#21. Meet Genevieve Purinton
In 1949, young Genevieve Purinton was living a joyful life, and she had a promising future. She was 18 years old and was living the time of her life. She was dating the boy she loved and almost finishing High School in her hometown of La Porte, Indiana. After a while, she realized she was pregnant.
It wasn’t good news since at that time you were supposed to be married before getting pregnant, but as she knew the father of her baby was a good man, she felt calm. After all, they were going to raise the child together and the three of them would become a family.
#20. Don’t Get Your Hopes Up
When her belly started getting bigger and bigger, she decided she had to drop High School. She put behind her bright future and focused on being a good mother. Despite her desire to continue studying, she understood that her baby was worth the waiver. She could resume school later in life. Things may not have been going according to the plan, but at least she wasn’t alone.
Unfortunately, the baby’s father confessed to her that he was married and that he wanted to raise the child on his own without Genevieve. She felt betrayed by the man she was in love with and was disappointed that he turned out not to be the person she thought he was at all. Of course, this ended up their relationship.
#19. Time To Deliver
Out of school, out of touch with her family, and completely out of hope, on May 12th, 1949, Genevieve went to St. Mary’s Mercy Hospital in Gary, Indiana, to give birth to her baby. She did not have anyone to help her through this difficult moment. However, soon enough she would be accompanied by her child.
She knew that this would probably be one of the most difficult times she’d ever experienced, but she was ready to welcome her baby. As she lay on the hospital’s bed, she remembered a teacher she had had in High School who had been very kind to her, named Margaret Ann. She decided that if she had a girl, she would name the baby after that loving teacher.
#18. Dubious Standard Procedure Papers
Before childbearing commenced, the hospital staff brought in some papers for Genevieve to sign. They told her they were just standard procedure papers that were necessary in case something went wrong during delivery. She signed the papers without hesitation and finally her little Margaret Ann was born.
However, those “Directive papers” were in fact papers consenting to surrender the baby for adoption. Genevieve wasn’t the only woman who was tricked into the signing of those documents. Between the years of 1945-1973, many women who were deemed “unsuited” for the role of mothers put up their children for adoption without knowing they were doing so.
#17. Devastation
Genevieve wanted to see her daughter and hold her in her arms for the first time, but she had to face the most terrible news a mother can hear. The nurses and doctors told her that the baby was born dead. Devastated and heartbroken, Genevieve blamed herself for the passing of her child and promised herself never to get pregnant again.
She was unmarried, young, alone, and was naive to the process of entering motherhood. So, when she was informed by hospital staff that her infant had died after delivery, she didn’t even ask for a death certificate, and simply accepted the terrible news in tears. “Who at 18 would think about something like that?”, Genevieve said fifty years later.
#16. Living A New Life
However, Margaret Ann was born that day, and she was still alive. The baby was sent to an orphanage, but fortunately, she was adopted soon by a nice couple, the Moultroups, from Santa Barbara, southern California. The couple changed her name to Connie. Little Connie Moultrop enjoyed a happy life and grew up in a loving family even though she had had a tragic start by been ripped from her birth mother’s arms without her even knowing.
Connie’s adoptive parents told her that she had been born to a “friend of a friend”. When she was younger, they gave her a different explanation, saying they had “walked up and down the aisles of the hospital until they found her and they just had to take her home.”
#15. Uprooting Again
Around the time Connie was five years old, her adoptive mother was diagnosed with cancer and died just shortly after. A few years later, her adoptive father remarried with an uncaring woman who was cruel to Connie. Since that age, on each of her birthdays, she wished that she would find her biological mother that year.
Things turned out even worst. Her adoptive father was diagnosed with a chronic heart condition. And by her teenage years, his father passed away too. She was all alone again. Her happy life disappeared, and she wanted to find her mother. Unfortunately, she only had a name from her adoption papers, “Genevieve”, and couldn’t do much with it.
#14. Turn The Page
Connie moved on and grew up. She got married and became a nurse and a massage therapist. She also had a daughter, named Bonnie Chase, who gave her two grandchildren. She had a happy life, but she couldn’t help but continue thinking about where her birth mother was. She always wondered whether her mother missed her.
