FORT SMITH -- Alice Swaite turned 70 on Monday and celebrated Saturday with a special birthday party, a gift from the 55-year-old daughter she didn't know was alive until seven months ago.
Now, Swaite, who considered herself alone in the world for most of her life, has found not only a daughter but also three grandsons and a great-grandson.
"She was saying she was going to die alone. Now she can't say that," said Theresa Anderson of Killeen, Texas, who drove Friday to Fort Smith to host the birthday party for her mother.
Swaite, who lives in the unincorporated eastern Oklahoma community of Fort Coffee with her husband, Billy, said she learned in August that the daughter Swaite's own adoptive parents told her was dead actually was very much alive.
Anderson had tracked down Swaite using her adoption papers. She said she had always wondered what caused her mother to give her up. Her adoptive mother, Annie Henderson, had told her she needed to find out who was her birth mother.
Her lack of medical history finally pushed her to start the search.
As the wife of a member of the military, Charles Anderson, she moved around a lot and had to give her medical history to each new doctor in every location. The fact that she had no medical history about her parents was always an issue.
Last March, Anderson decided to start the hunt for her mother with the help of a person who worked with genealogies and someone in Topeka, Kan., who could look up records for her. Anderson was born in Kansas City, Kan.
When she found out who her mother was, she could not contact Swaite herself, Anderson said. The state of Kansas had to send the information to Swaite and let her decide whether to make contact.
Kansas officials sent Swaite a letter that included Anderson's contact information, her name, address and phone number.
Swaite said she got the notice in the mail in mid-August. Thinking it was some form letter, she set it aside, didn't open or read it until the next Sunday.
"I just started shaking," she said. "I said, 'This child is alive,' and I handed the paper to Billy. And Billy said, 'I told you if she was alive, she would find you.'"
Swaite said she called the next day and spoke to Anderson for the first time.
By the end of the week, Anderson had driven to Oklahoma and met with Swaite. Swaite said she was in shock for weeks.
"You look like me," Anderson said of her first reaction when she met Swaite face to face.
"I just feel like I have my wish," Swaite said. "I always wondered why she died so young. And then after she showed up and I found her, I just have it in my heart that I'm not by myself anymore."
During their first meeting, Swaite told her daughter about some of the events from her difficult life. She said she was abused as a child, which led to her becoming pregnant with Anderson before she turned 16.
Swaite said she didn't know that her adoptive parents had planned to put her child up for adoption. She was never allowed to see her child after the baby was born Sept. 18, 1959.
Five or six years later, Swaite said, she asked her adoptive mother, Eddie Lucille Allen, about her daughter. Allen told her the child had died. Swaite said she was heartbroken and didn't pursue the matter further.
"I did what I was told or I got beat down," she said.
Swaite's attempts to discover her own origins over the past few years have been thwarted by her lack of a birth certificate. She said she didn't know whether she was formally adopted and had no clue who her real parents were.
As she and Swaite talked, Anderson said, she found similarities between herself and her mother. One trait they share was revealed when Anderson found out that Swaite was one of the first female bus drivers for Greyhound in 1977.
"I thought that was an amazing accomplishment," Anderson said. "To see that's what drives me. I'm like, 'Oh, that's where I get that energy.'"
After their first meeting, Anderson left Swaite a scrapbook that she had created about her life specifically to give to her mother. She also gave Swaite a handmade card that included her biography and said on the cover, "Thanks For Life."
Around Sept. 1, Swaite had her DNA tested, and it confirmed that she and Anderson were related.
Billy Swaite said meeting Anderson has changed his wife, who has few friends and seldom leaves the house to socialize. But now she talks on the phone almost daily with Anderson. Their conversations last for hours.
"You know, when she's around her, I could see more energy in her and a little more excitement," he said.
About 60 people were expected to attend the Fort Smith birthday party Saturday. Among the expected guests were Anderson's family and friends, several relatives of Billy Swaite, and three or four friends that Alice Swaite has made in eastern Oklahoma since moving there from Kansas in 1998.
"Turning 70 doesn't bother me," she said. "I just wasn't looking for all these accolades, I guess you would say."
The prospect of such a large gathering was a little overwhelming, Swaite said. But the recent reunion with her daughter has added some new twists to both of their lives.
"My life is not going to change," Swaite said. "Her life is not going to change. But what is going to happen is we're going to grow together."
State Desk on 03/08/2015