Siblings Reunite 80 Years After Depression-Era Adoption

Dec. 11, 2009— -- The last time the Chrisman siblings saw their baby sister, the family was reeling from the death of their mother, and their father was struggling in the throes of the Great Depression.

Put up for adoption to relieve the pressure on her family, Barbara Miller spent decades searching for her biological relatives. She was unaware that she had eight brothers and sisters looking for her at the same time.

After 80 years of separation, Barbara was reunited last weekend with her four survivings siblings.

"It was fabulous, just like we never parted," Barbara, now 82, said of meeting her three sisters and one brother. "We just talked and talked."

"I got some one-on-one time with each one of them," she said.

It was a meeting Barbara never expected. It wasn't until about six weeks ago that she knew she had brothers and sisters. Even after learning their names from a 1930 census report dug up by relative, "I did not expect to find anyone still alive."

Instead, she hit the jackpot. The timing of the siblings reunion coincided with a family party to celebrate the 90th birthday of Exie Davis, the oldest surviving sibling. She also met Evelyn Cox, 87, and twin brother and sister Robert Darmon and Mary Long, both 85.

"We were just on cloud nine," Robert told ABCNews.com. Barbara, he said, shared "quite a lot of resemblance from my sister and another sister. We all have the same nose!"

The five siblings are the youngest of 12 children born to George and Dixie Lee Chrisman. Three of the children died in infancy.

By the late 1920s, the Kansas City family had fallen on hard times. Dixie Lee died at age 42 from liver troubles in 1928. Barbara said she has since seen a family photo of the entire family taken just before their biological mother died. One of the siblings, she said, remembered how Dixie Lee was so ill she had to be carried on a chair to pose for the picture.