Her Birth Mother Is a Co-Worker, Ohio Woman Discovers
Unbeknownst to her, an Ohio woman who was adopted as a child worked for years at the same company as her biological mother, WKBN reported.
La-Sonya Mitchell-Clark on Monday began searching for her mom after she received birth records from the Ohio Department of Health, which last month had begun making the formerly sealed documents available for those born between 1964 and 1996, the Youngstown, Ohio, CBS affiliate detailed.
When the 38-year-old typed her mother's name, Francine Simmons, into Facebook, she learned that she, too, is an employee at InfoCision, a teleservices firm in Boardman, Ohio, where Mitchell-Clark has worked for the past four years, according to ABC News.
"There's a Francine that works at my job. She works in (volunteer recruitment), and she works at the front desk," Mitchell-Clark told WYTV, the Youngstown ABC affiliate.
She proceeded to contact some of Simmons' friends through the social-networking site and, a day later, received a call from her birth mother.
"She called me and I said, 'Is this Ms. Francine?'" Mitchell-Clark recalled. "'Yes.' I said, 'I think I'm your daughter.'"
There were tears of joy among the women, who learned that they live just six minutes from each other in Youngstown, ABC News detailed.
"I got pregnant when I was 14. I had her when I was 15. I was put in a home, a girl's home. Had her. Got to hold her. Didn't get to name her, but I named her myself in my heart all these years," Simmons said.
Mitchell-Clark's mother has been with InfoCision for 10 years, said Samantha Wells, a spokeswoman for the company. And while she and her daughter worked in separate departments, they almost certainly encountered each other on a number of occasions.
"They would come in contact around the building and during events such as our corporate summer cookouts, parties, and using the facilities or in the hallway," Wells noted, calling the reunion "wonderful."
Upon meeting her birth mother, Mitchell-Clark learned that she had been working yet another family member -- her sister, Kamala Cummings -- who, like Simmons, has been with InfoCision for 10 years.
"I feel a sense of relief for my mother," Cummings told WYTV.
Her adoptive parents, meanwhile, support the reunion, Mitchell-Clark told the station.
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