Lost …

Lost …

JERRY WOLKOWITZ After a serendipitous search brought Sharon Blevins (above, right) to New Jersey from her home in Ohio, she was reunited with her mother, Eleanor Oster, following a separation of 47 years. Photo at left shows mother and daughter in Ohio in the late 1940s.

and found

Mother, daughter reunite in Millstone after 47 years

By karl vilacoba

Staff Writer

The Marlboro Township Office of Public Infor-mation received one of those phone calls that separated the Sept. 19 workday from the rest — the kind you go home and tell the family about.

Sharon Blevins of Pember-ville, Ohio, was on the line searching for her 82-year-old mother. Now 60, Blevins had not seen her mother for 47 years. The last Blevins knew of Eleanor Oster, she was being treated at the now-closed Marlboro State Psychiatric Hos-pital in the late 1960s.

It was a long time with plenty of blanks to fill in between then and now.

Blevins was born in 1942 in Toledo, Ohio, the daughter and only child of Eleanor and Robert Hess, a G.I. who served in World War II and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. They were later divorced and Eleanor remarried Richard Oster, a man Blevins said had a career that required a lot of travel and eventually led them to far-away Monmouth County, New Jersey.

The last time Blevins saw her mother was in the Osters’ home in Illinois. After the Osters divorced, Richard told Blevins her mother was in Marlboro. Blevins believes their local home was deeded to the state of New Jersey to pay for Eleanor’s treatment.

At first, Blevins tried to keep in touch with her mother through letters, but it became too difficult. She said hospital representatives told her that because of her mother’s condition, she couldn’t handle any emotional correspondence with children. Write only about simple topics like the weather, she was told. Soon, all communication went black — until today.

The Search

The death of Blevins’ father three years ago had her wondering a lot more about whatever happened to her mother. She didn’t know for sure if Eleanor was alive, or if she would even remember her daughter after nearly five decades of separation.

A few weeks ago, Blevins decided it was time to find out once and for all. Blevins found her mother’s Social Security number and ran it by a government agency, which confirmed just the basic information that Eleanor was still alive.

"When I checked the Social Security number and found out she was alive, I was elated," Blevins said. "I didn’t care who I had to talk to or what I had to do. I knew it was just meant to be."

On Sept. 19, Stephanie Luftglass, Marlboro’s public information director, fielded the fateful telephone call. After Blevins shared the little information she knew, Luftglass promised that her office would do everything it could, but gently asked Blevins to be prepared in case there was bad news in the end. Luftglass did not know, as Blevins did, that Oster was still definitely alive somewhere out there.

To the staff in Luftglass’s office, the way a chain of events unfolded during the next few hours seemed astonishing for dealings with modern bureaucracies.

Assistant Angela Cipoletti began by calling the Monmouth County human services office, which recommended calling Trenton State Psychiatric Hospital. The operator in Trenton said she could not divulge specific patient information, but did say that if Oster was over 65 she would not be there. Try the Garrett W. Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital, Glen Gardner, or Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Morris County, Cipoletti was told.

Cipoletti said when she asked for those phone numbers, the operator, for whatever reason, gave an answer that began with "I’m not supposed to tell you this, but …"

It turned out that Oster was no longer in the state system. Records showed she had been released from Marlboro hospital in July 1989 and was living with a nurse or in private care, the operator said, but she couldn’t say anything more. This offered a start, however, and perhaps enough information to solve the mystery.

Cipoletti now called the county once more, this time citing the new information, but no guarantees were made. Meanwhile, the three-member Marlboro public information staff began calling all of the private care facilities in the area to ask if they had Oster as a resident. It was nearing 4 p.m. and Luftglass vowed in jest to the staff that they would locate Oster by the office’s 4:30 p.m. closing time. Then the phone rang again.

The county office had located Oster on file at an assisted living facility called the M&M Manor in the Perrineville section of nearby Millstone Township. They spoke with a nurse, who spoke with Oster to find out if she would be interested in being contacted by Blevins. With Oster’s blessing, M&M Manor called the county, which called back Marlboro. They needed the contact information for Blevins to make the puzzle come together.

"This was, from soup to nuts, everybody being at the right phone at the right time," Luftglass recalled. "It took a chain of events to fall together perfectly to make this happen. We got this done in two hours, which is just mind blowing."

"Just Miraculous"

The Marlboro public information office received another call five days later, this time from Blevins, who was now in Perrineville with her mother. As it turned out, when Blevins received the news that Eleanor was living in Monmouth County, she took off from work, loaded up the car with her husband, Ronald, and made the 10-hour drive from Pemberville, just outside of Bowling Green.

According to Karen Williams, of M&M Manor, Oster has lived there since 1991. Upon her release from Marlboro hospital, she stayed for a brief time at a boarding home in Freehold before moving to M&M Manor. Normally very quiet, Oster had been different ever since the contact from her daughter. She had not received any phone calls, letters or inquiries in several years, Williams said.

"They said the day that I talked to her, she has been on a high ever since, laughing all the time and active," Blevins said. "They said she never got any letters or cards. I said she’ll get plenty of them now — she’ll be spoiled."

And so, on a recent morning, Blevins sat outside the facility with her mother, showing her photographs she had saved of the family in the old days. One picture showed Blevins and Oster during the 1940s, the twenty-something Oster with Lauren Bacall-like features, standing with her daughter on a brisk, windy day in Ohio. There were also more recent photos of the three grandchildren and one great-grandchild Oster never knew she had.

"All three of my children are so elated they just can’t stand it," Blevins said. "They said, ‘Take all of the pictures you possibly can.’ "

At one point, Oster looked up and gently said, "I forgot all of my life and I had to relearn it. But things come back to me."

But to Blevins, there’s no longer any hurry. Not wanting to push too hard too fast, she takes it slow with her mother, who was all smiles in her presence. Already, she is looking forward to her next trip to New Jersey, possibly with some of her children. Blevins said these events have made her so happy, "I don’t want to leave."

"It took such a short time to find her," Blevins said. "Everything has just fallen into place. It’s just miraculous. I just thank God he left her on this earth in time for me to find her."