Reunited After More Than 60 Years

Give or take 200 years, Paul Bates and Muriel Thompson could be characters at the happy ending of a Dickens novel. The two siblings met face to face for the first time at Bates' Lake Nocona home over the Mother's Day weekend. Although each had known the other existed, neither dreamed they might reunite. And Thompson never believed she would see the woman who gave her up for adoption.

"I never expected to find my birth mother," said Thompson. "I was just thrilled to be able to spend one Mother's Day with her."  Both Bates, 65, and Thompson, 66, started life on a rough road. Unable to care for her firstborn, Ada L. Davis turned Muriel over to Massachusetts' social services system more than 60 years ago. Muriel went from an orphanage to a foster family to adoption by Henry and Grace Hartley at 3-1/2 years of age. "My folks never kept the adoption a secret. Mother (Grace) always told me I had a sister and brother and I knew someday I wanted to meet them," said Thompson. She credits the adoption for a loving family and happy upbringing in Massachusetts, where she ultimately married and raised a family. Now married to her high school sweetheart, Don, they divide their year between Massachusetts and Florida.

Bates did not know he had a sister - two sisters in fact - until he was about 16. He spent most of his childhood in orphanages and despite their reputation, said he was well treated and educated. Bates grew up to be a steady working man, father and husband, retiring as a shop steward in civil service at Sheppard Air Force Base. Davis had been in and out of his life during those years and in 1999, when she called from Rhode Island to say she needed someone to care for her, Bates moved her into the mobile home across the road. Now 86 years old and suffering from dementia and Parkinson's disease, Davis was admitted to the hospital last week. Doctors say her prognosis is poor. "When I started all this, I had to go to the courts to open the adoption records," said Thompson, "Eventually, I saw the social services records. There were letters from my birth mother saying she was trying to get me back. She'd send me a dress sometimes, other little things." It was in this information that she also saw Paul's name for the first time. With a little help from a volunteer genealogy researcher, she tracked him to Burkburnett, where he and wife Pat lived until he retired. They had moved to Lake Nocona.

"One evening Pat said there was an important call for me and I told her I was too busy making chicken," said Bates, grinning at Thompson. "I finally took it and the woman on the line asked me if I was Paul Bates. Was my mother's name Ada? Was I born in Massachusetts?

"'I'm your sister,' she said just like that." During two months of phone calls, the brother and sister learned that for a while, they were in the same orphanage at the same time as children. Bates had also lived in Florida years ago, two hours from where Thompson and her husband live now. Finally the Thompsons pointed their RV for Texas. They got a little help finding the Bates' home from the Nocona police, not knowing they could have followed the Paul's Bait Shop signs to its door. Yes, Paul Bates sells bait.

Between the two siblings there are 12 children, 31 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Thompson met two of her nephews over the weekend; Bates' sons came and prepared a fine Mother's Day meal for the family. Everyone poured over Davis' photo albums. The only thing missing now is their sister, Sylvia Bailey, the youngest. Thompson found a Sylvia Bailey in San Diego but it was the wrong one. Still, she gladly continues the search. Any apprehension she might have had was erased by her little brother's first hug.

"You don't know how these things will turn out but we clicked right away," said Bates. "We're both laid back people, easy going. He and Pat are kind, sweet people," said Thompson. "We know we'll be back in Texas soon."