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Mother, daughter bond after 77 years apart

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 03, 2012

Minka Disbrow, 100, showed a photo of her (right), and her daughter Ruth… (Jae C. Hong/Associated…)

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — For most of her 100 years, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what became of the baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teen. She never thought she would see her Betty Jane again.

She kept a black and white photograph of the baby bundled in blankets and tucked inside a basket. It was the last she saw of the girl — until the phone rang in her California apartment in 2006.

The caller was the son of Disbrow’s child, whose name is now Ruth Lee. She had been raised by a pastor and his wife and had gone on to marry and have six children including the caller, Brian Lee, and NASA astronaut Mark Lee. She worked for nearly 20 years at a Walmart store.

Brian Lee had decided to try to find out more about his mother’s past and petitioned the court in South Dakota for her adoption records. He got them, along with handwritten letters from Disbrow asking about her baby.

A month later, Ruth and Brian Lee flew to California for the first of many reunions. “It was just like we had never parted,’’ Disbrow said. “Like you were with the family all your life.’’

Disbrow has recently started sharing her story. The daughter of Dutch immigrants, she had a harsh childhood milking cows on South Dakota dairy farms. She finished eighth grade in a country schoolhouse.

After she was attacked in 1928, her mother and stepfather sent her to a home for pregnant girls. At 17, she gave birth to Betty Jane. Disbrow longed to keep her, but her mother told her she could not bring an infant back to the farm.