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CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Karen Stum’s parents died with a secret.
Charles and Lavinia Stiffler raised three children together, two boys and Karen, and Charles also had a daughter from his first marriage. None of the Stiffler children knew there was another daughter, born last and given up for adoption as a newborn.
Karen was just 5 years old then, her brothers even younger.
Last month, 55 years after her sister was given up, Karen finally met Vicki Kleiner.
Karen, who now lives in Chambersburg, and Vicki, a New Jersey native, met at a park in Annville in February, trying to put the pieces of their common bond together.
Vicki had been searching for her biological family for many years, helped by the opening this year of old adoption records in New Jersey. She contacted Karen when she discovered they were connected.
Each was curious, although Karen remained a little skeptical. Her parents had passed away years earlier and she was struggling with the idea they would give a child up for adoption and never tell anyone.
Vicki understood her sister’s skepticism and told herself she would be satisfied if she was just able to get a family health history from Karen.
She came prepared, with her original birth certificate just released by the state of New Jersey, bearing the names of birth parents that Karen recognized as her own.
Vicki also had DNA results from a test she had submitted to a genealogy website, 23andme.com. That test showed matches of almost 2,000 family members, from second to seventh cousins.
She hoped Karen might recognize some of them.
The birth certificate and DNA evidence were strong, but Karen said it didn’t take long to realize she and Vicki had a stronger connection than names on a birth certificate, from similar health issues to similar expressions, habits and other traits.
“When I met her, I felt like I had known her a long time,” Karen said. “She had said she just wanted health information, but once we met, we just connected on so many levels.”
The two women spent several hours in the park, talking about their lives and comparing all that they had in common.
Then Karen took Vicki and her husband, Jim, to dinner with Karen’s family. Karen’s son Josh and daughter Alisha joined them with their spouses, Libby and Aaron, and Karen’s grandchildren Izzy and Eva. Also at the table were Karen and Vicki’s half-sister Charlene Miller and Charlene’s daughter Kerry and granddaughter Kayla.
Vicki called the gathering “a true blessing.” She saw in them mannerisms similar to hers. They were accepting of her connection to them and anxious to share memories of the biological parents Vicki would never meet.
“They went around the table telling stories,” Vicki said. “We all laughed a lot.”
A long search
For Vicki, it was the end of a 30-year search for her biological family.
For Karen, it was the beginning of a new journey with her sister, even though the initial news was a shock. She first learned of Vicki’s existence early in February. She immediately contacted Charlene and her uncle, asking if they knew about a child her parents might have given up for adoption.
“No one seemed to know anything, but we did live in New Jersey at that time,” she said.
Vicki’s first connection with her biological family came with distant cousins after she posted her DNA results, followed by contact with an aunt after receiving her original birth certificate from New Jersey. Vicki’s husband had already found Lavinia Stiffler’s obituary and had some names, including those of her three older siblings.
She used that information to locate Karen and make first contact.
“It was quite an array of emotions, a roller coaster ride,” Karen said. “I was filled with doubts at first.”
But she was curious, so Charlene, acting as a go-between, contacted Vicki. She identified herself as Karen’s half sister, and suddenly Vicki was trying to absorb the news that she didn’t have just three older siblings, but four.
Vicki called Karen on Feb. 7, and the two women talked for an hour, a conversation both women call “an emotional roller coaster.” Once they had passed that first hurdle, they started calling and texting each other frequently.
Meanwhile, Karen began talking to her children about Vicki’s claim, and as they talked, Karen decided she needed to know more about this mystery sister. They finally decided to meet in Annville.
“We jelled quite quickly,” Vicki said.
That meeting was followed by another meeting on Vicki’s birthday March 4, when Karen gave Vicki her first “sister” card.
“I cried,” Vicki said. “The emotions were just overwhelming.”
Since both of their parents have passed away — their father died when Karen was 19, and their mother in 2010 — Karen and Vicki accept that they will never know why their parents gave up one of their children.
Karen is convinced it was done out of love and concern for all of their children, however.
“My mother was battling illness with all of her childbirths, and each of us were premature,” she said. “They must have thought there was no other way.”
For Vicki, it is the end of a long, often discouraging search for answers about her origins. Her adoptive parents, Tony and Martha, experienced several miscarriages before they adopted Vicki, but Martha quickly got pregnant after the adoption and carried that child to term, giving birth to a little girl they named Suzie when Vicki was barely 9 months old.
The two girls were raised almost like twins, Vicki said. She didn’t realize until she was in elementary school that she was adopted, and she was told her birth parents were both dead.
Before she married Jim Kleiner in 1987, Vicki registered in a New York program that paired adopted children and their birth parents, but nothing came of it. Over the years, she worried about not being able to provide a family health history to doctors, and about the health problems like allergies that she and her children experienced.
She was 35 when she learned her birth parents weren’t dead. Martha explained the lie by saying she wanted to be Vicki’s “only” mother, so out of love and consideration for Martha and Tony, she didn’t pursue an active search for her biological family right away.
It was always in the back of her mind, though, and over the years she made several attempts to learn something about her biological parents. So she was thrilled when New Jersey lawmakers decided to open old adoption records. It was the break she needed, and once she had her original birth certificate, it took her less than a month to located Karen.
Vicki’s husband, Jim, calls the bond and connection between his wife and her sister “one of a lifetime, not a month and two meetings.” He says their similarities in looks, mannerisms, thoughts and other commonalities “is eerie in some ways.”
The connection has answered Vicki’s questions about family medical history and has also brought joy, truth, a sense of belonging and closure to Vicki, opening a new door to a future with her sister and family, he said.
“Even though I didn’t meet my birth parents or grandparents, I am seeing the photos, the resemblances and it is truly amazing,” she said.
Karen said she believes everything happens for a reason, and feels God has brought Vicki into her life at this time for a reason.
“I am anxious for the journey,” she said.
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Vicky Taylor is with the (Chambersburg) Public Opinion