Oregon Women Discover They Were Switched at Birth

by Bethany Sanders (Subscribe to Bethany Sanders's posts) May 18th 2009 9:00AM

Now grandparents, two women discover they were switched at birth. Photo courtesy of Dequella manera on Flickr.

The time to mention to someone that you think you've been given the wrong baby is while you're still in the hospital. Marjorie Angell did just that back in 1953, when she gave birth to a daughter she named DeAnn. The baby returned to her after a bath was not the baby she'd given birth to, she complained. No one would listen.

Fast-forward to 2008, 55 years later. Last summer, Oregon man Bobby Reed got a phone call from an 86-year-old woman who lives in a nursing home. The woman knew Reed's mother and once lived next door to Marjorie Angell. And she had an amazing story to tell. "She said she had something she had to get off her chest," Reed tells the East Oregonian.

When Reed visited the woman, she told him the story of Marjorie Angell's suspicions, then showed Reed a picture. Reed was astonished to find out that the child in the picture, who looked exactly like his sister Kay Rene Reed, was actually DeAnn Angell's sister. "Kay Rene is not a Reed," the woman told Reed. "DeeAnn is a Reed." The women were switched at birth.

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Confused? Switched at birth stories are never easy to sort out, but imagine finding yourself in the middle of one. Reed was afraid to approach Kay Rene, so he told his older sisters instead. Eventually, both woman submitted DNA to be compared with their siblings (both sets of parents are now deceased), and the results proved the rumors to be true. Kay Rene Reed was actually an Angell, DeAnn Angell was a Reed.

DeAnn, for one, wasn't surprised. "After seeing Kay Rene, I went home and told my husband, I don't know why she's doing the DNA testing," says DeAnn. "I was shocked -- she looked just like my sister's twin." But still DeAnn says that after getting the results, she sat in her car and cried.

Both women have declined counseling, which was offered by the hospital where they were born. Instead, they're moving ahead and focusing on the lives they have already built, while getting to know their new family members.

Do you think that the elderly woman should have shared her story sooner? Or not shared it at all? If someone in your family had been switched at birth, would you want to know the truth?

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