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08/13/2006
Special reunion brings together the 'Guo Sisters'Six girls were adopted from a Chinese orphanage
From left, Emily Heckes, 10, of Albuquerque, N.M., Fei McMahon, 10, of Mamaroneck, N.Y., and Lia Williams, 10, of Traverse City, play around outside the Bayshore Resort during their annual reunion. TRAVERSE CITY — Lia Williams belongs to an exclusive club, its six members' lives intertwined by luck and kept together by love. The six girls were babies when their parents adopted them at the same time from the same Chinese orphanage. Their new families took them to a new country. "This is a much better life," Lia said. Each year, the families reunite. They traveled across the country this August to Traverse City, where Lia and her parents, Betsy and Mark Williams, hosted a reunion. In Lia's bedroom, the gaggle of girls tumbled about, all giggles and dark glossy hair. "I've never felt anything like this. It was a blessing that we all got together," Betsy said. To be 10 Turning 10, if you don't remember, is a very big deal. Each of the girls were to reach the double-digit mark between July 26 and today. The birth dates are best-guesses, based on when each was found, abandoned, in a market or on a doorstep. Veronica Harris of Connecticut is the oldest. She is polite and quiet when first introduced. Her favorite subject is math. The night before, she ate four slices of pizza. A teacher gave New Yorker Fei McMahon, the youngest, the apt nickname "Mother Fei." "Because I act very motherly," she explained. Fei is full of facts and figures and an expert on her homeland. She visited China this summer and saw pandas and climbed the Great Wall. A few of the girls sat on the floor of Lia's bedroom, where they swapped biographical bits. Their favorite animals (horses, giraffes); best television shows ("Full House," "That's So Raven") and the consensus on boys ("Men are more grown up and more appropriate," Lia offered.) The girls grew serious as talk turned to what might have been their futures in China. "This is a real government rule: Girls are not allowed to work, they can just work on their farms, or they work in their house and take care of their children," Fei said. "That's a lot of work," said Emily Heckes of New Mexico. Earlier, in a hotel lobby, Fei talked about her trip to China. She stopped at the market where she was left as a baby. "I saw my market. I was sort of upset, so I didn't get out of the van," Fei said. She pulled out a digital camera and showed the others a few snapshots. One photograph is of the market. It's blurry. Fei said that's how she feels about the market. Reunions The parents marvelled at how easily the friendship flows when the girls reunite after a time of separation. They have met, throughout the years, in every corner of the country. But those trips were born from one long journey to China in 1997. That's when the parents, who used the same adoption agency, travelled together to bring back their six daughters and cultivated a lifelong friendship. "I feel like I am part of a very special thing, and I didn't expect it," said Lisa Fimiani, godmother of Katie Penkala. Fimiani accompanied Katie's mother on the adoption trip. Hong Kong had just returned to Chinese sovereignty, and she recalled it was a "very tense political climate." That year, Americans adopted 3,597 Chinese children, according to U.S. Department of State numbers. The six girls were about 11 months old when their new parents arrived at an orphanage in a largely agricultural region of southern China. The parents said they felt an instant kinship with their daughters. The adoption process for some of the families had taken two years. When they returned to the United States, it would also take time to adjust to their new lives. "When we got Kelsey, we could tickle her and she would just look at us," said mother Kim Petty of Holly. Kelsey is a quick-witted girl who wants to be a teacher and is kind to her younger sister, also adopted. She wears glasses and likes eggs and toast. But for a long time, Kelsey didn't cry or giggle as her mother expected. "She was probably about two, two-and-a-half before tickling made her laugh," Kim said. Now, when Kim tickles her daughter, she "laughs down to her toes." Kim still gets chills when she hears the sound. The parents are accustomed to questions prompted by the adoptions, and are readying for further queries: About biological families, Chinese customs and that nation's one-child policy. "Fei's question is, 'Am I a twin?'" said her mother Deb McMahon. "Then she asked once, 'Do you think I was a Siamese twin?'" The McMahons take care to honor traditions. During the Moon Festival, when the Chinese light lanterns, they release a balloon. The six-family reunions are another way to keep adopted children "connected with their roots," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the New York-based Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. The research organization has found many families are forming groups for support and friendship. Last year, Americans adopted 7,906 Chinese children, mostly girls. "It is a pretty big shift in adoption in the last decade or so. Adoption used to be all about matching, and lots of people didn't even tell their kids (they) were adopted," Pertman said. "Nothing is more important than making that little human being feel comfortable in her own skin..., more and more they are absolutely trying to find ways to accomplish it." Lia is the only Chinese student in her class at Central Grade School. Her classmates asked lots of questions. "It was kind of overwhelming," she said. Lia wants to be either an artist or a geologist, and pieces of China pop up in her artwork. A green and pink ink drawing on display in her house features a Chinese symbol. It means "long life," she said. The "Guo Sisters" A photograph of the girls as toddlers shows them sitting in six chairs, each tearing into a wrapped package. The picture was taken during the last reunion in northern Michigan. Kelsey, Lia and Emily studied the photograph. They agreed their friendship is unique. "It's kind of amazing because we look the same," said Kelsey. The girls have their own moniker, "The Guo Sisters," taken from the last name they shared at the orphanage. "It's exciting to see everybody again," said Katie, who lives in Connecticut. "Because we are practically like sisters," Fei added. They want to remain friends as they age. The plan involves one of the girls running successfully for president of the United States, giving her the power to change street names. "Probably, I am just guessing, we would move around to the same place; and if we had children, we would be like aunts," said Emily. "That would be cool if we lived on one street, and it was called 'The Guo Sister Street.'"
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