Midland Daily News

Adoptees reunite with mother after 40 years

Kathie Marchlewski of the Daily News

March 31, 2002

Mae Sanborn had been waiting for a phone call for more than 40 years. When it came, she nearly mistook it for a telemarketing ploy.

    But she waited, listened, and the call changed her life.
    After years of searching and hoping, Sanborn was reunited with the two sons she lost when they were boys. As a very young mother in the 1950s, she was told that she wasn't capable of taking care of them, then four and five years old. She said she wasn't given a choice – they were taken from her, put in foster care and eventually adopted out.
    "I didn't know if they were together or where they were. I prayed for them every day," Sanborn said. "I knew that I would look for them forever."
    She went on to have other children, but never forgot the two. And they never forgot her. She searched for them, they searched for her.
    A private investigator finally located Sanborn.
    Loren and Jerry Frey, now 48 and 49 years old, visited their mother in February.
    "I feel like this is a miracle. There were times I thought I'd give up, times I thought I had to." Sanborn said.
    She and the boys hit many dead-ends in their searches. Loren Frey had visited Midland twice looking for her, and even went to the hospital where he was born.
    During that time, his mother actually worked there.
    "He was right there," she said. "We could have passed in the hallway."
    But he returned to his home in Massachusetts no closer to finding her.
    Jerry Frey traveled from his home in Missouri to the State Records Bureau in Columbus, Ohio where the adoptions were handled. He was told he couldn't view the records, Sanborn said.
    Sanborn had done searches on the Internet for the two with little luck.
    In her heart, she knew someday she'd find them, she said.
    "The Lord wouldn't let me put that doubt in my mind," Sanborn said.
    The three now keep in regular touch via telephone and e-mail. They are planning for visits again in the near future.
    "I'm in seventh heaven," Sanborn said.

Reporter Kathie Marchlewski can be reached at (989) 839-4233.