Department sent her a letter stating that nothing was in her file. It was two and half years later when she received a second letter informing her that she had a living sister.
As it turns out, Ms. Cumming had been looking for potential siblings for 18 years before she found Ms. Scott. The state of New York kept the identity of birth parents and information on potential siblings confidential until the law changed, Ms. Scott said. Today, the information is available if the siblings have registered to find out such information. Ms. Scott’s call to the state to check her medical records registered her to find such information out.
“My sister Nancy had been searching for years,” Ms. Scott said, “but when an untimely death in our family occurred, a gift was passed along and prompted my search.”
As soon as she received her sister’s number in Georgia, she picked up the phone and dialed.
The fact that both women were home wearing foot casts was the first in a long line of coincidences and similarities between the two. Ms. Scott was recovering from foot surgery and her sister had injured her foot on a plane.
“We have found a lot of coincidences like that since,” Ms. Scott said.
The two started to e-mail each other regularly and planned that Ms. Scott and her husband would fly to Atlanta to visit her sister and family in December.
Some of Ms. Scott’s friends and acquaintances in town warned her to be careful before the trip.
“I heard some really funny things,” she said. “People told me ‘Maybe they want a kidney’ or ‘They might be in jail, you don’t know these people.’”
Ms. Scott was surprised to find a deep connection with the stranger who was suddenly her sister. The two had made similar career choices and even had similar families. They learned a lot about each other through e-mail.
As it turns out, by either fate or coincidence, the two came in close proximity to each other over the years.
“Both of us lived in Michigan at the same time,” she said. “Her family spent time in the Cape (Cape Cod) very close to where we have a house.”
Ms. Scott and her husband met her sister at the Atlanta airport for the first time last month.
“Coming through that large terminal and up the escalator was the person who was as close to a carbon copy of me as you can imagine,” Ms. Scott said.
The two share several physical similarities and are only a year apart in age.
“I was very nervous right before we got there but then I was just excited,” Ms. Scott said. “It wasn’t tearful, just happy and exciting.”
Ms. Scott hopes to tell her story to children who have been given up for adoption. Her experiences have taught her that adoption is an opportunity for children to have better chances for a good life. Finding a sister was a bonus she never expected.
“I never had a lot of issues surrounding my adoption but I just thought some things were better left alone,” Ms. Scott said.
Ms. Cumming is meeting the Scott family on Cape Cod this summer and the two talk regularly. She is still surprised that two people who spent their entire lives apart could be so much alike.
“I don’t even think my children have as much in common as I do with my sister,” she said laughing.
“One day you open up the mail and your life has changed.”