Bonnie not only “gifted” Connie two beautiful grandchildren, but they also made her a life-changing gift for the Christmas of 2017. She knew that her mother wanted to find the woman who had given birth to her. So, she bought Connie a DNA kit which she could use to unveil the mystery of her own identity.
#13. Ancestry.com
This DNA kit was designed to connect people according to their origins to living relatives in over 500 regions. This kit doesn’t just tell the person which countries they are from, but it also can pinpoint the specific regions within them, giving the person insightful geographic details about their history. The test consists of making a swab in the mouth to collect a sample of saliva, and then you must send it to the laboratory. In less than a month, results are ready!
Connie took the test and was anxious to receive her results in order to uncover the mystery of who she really was. This was an extremely exciting time for the woman, and it looked like things were finally looking up for her. Her birth mother could have been nearly 70 at the time, but it would never be too late to try and find her origins.
#12. The Truth Uncovers
When Connie finally got the results, she was thrilled to discover that she had a first cousin. The cousin even reached out to her, but Connie was on a mission, and only really had one question: “do you know a Genevieve Purinton?”
Moultroup still remembers the exact words of her cousin: “Oh, that’s my aunt. And she’s still alive, living on her own,”. And she added: “I couldn’t believe it. I was going to meet my mother.”
“I went from having only three known relatives (a daughter and two grandchildren), to 1,600 relatives. I was floored,” Moultroup said.
It looked like Connie was close to the reunion that she had been wishing for since she was a little girl. It all seemed too good to be true.
#11. I Think I’m Your Mother
Connie’s newly-found cousin passed along contact information so Genevieve could reach out to her. It didn’t take long for her to receive a phone call. Connie remembers that on that September 8 she was at church, and she never left early, but on that they without knowing why, she actually did.
“Literally, 20 minutes after getting home, my mother calls and with a quivering voice she told me ‘I think I’m your mother.’ and we burst into tears.” Moultroup said.
The two had an instant connection and stayed on the phone for hours that day; after all, they had a lot to catch up on. Her mother wanted to remember if Connie knew her original name, “Margaret Ann Mitch”. And she did remember. Connie decided to fly to visit Genevieve (aged 88) and meet her mother for the first time at Purinton’s home in a retirement community in Tampa, Florida. She told her daughter she would be using a walker.
#10. Instant Recognition
On December 3rd, the moment Connie walked into the retirement home Genevieve was living in, she spotted a woman in a walker and knew instantly that she was her mother. The two simply walked up to each other, hugged, and then practically burst into tears. Connie recalled that it was almost like looking in a mirror and neither of them could believe the resemblance. They not only had similar features, but they also realized that they had similar ideas and interests. Genevieve had always wanted to be a nurse, but she couldn’t afford school and became a cook instead, while Connie was an actual nurse and loved cooking.
“I met my mother and my cousin in person, and we cried. It was just a crying fest” Moultroup said. “Not everybody has this kind of outcome when looking for their parents, but I recommend you give it a try, you don’t know what will happen.”
#9. So Happy Together
Genevieve is the last survivor of eight siblings and had been left alone due to the turns of life, but now she has the opportunity to be part of a family. She is now a mother and great-grandmother and doesn’t waste any minute without those she loves. Fortunately, they are now a happy family again and are recovering the time lost. They have many hugs to retrieve and much love to give.
Like The Turtles put it: “Imagine me and you, I do. I think about you day and night, it’s only right to think about the girl you love and hold her tight. So happy together. Me and you, and you and me. No matter how they toss the dice, it had to be. The only one for me is you, and you for me. So happy together.”
#8. Time Is Precious, Waste It Wisely
Nowadays, they live the life they were meant to have from the very beginning. They enjoy being in one another’s presence and sharing meals, conversations, and Christmases, among other things. They now seize each opportunity they have to bring the whole family together. “We are criers. We just cry a lot. There were a lot of tears and there’s been a lot of tears the entire time since then. It’s been really amazing”, said Bonnie.
The spokeswoman of Ancestry.com, Jasmin Jimenez, said they were pleased to have helped these two women to reunite after 69 years. She also expressed them, and the rest of the family, her kindest wishes and presaged that this was the beginning of a loving and enduring relationship. The Christmas gift of 2017 will be hard to beat. Right, Santa? But now let’s take a look at this other story, which is equally touching!
