Separated during WWII the Smith siblings reunite after 75 years
Seven siblings separated during WWII and fostered out to different families have finally been reunited thanks to the power of DNA testing.
Central Coast
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It is a story of love, loss, separation and war that could have come straight from the pages of a Bryce Courtney bestseller.
But for five surviving siblings it has a happy ending when they were finally reunited 75 years after the two youngest brothers were adopted out.
In May 1944 young mum Doris May Smith, 25, had just given birth to her seventh child when her husband Sidney Walter Smith — who was fighting with the RAAF in the war — ran off and left her.
With no money and no way to care for them, she placed four girls and one boy in Dalwood Home and adopted out the two youngest boys.
Valerie, 7, Kay, 6, Dennis, 5, Sandra, 3 and Beverley, 2, were supported at Dalwood Home by an allotment from their father through the RAAF.
But when the war ended so did the allotment, which ceased on March 1, 1946.
Dalwood Home could not support the children and when their parents could not be found they were declared wards of the state under the Child Welfare Act in June 1946.
Valerie and Kay were taken to Bidura Receiving Home and were later fostered out but Kay kept absconding, which saw her end up at Lynwood Hall, a home for truant girls.
Dennis was sent to Royleston Depot before he was fostered to a woman at Galong and eventually went on to secure a scholarship to St Patrick’s at Goulburn.
Sandra and Beverley were taken to Corelli Hostel at Marrickville before being fostered out separately, which worked out well for Beverley but not so for Sandra.
After they grew up the four sisters and Dennis found each other and “made a B-line” to find their mother.
Kay said their mother died in 1961.
“Her biggest regret was what she did to her children,” Kay said.
But they had no idea what had become of Barry, who was just over a year old and Sidney, just 6-weeks, when they were adopted out.
“Years went by and years went by and we could not find them,” Kay, now aged 82, said.
In September 2009 the sisters were contacted by a woman named Geraldine Chambers who they discovered was their half-sister, being the daughter of their father who remarried.
In August 2017 Brisbane ABC radio producer Annie Pappalardo, who had been adopted as an infant, went looking for her biological parents.
She found her mother quite easily but could not find her father who “disappeared” from her mother when she told him she was pregnant.
After a trip to Italy she decided to do a DNA test with Ancestry.com to find if she had any Italian heritage and it came up with a match to a woman in Brisbane.
That woman knew Ms Chambers, who put Ms Pappalardo in touch with the Smith sisters.
Ms Pappalardo was given a photo of her father as a grown man, which his sisters recognised but could not tell if it was Barry or Sidney because the boys were just babies when they last saw them.
Sidney, who’s name was changed to Ken Alexander when he was adopted, had searched for his siblings for years but had given up hope until his youngest daughter Lee Hamilton also did a DNA test, which matched with Kay and Valerie.
On Sunday, June 30, Kay and Valerie got the message from Ken which read: “Hello Val/Kay, if your mother’s name was Doris May and your father’s name was Sidney Walter could you please call me as we may be related. Thank you Ken Alexander.”
On August 7 the two sisters were at Wallarah Bay Recreation Club when they got a message from Ms Pappalardo saying she had found her father and the last of the two missing brothers Barry, who’s name had been changed to John Lawson after his adoption,
Sadly Sandra and Beverley have since passed but on August 9 at Mingara Recreation Club Valerie, now 83, Kay, 82 and Dennis, 81, were reunited for the first time with John (formerly Barry), 75, and Ken (formerly Sidney), also 75, three-quarters of a century after they last saw the two boys at court.
“It’s been 75 years since we’ve seen the two boys and now we’re a complete family,” Kay said.
What’s even more remarkable is Mr Lawson (Barry as an infant), of Springfield, had been living on the Central Coast since 1975 — just a stone’s throw from his sisters Valerie, of Toukley, and Kay, of Tumbi Umbi, the whole time.
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