Daughter reunited with mom after 50 year search

A mother and daughter, who have not seen each for almost their entire lives, have reunited at last.

Betty Morrell, 82, from Spring Hill, Florida, has searched for her mother for almost 50 years, and finally found her.

Born as Eva May, Morrell was taken by social welfare officials when she was still a child because her mom, Lena Pierce, was still a child back then. 

Morrell was then adopted by a family that she loves dearly. 

"I grew up a very happy child," she said. "I was so content in the family I was adopted by." Initially, she thought that her birth mother has already died. 

However, when she was in her early 30s, Morrell found out that her mother was still alive, and so she began her search.

Her granddaughter, Kimberly Miccio, helped her find some family members through the help of website Ancestry.

In September, Kimberly then found her grandmother's 'baby' sister, Millie Hawk, who was already 65. They called her and connected through Facebook.

"Kim and I got on the phone and called her," Morrell said about Hawk. "We just clicked. It was like we had known each other all our lives."

Hawk was only one of the three sisters and two brothers, whom Miccio and Morrell found during their search for Pierce.

After several months of searching, the sisters finally found their mother, and they met at Binghamton, NY airport. Hawk remembered the look on her older sister's face, when she first saw their mother, who is already 96 years old.

"The minute I saw her come through the security door, I just got goose bumps," Hawk said. She said the mother and daughter hugged and cried a lot during the meeting.

According to Pierce, she too was crying and shaking when she met her daughters, especially Morrell, who was separated from her for 80 years.

"It sure was a joy to finally meet up with her. It's kind of hard when you have a child that you get separated from. I never wanted to give her up," she said.