ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Imagine being in your 80s and finding a long-lost sibling. That's exactly what happened to an Allentown woman.
69 News visited the home of Anna Magliane during the lunch hour. She and Nancy Frisbee made ham and cheese sandwiches, one on white bread, the other on rye.
The two women happily chatted about what to make for dinner.
"I'm making shrimp spaghetti," said Magliane.
"I never had that," said Frisbie.
Frisbie never had it because at the ages of 83 and 85, these two sisters just met. Both women were adopted.
They say they knew they had siblings but didn't know where they were until two and half months ago when a genealogist friend of Nancy's sent Ann's daughter a message.
"I thought this is a scam, so what I did was I brought it home let mom listen to it," said Christine Magliane.
But then Frisbie sent her birth certificate and some pictures. The two women were nearly identical. Soon, a series of daily phone calls started, and they very quickly pieced together they'd been given up for adoption 80 years ago.
First, Ann and middle brother James, who was three at the time, were taken to a Philadelphia orphanage. Nancy, who was five, went to live with their grandmother. But shortly afterward, Nancy was also given to an orphanage.
"We still don't understand why my grandmother took just me," said Frisbie. "I think only because I was older, and she thought she could manage me."
Magliane and her brother were later adopted by an Allentown businessman and a homemaker.
Frisbie was adopted by two college professors and grew up in Devon, Pennsylvania, about an hour away from her siblings. Frisbie moved out of state for college, before settling down in Maryland.
Magliane stayed in the Lehigh Valley.
Both women had families of their own.
Their brother James McVey passed at age 40. But Magliane says before he did, he spoke to her about their long-lost sister. Magliane says she tried to find her, even doing a DNA test to no avail.
Earlier this year, Frisbie, who now lives in Florida, mentioned her decades-old quest to find her siblings to a friend. That friend hooked her up with a genealogist they knew. Three days later, Frisbie knew where her sister was.
The sisters were reunited at LVIA two and a half months after first speaking on the phone.
"We just kind of picked up where we left off, except I had already learned to talk," said Frisbie. "She didn't have a chance when she was two."
Magliane says he was a little nervous about the first meeting.
"Nervous and excited," said Magliane. "But then we saw each other and we just hugged."
The sisters are now focused on solving another family mystery: Why their mother Mae McVey abandoned them and what happened to their half-sister Maisie Frederick, who their mother had years after giving them up.
Through Frisbie's genealogical friend, the sisters were able to track down the son of one of their mother's friends, who gave them some pictures. He also provided insight into Frederick's life, saying she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was at one time hospitalized.
The sisters say they will tackle that mystery later.
For now, they want to get to know each other. They have already found out that they have a lot in common. They both like vanilla and prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate.
They both love to dance, something evidenced by a video taken by Magliane's daughter. The video captures the two sisters embracing and dancing in a circle to "La Vie En Rose" by Louis Armstrong.
Just don't ask them about football.
Magliane is a pretty firm Steelers fan, while Frisbie roots for the Commanders.
