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Adoption, Family Law

The Letter that Changed Everything

The Letter that Changed Everything

As part of our series covering National Adoption Month, the Horn Law Group is sharing the adoption communities’ stories of sadness, frustration, and ultimate joy. These stories are PERSONAL – some direct from those we’ve helped, some from our HLG family, and some from the people we’ve met along the way.

Please enjoy. Share our stories with your community. Comment with your words of encouragement. Contact us to share YOUR story.  Thank YOU for celebrating National Adoption Month with us.


I was adopted through Catholic Charities as an infant in 1963. I was welcomed into a home here at the Jersey Shore by a young, loving couple. Approximately a year and a half later, the couple adopted another baby girl through the same organization.  My sister and I had a wonderful upbringing. We were loved, cared for and wanted for nothing.

Fast forward to today. I am married and have a 25-year- old daughter. Two and a half years ago, my mother received a letter in the mail from Catholic Charities, addressed to me. The letter instructed me to contact an adoption counselor as soon as possible.

The result of my telephone call to Catholic Charities was to inform me that I have a biological brother and he was looking for me! How exciting!  After several email exchanges and telephone calls, I had the opportunity to meet my brother, Joe. Turns out, he was raised as an only child in the Trenton/Hamilton area and NOW has an older sister!

Unfortunately, our biological mother had passed away two years before my brother and I meeting.  Joe and I are five years apart but ironically have a very similar timeline. We both married the same year, and both had our first child in the same year. We are both still happily married, and he has two successful adult children.

Joe and I both work full time but try to keep in touch on a weekly basis via text messages. We make every effort to get together every couple of months and look forward to each successful get-together!

–Marianne Taft | Paralegal | Horn Law Group