After 76 years, Annie IJpelaar (77) from Drunen has been reunited with her half-sister in England. Until recently, Annie was unaware of her existence. Her son Marc had his DNA tested as a joke and got an unexpected match from England. That’s how the ball started rolling and Marco turned out to have a half-cousin in England and his mother a half-sister. They recently met each other for the first time in Drunen.
Marc IJpelaar was at the meeting between his mother and half-sister Sheila (76). “I thought it was special to see how they became very familiar with each other within a few seconds. My mother soon put her hand on her arm, like an older sister does with her sister. Sheila is a year younger.”
“I felt different and then the ice cream farmer said ‘Here’s the Canadian’s! “
Annie has always felt like an outsider in the family where she grew up. “I felt different from the rest, but I didn’t know where that feeling came from. I was about six years old when I ordered an ice cream and the ice cream man said: ‘There you have the daughter of the Canadian’.”
Annie thought that was an odd comment, but couldn’t place it. At home she told this story to her mother. “I don’t remember how she reacted to that, but it must have been dismissed as nonsense,” says Annie.
“I opened the mysterious box and discovered that I was adopted.”
Still it gnawed and when she was ten years old, Annie decided to open a mysterious box in the closet. “It contained our passports, but also the adoption papers stating that my stepfather had adopted me. That was a shock.”
But she immediately says afterwards: “My stepfather has always been very nice to me.” Annie can’t remember exactly how her mother reacted. “I was told that my father was a Canadian soldier who helped to liberate the Netherlands. My mother wanted to go to Canada with him, but her parents didn’t like that,” says Annie.
“I ran into walls and stopped looking for my biological father.”
After this revelation, Annie went looking for her father. At first she didn’t even know his name, Melvin Brook. “Around 40 I stopped my quest. I just ran into walls and I didn’t want to hurt my stepfather, because he was a good father to me.”
That she is now reunited with an unknown half-sister in England feels unreal. Her Canadian father was stationed in England after the Netherlands, where he impregnated someone again and Sheila was born. Sheila also eventually grew up without her biological father.
“They have the same hair, nose and hobbies, unfortunately also the same disease.”
Both half-sisters have many similarities. “Their noses are the same”, son Marc begins to list the similarities. “They both have the same thin hair, both like knitting and they have the same assertive and stubborn character. A little less fun is that they both have COPD, a lung disease.”
Annie and Sheila just spoke again via video calling. “We do that regularly. We always have something to tell each other. It’s about knitting, but also about our children. I hope to travel to England this summer, because meeting each other in real life remains magical.”