#7. Other Outcasts
Linda Jourdeans grew up being the only redhead in a family of blondes while Denice Juneski was the only blonde and non-sport fan in a sportive family of brunettes and redheads. Both of them always felt out of place in their families, like they didn’t belong. At the age of 72, they realized they weren’t wrong. They had grown up in the wrong family since they had been switched at birth.
The two women were born at St. Paul’s Bethesda Hospital in Minnesota, Wisconsin, on December 19, 1945, with a half-an-hour difference. Denice was born at 2:17 a.m. and Linda followed at 2:48 a.m. People always assume that they get the right family but these two ladies felt from the very beginning that there was something wrong with their family trees.
#6. Welcome To You
Both Denice and Linda grew up in loving families, but the doubt and the feeling that something did not fit grew up with them, and that was the reason why Denice decided to take a DNA test courtesy of 23andMe.com. Soon she discovered that her genealogy did not match with any of her relatives, although it DID match with several people she had never heard of. She was in shock and thought the test was wrong, so she took it again, but the results did not change.
“Either 23andMe made a mistake, or I was switched at birth. I was supposed to be another person.” Juneski thought.
If she was correct, someone else had been living the life that she was supposed to have. But the question was who that person was. The answer was found in Hammond, Wisconsin, where Linda’s niece took the test, and Denice Juneski’s name popped up. She told her aunt about her suspicion regarding a possible mix-up at birth. Eventually, Linda also took the test, and the results were undeniable.
#5. Lonely Linda
Linda Jourdeans (at the right bottom) was not really alone, but being the only redhead in a family of blondes had always made her feel awkward and sometimes lonely. Their siblings made jokes about it. Terrible as it may seem, there were even more differences: she was athletic while all her family hated sports. Her mother was a pretty brunette but, of course, the kids didn’t target the jokes towards her. Linda was their bulls-eye.
So, playing with her siblings was a difficult task since they never agreed with her about what to play, and as a majority, the blondes always won. Linda felt really ostracized. Deep inside her, she knew they loved her, but sometimes she felt like they hated her for being different, and she knew she wasn’t to blame for being like that.
#4. The Milkman’s Daughter
Meanwhile, a blonde girl in Eagan, Minnesota, was undergoing similar “treatment” from her siblings. They used to tell her she was the milkman’s or mailman’s daughter because of her appearance so different from them. Denice grew up thinking that, to a certain extent, they could be right. Maybe she shouldn’t have been in that family after all.
She felt she was walking in another person’s footsteps. She did not even have the same preferences as her family. Her father, for example, played for a time at the Saint Paul Saints’ Baseball Team, and the rest of the family enjoyed sports as well. As for Denice, she preferred books.
#3. Who Is Marianne?
When Linda received her DNA results, she was shocked to find that next to the word “mother”, another woman’s name (“Marianne Mayer“) appeared instead of her mother’s actual name. But Linda did not have a clue as to who that woman was. Her doubts were almost instantly confirmed. She belonged to a different family.
The woman in the photo is Rochelle Nielsen, the mother that brought up Linda. Or, in other words, she is Denise’s biological mother. She died at the age of 42 of cancer when Linda was only 17 years old.
#2. Soul Sisters
One day, both Linda and Denice decided they had to meet and finally get to know each other. The reunion was almost like meeting with an old friend. They had a lot in common, and they talked about how growing up in the wrong family felt. They also talked about themselves and about their relatives. They were not blood-connected, but they felt a soul relationship would connect them forever.
The reunion was also attended by a very special guest, Marianne Mayer, who was 99 years old. Remember Marianne? Yes, she is the woman who raised Denice as her own daughter and the woman who gave birth to Linda. She was very touched to see Linda for the first time. Linda told her “now you have more grandchildren, red-haired ones“, and the three of them shared laughs.
#1. Family Reunion: Edition XXL
Whether sportspeople or not, blondes or redheads, they were all invited to the massive family reunion held by the two women. Linda and Denice now enjoy the company of them all. They are a super big family. None of them regrets the life they lived and neither of them would change an iota of their story nor the moments they created with the families that saw them grow.
But now, they are planning to create new bonds with both sides of the family. They now feel complete. The puzzle was solved and now they do not feel out of place anymore since they found their place among an XXL beautiful family of blondes and redheads.