Pat Gudinas and Shirley McGuire have each spent their lives wondering about the other. They were both born on June 1, 1935 to a young woman who gave them up for adoption when the birth father was unwilling to help her raise them. Her womb was the last space they would share together for the next 71 years.

Initially placed in separate foster homes, both girls eventually ended up at the same orphanage, St. Joseph’s in Milwaukee, WI. But they were never in the same room and didn’t meet. Pat was adopted at 4, Shirley lingered in the orphanage a few more years before being adopted. Each girl had been told while growing up that she was adopted, and that she had a twin sister, but no one knew anything more.

Until last week, when Pat, who had tried when she was 21 to get information from the orphanage and was turned away, finally got the answers she was looking for and after a lifelong search, met her sister Shirley for the first time in 71 years. She also discovered a half-sister and four half-brothers, children of her birth father. The two girls, who had been only children in their adoptive families, suddenly had many siblings.

“I’ve never had anybody in my family. Now I’ve got so many,” Pat said.

Milkwaukee Journal Sentinel