Ontario man and his birth mother reunited after 55 years with help from 'adoption search angel'

It was a meeting more than half a century in the making: the moment when Robert Keating finally met his biological mother. After decades of searching, the reunion finally came to be thanks to a chance encounter with an "adoption search angel." 

On April 10, 1965, Sarah Bethel gave birth to a healthy, red-headed boy. The identity bracelet on his wrist read "Michael Bethel."

Mere days after the birth, Sarah Bethel returned to her native England — without her son.

She had come to Toronto as an au pair, had a brief relationship, and became pregnant. She was 24, single, and not ready to be a mother. Abortion was illegal. Her strict parents in England had no idea. They never would.

Her son remained a tightly-guarded secret.

Sarah Bethel soon married and started a family in England. But she never forgot the son she'd left behind.

Just a few days after Michael Bethel's birth, Pat Keating adopted him. 

"I picked him up at the hospital when he was seven days old," said Pat Keating. "I looked at the room, the nursery, and they were all facing one way, you know, as the babies are. But one of them had red hair. I said, 'That one's mine."' 

Michael Bethel became Robert Keating.

Unanswered questions

Pat and her husband, John, were always open with Robert about his adoption. 

"I knew that I was adopted," said Keating, "and I was lucky to have parents that loved me." 

But there was always an ache. 

"It was the desire to meet my mom, to hold her hand, to understand why?" 

At 16,  Keating announced to his parents that he planned to start looking for his birth mother. His adoptive mother was supportive but the search was difficult. 

"In 1981, you got out the 15-lb. phone book and started flipping through the pages to try to find adoption services or a government number," said Keating.

Despite his efforts, he wasn't getting any answers, and every birthday, the ache returned.

"Every April the 10th, I would think about my birth mom, and think if she remembered that day. A year would go by, another birthday would come, and I would have those thoughts all over." 

Decades passed. Keating went to university, married, and became a father, all the while continuing to search in vain — until a fateful encounter.

An adoption search angel

One September afternoon, Colleen O'Grady Johnson stepped into Keating's pet supply store in Milton, Ont. As Keating carried her order to her car, he asked her if she had any hobbies.

"Well, you're going to find this very odd," said O'Grady Johnson. "I'm an adoption search angel." 

In her spare time, O'Grady Johnson helps adoptees search for their birth parents.

Keating looked in her eyes and said, "I have a story to tell you. I know someone who needs help." 

Keating gave O'Grady Johnson the only tangible pieces of information he had: his original name and his place and date of birth.

But it wasn't enough. O'Grady Johnson helped Keating apply for more identifying details from Ontario's adoption records.

Keating waited. A few weeks later, a document arrived in the mail. It contained his mother's name: Sarah Joan Bethel.

Now O'Grady Johnson could begin her search in earnest, using social media sites, genealogical registries and immigration records. Several months later, she still had nothing. She continued to hit a string of false starts and dead ends.

But O'Grady Johnson did not give up.    

She widened the scope of her search, turned her attention to Europe, and put out a call for help. A reply came from a fellow adoption search angel in England.

A fateful clue

The angel had tracked down a painting sold at an estate auction for Northern Whale Fishery: The Swan and The Isabella by John Ward. The painting had been in the Bethel family. Among the listed inheritors was a Sarah Hamp.

Hazarding a guess that Sarah Hamp might be Sarah Bethel's married name, O'Grady Johnson sent a cryptic email: "Dear Sarah, Is the date April 10th significant to you in any way?"

A few days later came the reply: "Dear Colleen, I am the person you are looking for." 

For 79-year-old Sarah Hamp, the revelation that her son was searching for her was a shock. 

"The unknown made me nervous. You don't know what you're letting yourself in for," said Hamp. "As of course, he didn't know what he was letting himself in for. Yes, I was his birth mother. I am his birth mother, but he didn't know anything about me."

When Keating learned his birth mother was alive and living in England, he immediately wanted to reach out.

 A correspondence began between mother and son.  At first they shared facts, details about their respective families, their interests, their favourite foods and their hobbies. 

Several weeks later, Robert mustered the courage and asked to meet in person. 

The first meeting

A date was set. Hamp and her husband, Paddy, had already been planning a trip to Vancouver, so Keating and his wife, Julie, agreed to meet them there. 

Everyone was on tenterhooks. When Hamp opened the door to her hotel room, Robert extended his hand to shake hers. Instead, Sarah gently pushed it aside and wrapped her arms around him, the first time she had held her son since giving birth to him. 

"My son. After 55 years...it was extraordinary. It was something that I never thought was going to happen," said Hamp. "The surprise actually was the immediate connection that I felt as soon as I saw him and this feeling of love, almost as if you're falling in love again for the first time." 

Mother and son sat in the hotel room and shared stories and laughs. They went through photo albums, trying to piece together the moments in their respective lives. 

"There was always a sadness in my life knowing that I'd had a child adopted and wondering how his life had been... and now it wasn't going to be a sadness any longer. The sadness had turned into joy, and I knew then that he was going to be in my life for the rest of my life." 

These days, Keating shakes his head in wonder and disbelief. He thanks his lucky stars that O'Grady Johnson walked into his store that day.

"In six years, I've asked one person if they had a hobby. So what prompted me? I don't know. But I'm glad I did," he said.

As for O'Grady Johnson, she is onto her next adoption file, working to help others find their birth families. 

"We all deserve to know where we came from. But in this case, it was perfect. I can close the book on this one,"she said.

About the producer

Alisa Siegel is a CBC Radio documentary maker.  She has produced stories on subjects as varied as the underground railroad for refugees in Fort Erie, daring women artists in 1920s Montreal, the return of the trumpeter swan, Canadian nurses in World War I, and violence in elementary school classrooms. She lives in Toronto with her family.

This documentary was edited by Alison Cook.