THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502030243
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANELLE LA BOUVE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
Two cars slowed to read the yellow sign posted at the entrance to the Las Gaviotas neighborhood. It read, ``Welcome Peggy - my lost sister.''
Then the vehicles followed a mile-long trail of yellow bows all the way to the home of Patricia Steele and her husband, Dan.
Steele and Peggy Joan Barbour, sisters who hadn't seen each other for 54 years, were about to be reunited.
``All these people got out of the cars,'' Steele recalled. ``I didn't know who anybody was. I said, `Where's my sister?'. . . We just hugged and looked at each other. It was a little strange right then. But it didn't take long to warm up. By evening we were very comfortable with each other.''
The reunion was the culmination of a lifetime of guilt and hope for one woman - their mother. Fannie Carpenter said she can die happy now.
For more than half a century, Carpenter, who is Steele and Barbour's biological mother, has been troubled by her decision to put her daughters up for adoption.
While she was still in her teens, Carpenter married and gave birth to three daughters.
``Even though I went out to work, the family still lived hand to mouth,'' she said. ``I could no longer take it. My children were hungry. They had nothing to wear.''
According to Carpenter, once when funds were especially low, the man who was then her husband took their three daughters to the Edgewater Home in Norfolk and put them up for adoption. Although she signed the adoption papers, Carpenter said she didn't fully understand what she was doing.
``I did not intend to give my children up,'' she said tearfully. ``I had a hard time back there. My children did, too. But the Lord is so good. Their adopted parents gave them what I couldn't give them. Now God has brought them back to me.
``I never stopped loving them,'' Carpenter said. ``I thought about them every day - on their birthdays and at Christmas. I prayed that the Lord would bring them back to me.
``All I've lived for was to see my girls again,'' said Carpenter, who is 75 and in ill health. ``I am so proud of my daughters. My mind is at peace. I can die now.''
Barbour was nearly 4 when the pair was put up for adoption. She remembered her two younger sisters. For more than five decades she yearned to be reunited with them.
But Steele had never been told she had siblings. Her only hint was a chance conversation she had once overheard.
The sisters remained in the area after being adopted.
Barbour has been married 37 years. She now lives in Paducah, Ky., and has five children.
Steele, who has four children of her own, never left Tidewater.
A third sister, who was adopted by her maternal grandmother, died during her 20s.
Barbour located Fannie Carpenter nine years ago in South Norfolk. Six years later, she found her birth father, who has since died.
Barbour wanted to find her lost sister, too, but she wasn't sure it was the right thing to do.
``I didn't think I had the right to invade her privacy,'' Barbour said. ``If her parents had not told her she had a sister, I didn't want to shock her with something about her life that she didn't know. I had a lot of faith that some day we would see each other.''
After the death of her adopted parents, Steele and her husband talked about looking for the sister she only suspected she had.
``I couldn't make a decision,'' Steele said. ``I never made that first step.''
As it turned out, the decision was made for her.
At Dan Steele's prompting, a friend, Calvin Weddle, began to do some detective work. Weddle looked in court records, marriage records, city directories, obituaries and newspapers. He made numerous phone calls to elderly people who live in the Berkley section.
``What really surprised me was when I found the stuff, Pat Steele didn't know I was doing it,'' said Weddle, whose hobby is tracing down family histories. ``I was afraid of her reaction, but she gave me her blessing. I just kept searching. Her family helped, too.
``I was very excited,'' Weddle said. ``That's the best thing I've done in a long time.''
``I know the Lord is in control,'' Steele said. ``I'm a Christian.
``I wasn't looking for a mother because I had a wonderful mother. This will take some getting used to for me. I've never had brothers and sisters.''
And now that she's met Barbour, Steele is convinced that it's fairly easy to get acquainted with a new sister.
``We got to know them this weekend,'' Steele said. ``The whole family are just the sweetest people. We got along so well. We already feel like they belong to our family. It's not every day you find out you have a real live sister.''
The sisters have a lot of things in common. They laughed when they discovered they have similar ailments.
``We found out that Parcheesi is her favorite game and mine,'' Steele said. ``So we sat down and played. She won by one man. We both wanted to play with red. Both of us took dance lessons, so we decided to see who could dance best. I'm thankful that we both lived to see this.''
``Isn't it wonderful,'' said Barbour, beaming. ``I have not been able to sleep since I learned where my sister lives. I think it was meant to be.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by L. TODD SPENCER
Fannie Carpenter, center, says she can die happy now that her
daughters, Peggy Joan Barbour, left, and Patricia Steele have been
reunited after 54 years.
by CNB