Reunion joy for YOU reader
After writing YOU’s winning letter in 2010, Wendy has finally found her biological mother – and they’re set to meet after 54 years apart
FOR decades it had been a question that haunted her. What did her mother look like? When she drifted off to sleep at night she’d try to picture the woman who’d given her life. For Wendy Loots it felt as if a big piece of her that was missing but, try as she might, there was no way of finding it.
She was adopted as a baby and all she knew about her biological mom was that her name was Anna van Lelyveld and she’d once lived in Cathcart in the Eastern Cape. It felt like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Desperate for answers, she turned to YOU in 2010. “When my parents were told a baby was available for them they had to go immediately from Fort Beaufort to Queenstown where the adoption agency was,” she wrote to us.
“My father told me I was the first adopted child in Fort Beaufort. Tall story? The truth? I’d like to believe it was the truth. This is why I’d like to find out more about my biological mother.”
Two weeks later she opened the 3 June 2010 issue to discover her heartrending message had been named letter of the week, earning her a R100 prize.
Sadly Anna never saw the letter and it was going to take nearly eight more years before mother and daughter were to be reunited. And when that day finally rolled around last month Wendy (54) couldn’t wait to tell us about it.
“Good news – after all these years of searching, we’ve found each other!” she wrote in an ecstatic email. “Bonus – I’m now part of a huge family who’ve happily accepted me as part of the family.”
WENDY is still in jubilant spirits when we visit her at her home in Fish Hoek, Cape Town, where she lives with two friends. She moved here from Benoni 17 years ago after splitting from her husband, and now works as a carer at an animal shelter.
It’s been four weeks since that life-changing day when she received the missing piece of the puzzle – an allimportant phone number that allowed her to get in touch with her mother.
“I was completely overwhelmed,”
Wendy says, stopping midway through baking a batch of scones to tell us how the whirlwind events unfolded.
But she wasn’t the only one feeling emotional. “Anna burst into tears. She’d been expecting my call.”
Mother and daughter spoke of their individual attempts to find each other over the years. Wendy says she doesn’t yet know why she was put up for adoption but she’s hoping Anna will join the dots for her when she visits her in Tarkastad in the Eastern Cape soon.
She’s also looking forward to telling her mother about her childhood. There are no hard feelings or regrets – Wendy tells us her adoptive parents, Lillian Ann and Basil Loots, were fantastic and always made her feel special.
Lillian died of cancer when Wendy was just 13. While she and Basil were always open about the fact Wendy was adopted they provided few details. When Wendy was 15 her father finally decided she was old enough to hear the full story.
“My parents had my brother, Basil Garth – who was five years older than me – but couldn’t conceive any more kids,” she says. “My father previously had German measles, which left him sterile.”
After years of trying, Basil and Lillian decided to adopt. So on 15 July 1964 – 10 days after Wendy’s birth – they made the 156km trip from Fort Beaufort to Queenstown to collect their beautiful baby.
Wendy was welcomed with open arms into the tight-knit community. “When my parents got home there was a fleet of cars parked outside their house. People had come out with gifts to welcome me home.”
Although she always wondered about her biological mother she avoided asking too many questions because she didn’t want to upset her father.
“When my ex-husband and I struggled to fall pregnant the doctors asked me to track down my family’s medical history,” recalls Wendy, who doesn’t have any kids. “I asked my father to help me with this and that alone hurt his feelings.”
Her dad died in 1997 after suffering a heart attack, and a few years later her brother died in a car crash. On top of this Wendy had just divorced Neil, her husband of 16 years, so it was a tough time for her.
With her immediate family gone, she started looking for her mom. In 2004 she obtained her official adoption papers from the department of home affairs and finally learnt her biological mother’s name. Unsure of what to do she wrote her poignant letter to YOU in 2010, hoping Anna would see it and respond.
AFRIEND, Carmen Heyl Stafford, knew of her desire to meet her biological mom and stood by her throughout her search. But each time her efforts proved fruitless, Wendy lost more courage. “I’d search and give up. Then start searching again and give up, but what I didn’t realise was Carmen had never stopped searching.”
Carmen reached out to a woman named Willie Karnavos, who’d previously reunited several other adopted kids and their biological parents through her Facebook group, Baby Come Home. It took Willie about three weeks to trace Wendy’s biological mother. She did this by tracking down every Anna van Lelyveld from Cathcart and making contact with them.
On 1 February Willie phoned Wendy with the happy news that she’d found her mother.
“I got that call from Willie at about 2pm,” Wendy recalls. “I work night shifts so I was fast asleep when this call suddenly woke me. But when I realised what it was about I was wide awake.”
She was in shock. With a racing heart and a sense of disbelief she stared at her phone, wondering if she should call.
After two hours she eventually plucked up the courage and contacted Anna. “I couldn’t believe it. Finally I had direct contact with her.”
Anna told her she’d been searching too but was hesitant because she’d signed a document when Wendy was born, stating she’d never try to make contact with her child again.
“I also think she had limited access to resources. She doesn’t really use the internet or Facebook and she doesn’t even have WhatsApp.”
During their phone call Wendy also discovered she has three half-siblings, AC (51), Johan (50) and Estelle (49).
Even though until February they didn’t know of Wendy’s existence they’ve all been wonderful, she says.
Soon after her first chat with her mother she was delighted to receive a call from Estelle. “She said, ‘I’ve been praying all my life for a sister. You’re a dream come true’.”
Johan and AC are also over the moon. Wendy communicates with them often via WhatsApp. She’s looking forward to meeting her other family – she’s due to visit them in Tarkastad in April and will be there to join in the festivities when Anna celebrates her 74th birthday.
The delicious aroma of freshly baked scones drifts through the house as Wendy removes them from the oven. Just then her phone rings – it’s her half-sister.
“We were shocked. The whole family was,” Estelle tells us when we speak to her. “But we’re a close family – there’s no way we couldn’t have accepted her.”
It’s taken years of searching and hoping, but finally Wendy has her happy ending.