Preciousness: Maryland Woman Meets Her Mother 53 Years After Being Stolen By Her Babysitter

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Maryland Woman Meets Her Mother For The First Time

16-year-old Sarah Peterson gave birth to Roberta Lavonne Peterson in 1966. Because she was a teen mom, she says she immediately felt pressure to find work and a babysitter.

According to reports from WJLA, a relative’s referral led her to a private sitter by the name of Alberta Lathern.

“She came off as very pleasant, very nice, very sweet, very loving person,” Peterson said. “I couldn’t say anything, at that time, negative about her because she treated her so well.”

But one evening, Sarah says when she arrived to pick up her then 4-month-old daughter, the front door to Lathern’s apartment was open and everything was gone.

“She never said she was going to move. She never told us anything. Where in the world is she and she’s got our baby! She was a crook. That’s what I thought about her. She was a crook. She stole my child.”

Peterson reached out to lawyers, but she didn’t have the money. She also says she had no luck with police and claims a report was never even taken. “When we went to the police station and told our story they said I’m sorry you don’t have enough evidence. You don’t have enough evidence.”

For years after Roberta was stolen, she says would approach people with children hoping to find her daughter, “I would just run to the street and say is that her, is that her. I always looked at somebody’s child. Maybe that’s her. It’s like a death and that’s how it was. That my baby had died,” says Peterson.

Fast forward to December of 2019, and finally, 50 years of searching came to an end.

“Yes, it is a crazy story. I got a call from my sister and she said you know something strange happened today,” Peterson explained. Sarah’s sister Deborah and Roberta’s daughter Urusla just happened to be picking up food at the same time, at the same soup kitchen, when their same last names were called at the same time. They started talking, which is when they realized Urusla’s mom and Deborah’s sister were the two long lost relatives searching for each other for 53 years.

In mid-January they were reunited for the first time in more than a half century.

“I didn’t want to let her go. I think I was crushing her bones. We’re not talking about 10 years, 20, 30 years. We are talking about 53 years. Oh my God, 53 years!” Sarah said. “That loss never leaves you. Never. Never. It’s always with you. It was always with me.”

Roberta added: “53 years. But I always prayed one day. Always, always, always. I always prayed for my momma. You just never, never know. There are so many people out here looking for their family. They just got to have faith. Have faith and never give up. Never give up. Because there’s hope. There’s always hope.”

As for Roberta’s childhood, her story is equally agonizing. She says she got along fairly well with Alberta Lathern, the woman who raised her, saying Lathern did a pretty good of being of mother. Peterson says Lathern couldn’t bear children of her own, adding that she had no idea she’d been taken until she connected in January with her birth mother. Lathern first told her when she was 7-years-old that she’d been adopted, and she always believed that lie.

Sarah Peterson and her daughter Roberta are completely inseparable now. A big reunion is planned for April, when both families will come together for the first time.

Maryland Woman Meets Her Mother 53 Years After Being Stolen By Babysitter