Sisters reunited
Published: March 6, 2007
In 2006, Dr. Pauline Mullings, counselling psychologist and teacher, was reunited with her estranged sisters of 41 years after the publication of her life story in this magazine.
The sisters had been conducting separate searches on both sides of the Atlantic and were not successful, until an employee of the Jamaican High Commission in London saw Dr. Mullings’ story in Outlook and brought them together.
Dr. Pauline Mullings recalls that she had met her sisters for the first and only time 41 years ago, when her mother, Mildred Jones, “told me that my two sisters were to going to migrate to England and that she had decided that she would not allow them to leave without meeting me.”
Mildred Jones took Pauline to Trench Town where her sisters - one born the same year as she was - lived.
“I remember clearly how we played and played that day. (But), they left the very next day. I never heard of, or from them, again.”
Searching in london
As Pauline grew older and went to London on visits, she would ask people she knew to put her search on radio and in the newspaper, but it was always without results.
Across the Atlantic, her sister Pamela Mullings-Ferguson was also ready to give up. But, in summer 2006, she was in London visiting relatives when she was told about a genealogy centre which could help. She extended her stay by two weeks for the new search, but found nothing because she could not even recall her sister’s first name.
Dr. Mullings reports, “She got up the last day of the search and said she could not do this any more. She stood in streets and cried. She also prayed.”
She said, “If my sister is dead, I can’t do anything about it, but if she is alive please take care of her.”
It was after saying this prayer that Pamela remembered that the Jamaican embassy was across the road from the genealogy centre. She thought at first that it did not make sense to go there but a persistent voice, her sister reports, said she should. Pamela Mullings-Ferguson walked into the Jamaican embassy and told the male receptionist, “My mother is Olive Mullings and my father is Kenneth Mullings who died in Kendal crash. I am trying to find my little sister.”
Asked what is her sisters name, she said she did not know, but the mention of the Kendal crash had triggered a memory in the receptionist’s mind.
He went into his archives and came with a printed article with a picture. Covering the name with his hand, he said, “look at this picture, do you think she looks like sister?
With one look, Pamela Mullings-Ferguson screamed and started crying, “that’s my sister” repeatedly.
It was only two days before that the receptionist had read the article on the Internet for the very first time (the article was then one year and seven months old - after publication on February 13, 2005).
The story of the counsellor was still fresh in his mind and when Pamela mentioned the name Kenneth Mullings and the Kendal Crash, he figured that Pamela and Pauline were related.
The embassy employee gave Mullings-Ferguson all the information he could find on Dr. Pauline Mullings, looking up telephone number for Kingston High School, as well as her home number and the telephone number for her church in the Jamaican directory.
Dr. Mullings recalls, “I went to work the Thursday before school reopened in August 2006 and the secretary said to me, “Dr. Mullings, I have good news for you - your sister Pamela called.”
Dr. Mullings’ response was to start crying, to the dismay of the school secretary who said, “Please don’t cry because you sister cried yesterday when I told her you worked here in the same office. She left you a telephone number.”
Taking the telephone number, Dr. Mullings placed a call in the evening to Pamela’s home where tears and screams made up the bulk of the initial conversation.
Later, that same night, the three sisters linked on the phone again. “We started talking from 9 p.m. At about 10 minutes past 12 when they were into the September 1 - the anniversary of our father’s death - Pauline pointed this out to the sisters and the three started crying again.
The women are very near in age. Pamela, born in September, is 51. Pauline and Sonya, born in April of the same year, are 50.
Dr. Mullings states, “When dad died I was 11 months old. Both mothers have told us that he took very good care of us. He was a kind loving person. He was always well dressed and he was very handsome. When he died he was working at the Gleaner company in the printery as an apprentice.”
The sisters made their plans and on October 11, 2006 they met in Toronto, Canada. Pauline Mullings was greeted with a bouquet of pink roses. The womens’ mother first came forward to greet her then her sisters were there with their cameras.
“The moment came when we were able to physically touch each other and we were laughing and crying,” recalls Dr. Mullings, who also comments that “we were so bonded.”
The sisters spent 11 days together but Pamela and Sonya Mullings-Hopwood were not satisfied, asking Pauline to return with her daughter Lori-Ann. She went back to Toronto in December.
Since their meeting in October, the sisters speak every day on the telephone. Pamela and Sonya are delighted as before meeting Pauline again, they knew no one from their father’s side of family.
The women’s s grandfather is Joseph Mullings who owned the well-known Demontevin Lodge Hotel in Port Antonio. Now, they have rediscovered this history and have found so many relatives together that they are planning a family reunion for August 2007. “Along with the reunion we will be having the 50th memorial service of death of our father,” says Mullings.
The counsellor mentions that their two mothers “are very good friends now who shop for each other and spend time together. It is amazing what God has done.”
Dr. Mullings adds, “I have found another mother in their mother. They also see my other sister Ann-Marie Findlay as their sister.”
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