51 Years After Dad Bought Baby at Bar, Sends Her on Mission To Find Long Lost Sister
Who doesn’t love a good mystery story? A woman is searching for her long lost sister, hoping one day to reunite and connect.
Sounds like the stuff bestselling novels are made of. But this scenario isn’t a work of fiction. In fact, it’s the real-life dream of Marion Louise Smith.
But you have to hear Smith’s story to believe it. Because she isn’t simply searching for the sister she lost touch with 51 years ago.
The 51-year-old Maryland woman is searching for answers about who purchased her sister from a bar 51 years ago.
The idea sounds crazy. Who sells their child at a bar? Apparently someone who finds a little bit of cash and a car as more valuable than her two daughters.
Smith was just a baby when her birth mother took her and her older sister into a bar in Butchers Hill in Baltimore.
ABC 2 WMAR reported that in 1967, a man named Kenneth Suggs was approached and asked if he wanted to buy a baby.
Smith was only a couple of weeks old at the time. The bar was then known as Ken Tins. Suggs recognized the mother as “Indian Barbara.”
Worried for the wellbeing of little Marion, Suggs agreed to take her. All he had to offer Smith’s birth mother was the paycheck he received working as a high voltage electrician.
She accepted and Suggs took the baby girl home. His wife Gail, an IHOP waitress, could not have expected her husband to return from the bar with his hands full that night.
But Smith relayed that her adoptive mother wasn’t upset. Or, at least, when Smith asked Suggs about Gail’s reaction, Suggs would say, “I don’t think so.”
He sounds like a stand-up guy. One who cared more for what happened to an abandoned child than for his own well-being.
This is one reason Smith has a positive outlook. She was raised by caring, loving parents who took her in and treated her as their own.
“What’s the point of being mad?” Smith told ABC 2. “It doesn’t do you any good anyway.” Though this situation is a strange one, Smith’s attitude is inspiring.
Now, thanks to some urging from her late adoptive father, Smith is on the hunt for the sister her birth mother traded for a car.
Suggs witnessed the trade. The only details he could recall were that Smith’s sister looked to be around one year old, and the person who took her was called [Brackett].
“He told me to find my people,” Smith shared. “And that’s what I’m doing.” Smith is using modern technology to aid her in her search.
“DNA, Ancestry, My Heritage, Family Tree…” she listed off each of the family-finding sites. Since using these tools, Smith has been able to find her birth parents.
But her sister remains a mystery. Hopefully she finds her and they can connect soon. As for her adoptive father, Smith noted he was “a blessing” and wears a Superman charm proudly in his honor — he was a true hero, indeed.
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