91 y.o. great-grandmother reunited with daughter after WWII separation
Published: November 28, 2007
A 91-year-old great-great-grandmother was reunited with a daughter she gave up for adoption towards the end of World War II at a pub in western England on Tuesday.
Annie Burriss was adopted in 1945 and was only told the truth in her 20s, sparking a 30-year search for her real family.
On Tuesday, the 62-year-old finally met her real mother, Hilda Berry, and her seven step-siblings for lunch at a pub in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, describing the experience as “all she ever wanted”.
“She came up to me and touched my face and said ‘You’re beautiful, I’m sorry’,” Burriss told the Gloucestershire Echo newspaper.
“Mum suffers from short-term memory loss but she knew who I was straight away. She went back into her shell after that but she held my hand — it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
“It was quite overwhelming, I was so happy I wept.”
Burriss only found out that she was adopted when she was applying for a passport, after her adoptive mother had died.
Her adoptive father, who told her the news with tears running down his face, said he had been told never to tell her the truth “because adopted children grow up to rebel.”
In addition to her seven children, Hilda also has 33 grandchildren, 54 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
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