Artnetta Starlean Hickerson (second from right) is one of three women adopted as children in the 1950s who were reunited last month. Gaffney’s Vivian Jean Hickerson had help from her daughters and the Internet to locate her long lost sisters Artnetta and Johnny Marie. Gaffney’s Vivian Jean Hickerson always knew she had more brothers and sisters out there. But, adopted as a little girl in the 1950s, Hickerson never found a way to locate her sisters and brothers — until now.

“For almost 50 years my mother has been trying to find her siblings,” said Pat Courtney, one of Hickerson’s daughters who lives in Gaffney. “On Christmas Eve of 1981 my grandmother died and sadly in June of 2003, my grandfather passed away as well. It all really started with them and so my mother — who still wondered about her other sisters and brothers — could only wonder and hope.”

Not one to accept defeat, Pat took her mother’s decades-long quest upon herself and set out to find the other children.

“I turned to the highest source I know,” she said. “I asked God to help me find them. I told mom not to give up and that I would find them. On Saturday, Aug. 27, my nephew William and I started searching with the computer. We got online at about 7 a.m. that morning and around 8:45 a.m. I began using Google to search. I typed in the phrase ‘Canipe/Hickerson Family Tree’ and it brought me to a Web site titled ‘Maryland Search Post’ which showed my family tree and some people’s comments about it.”

Pat learned through the Maryland site that her mother’s long lost sister Johnny Marie Hickerson had been searching the Web to try and find her adopted sister.

“She had been searching through a site called searchangels.com and so I e-mailed the lady,” Pat said. “I knew she was adopted so on that day I called my mom, wished her a happy birthday and told her we might have found one of her sisters. My own sister, Kathy, was at this point trying to find out info on what this woman’s new name was since she had been adopted. Kathy went into Yahoo to find a number for this woman and we wasted no time in dialing it. Her name was Sandra Nestler. When she answered the phone, I was so nervous. I told her who I was and that we had done a search online. I said, ‘This is going to sound strange, but, were you adopted?’ and she said yes. I asked her if she was Johnny Marie and she said yes! Then we told her our mom was her sister who was born in 1951.”

Johnny Marie was shocked and confused.

“She said, ‘No, my sister’s name is Artnetta Star’ and then I told her she had two sisters,” Pat recalled. “She was amazed. I asked her if she didn’t know about her second sister and she said that she did know, due to her birth certificate, but had assumed all these year that the other sister had died. She was so happy to learn it was mom.”

But the surprises weren’t over yet as Johnny Marie told the girls from Gaffney one more amazing fact.

“We were all set to go searching again from Artnetta Star,” Pat said. “But then Johnny Marie told us that she had found that sister a few years ago. Our 50-year search is over and now whenever we get together we will feel more complete than before.”