Mediaboss Marketing

(1 of ) Sisters (from left) Kathy Anderson of Sebastopol, Sue Brooke of Santa Clarita and Lori Brooke, of Scottsdale, Arizona. (Chris Smith/The Press Democrat) (2 of ) The scrapbook of Dolores Thomas, mother of Kathy Anderson of Sebastopol, Sue Brooke of Santa Clarita and Lori Brooke, of Scottsdale, Arizona. (Chris Smith/The Press Democrat)

CHRIS SMITH

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | July 29, 2017, 4:11PM

| Updated 6 hours ago.

See those three women at a window table at the Sonoma County Airports restaurant?

Theyre leafing through an old photo album and talking and laughing, except for the one who now has her hands over her mouth and weeps.

Two of them are from out of town and just met the one in tears, Sebastopols Kathy Anderson. About a month ago Kathy, the eldest at 62, hadnt yet heard of the other two.

She didnt know theyre her half-sisters.

ITS SOME STORY how Kathy, a 1973 graduate of Analy High who manages the Cultivate Home store, set out to find something, anything about her birth mother.

Relying mostly on the virtual wonder that is Ancestry.com, she learned much about her birth mom, including the sad discovery that she died long ago. On the upside, Kathys genealogical research now has her venturing onto a whole other, richly laden branch of her family tree.

SHE WAS ADOPTED at birth, shes always known that.

The adoptive parents she adored, the late John and Iris Bastida of Sebastopol, knew nothing about her birth father and little about her birth mother.

Kathy grew up, married and had two children. Curiosity about her birth parents and why she was put up for adoption prompted her to do some searching back in 2001.

She uncovered her birth mothers name, Dolores Thomas. But beyond that, she struck out. I let it go, she said.

In time, both Kathys daughter, Becky Gehrett of Sebastopol, and her daughter-in-law, Deanna Gehrett of Cloverdale, became mothers. They told her that as moms theyd love to know more about their family history.

So in 2014, Kathy took a DNA test and submitted the results to Ancestry.com for a search for possible relatives. There were hits but none panned out.

Just last month, Ancestry.com helped Kathy connect with a cousin she didnt know she had, a young Arkansas man named Trey Shields. In an email, she asked him if he knew or knew of Dolores Thomas.

He did, and he emailed Kathy a photo of Dolores late parents. Kathy gazed at the picture and gasped: The woman had to be her maternal grandmother, the two of them look so much alike.

Trey Shields broke the news to Kathy that her mother who was single and living in San Francisco when she had Kathy died of cancer in 1970 at just 38. And, shared Shields, she left behind a husband and two young daughters, both of whom are alive and doing well.

Trey gave Kathy a phone number for one of her half-sisters, Lori Brooke of Arizona.

Lori, whos 52, flew into the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport on Friday. Her sister, Sue Brooke, 54, drove up from her home Santa Clarita.

Kathy had barely met her half-sister as they sat in the airport cafe to get acquainted and look through the photo album Lori brought along.

THERE WAS MOM, a 22-year-old Nebraskan whod moved to San Francisco, smiling on the beach at Santa Cruz with a handsome sailor. Dolores had written the date on the back of the photo: Oct. 10, 1954.

View original post here:
Adopted Sebastopol shopkeeper, 62, meets sisters for first time - Santa Rosa Press Democrat