Orphan found joy when 11 siblings reunited

Marie Peterson of Minneapolis, separated from her brothers and sisters when her destitute parents put their 11 children up for adoption in 1929, could recall the joyous occasion in August 1987 when a brother called to say he was reuniting the family.

Peterson, who lived in Minneapolis for three decades, died Saturday in Minneapolis. She was 88.

Peterson and many of her siblings appeared on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" on Aug. 21, 1987, after their brother, Edward Maddox, had worked to find them, scattered across the nation.

Their parents, Harry and Agnus Bunan, were migrant cotton-pickers who ran out of money in 1929 and were refused assistance by authorities around Oakland, Calif. So, one by one, they reluctantly gave away their children.

"They said they couldn't afford to care for us anymore," Peterson said in an Aug. 15, 1987, Star Tribune article. "We never saw them again."

Peterson and her identical twin, Lillian, stayed together through two foster homes and several return trips to an Oakland orphanage. By chance one day they met another sister, Agnes, "and she begged her adoptive parents to adopt us, too," Peterson said.

The three sisters grew up together, but separate from the rest of the siblings.

"I thought about them all the time," she said in 1987. "I tried to locate them, but the adoptive parents didn't want us to find our brothers and sisters. Eventually I gave up."

When reunited in 1987, Peterson hadn't seen her brother Edward since 1943.

"I'm all excited," Peterson said. "Ed and Agnes met me at the airport and there were flashbulbs going and everything. It was so incredible. I didn't think it would ever happen to me."

Peterson, a retired machine operator, was pleased to exchange addresses at the reunion, but since had lost track of the family, said her friend Terri Whitmore of St. Anthony.

"She lost touch with them, and I don't know why," said Whitmore, who met Peterson about 10 years ago.

Whitmore said Peterson married three times. Her husband Leonard Peterson died more than 10 years ago, she said.

Peterson and Whitmore had a common bond: They prayed together regularly.

"Marie was a lovely lady, very gracious," said Whitmore, adding that Peterson's ill treatment as a foster child reminded her of the story of Cinderella. "I knew her life was hard, but she was not embittered."