'Divine intervention' brings long-lost siblings together in Rockford

By Madison Bennett | MLive

"Flabbergasted" and "unbelievable" are the words Phil Osborn uses to describe the past 48 hours.

On Friday, Aug. 18, inside the clubhouse at the Oaks of Rockford senior community, Osborn introduced his sister, Mary Jane Carlston, to the half-sister he never knew they had, Marilyn Meyers.

"She lifts my heart every time I see her," Osborn said of his newfound half-sister.

Osborn, 77, met Meyers, 73, by chance for the first time just two days prior, on Wednesday, Aug. 16. The days following have been a whirlwind of emotion for their families.

"(I'm) kind of in shock," Meyers said during a tearful reunion. "I knew that I had a brother and sisters somewhere. I knew about their names and everything but I didn't exactly know where they were."

Osborn and Meyers met for the first time during a coffee hour on Wednesday at the same clubhouse. The two both live at Oaks of Rockford, and ended up just houses away from each other.

"When I heard there was an Osborn family moving in here, I kind of joked and said "Well, maybe he's a long-lost brother,'" Meyers said.

In the weeks following, Meyers found herself sitting across from and chatting with Osborn's wife, Mary Lou, when she decided to ask a few questions regarding his family.

Meyers knew she had found her half-brother by the way Mary Lou answered the questions.

That's when she said to Osborn that she was his half-sister. "Really I accepted her right away," Osborn said.

Osborn, who spent the past 15 years living in Florida, was persuaded by his daughters to move back to the area. He did so just two weeks ago.

The story is similar for Meyers, whose daughter, Jeanette Watts, of Cedar Springs, saw the Oaks of Rockford and suggested it to her parents.

"God brought us here for a reason," Meyers said.

Meyers has known for more than 50 years that she had siblings, but she hadn't tried to find them. Her adopted brother and some friends had tried to track them down, but due to marriages resulting in name changes and deaths in the family, there was never any luck.

Clarice Pletcher, their mother, had been a single mom working at a factory in Muskegon when she became pregnant with Meyers.

Pletcher's husband had died and she was unable to care for her youngest children on her own. They had six children in total, but Pletcher had put the youngest three -- Phil, Teddy and Mary Jane -- in foster care until they were old enough to be on their own.

When Meyers was conceived, Pletcher told a local doctor of her situation. The doctor put her in contact with a nurse, Doris Riske, from the Detroit area who was unable to have children.

She then took two of her children, Ted and Mary Jane, to live close to the Riske family who adopted Meyers once she was born. 

After giving birth, she moved back to Muskegon with her children and eventually took Phil out of foster care.

While Meyers' adoptive parents had always been open with her about the situation, Pletcher kept it a secret from her youngest children until she confided in Carlston later in life.

"She told me, and I said 'How come you took so long to tell me?' And she said 'Because I was afraid that you wouldn't love me,'" Carlston said.

Osborn, Carlston, Meyers and their families are now making up for lost time and are thankful for the "divine intervention" that brought them together, Osborn's daughter Phyliss Lovell said. 

This post originally appeared Aug. 19, 2017 on MLive.com.