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37
Mazel
Toy!
38
Pam Miller,
Linda Lee,
Susan Hetzberg
and Bonnie
Marash at
their mother's
grave.
Three sisters joyfully meet the long-lost half-sister they've never met.
required that a Jewish baby be adopted by Jewish
parents. The infant born as Phyllis Rosenfeld was
Special to the Jewish News
renamed Pam and adopted by Herman and Sylvia
Schaffer via the Louise Wise Agency, a Jewish
n a story that is part mystery, part detective
adoption agency that still operates in New York.
work and part fairy tale, three sisters were
Harriet Rosenfeld eventually recovered from the
united with their half-sister after decades of
traumatic
experience and married Irving Marash,
dedicated searching between Michigan and
with
whom
she had three daughters: Linda, Susan
New York.
and
Bonnie.
The family later moved to Detroit.
The story began tragically 66 years ago when
The details of the rape were never completely
the former Harriet Rosenfeld, then of New York,
revealed by their mother, but her family believes
was raped at age 16. Unmarried and uncertain,
it was someone she knew. Mrs. Marash told her
the young mother-to-be was sent to a home for
daughters about the incident separately, at differ-
unwed mothers at Staten Island and convinced to
ent times in their lives.
give her baby up for adoption.
"She told us the story when she thought it was
The daughter given up, Pam Miller of
relevant
to something going on with us,"
Hartsdale, N.Y., finally met her half-sisters in
Hertzberg said. "I was single, between marriages
May at the unveiling of her and their mother,
and very discouraged. Mom was trying to give me
Harriet Marash of Southfield, who died in
`a kick in the tush,' to let me know that if she
September.
overcame something like that, then I could do it,
Pam's newly found half-sisters Linda (Henry)
too. And she was right."
Lee of West Bloomfield, Susan (Roger) Hertzberg
Linda Lee remembers the exact moment she
of San Jose, Calif., and Bonnie Marash of Vonore,
heard
the story 14 years ago in the cafeteria of
Tenn., were as glad to see Pam as she was them.
The laws in New York at the time of Pam's birth Sinai Hospital, where her father, the late Irving
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2003
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Marash, was recovering from a stroke.
"It was like a piece of the puzzle was finally put
together," Linda said. "It explained a lot about
my mother's personality, also about her insecuri-
ties."
When Linda's daughter, Sheri Lee of
Huntington Woods, learned about her estranged
aunt, she asked her grandmother for permission
to embark on a search. Harriet Marash agreed.
"She had never stopped wondering what hap-
pened to her daughter," said Bonnie, "but she was
always leery about barging in on her life."
Linda and her daughter made inquiries for
almost 10 years, but found no definitive answers.
In the meantime, Pam grew up in New York,
and attended Syracuse University. At age 22, she
married Irwin Miller, a dentist for the New York
Rangers hockey team and a University of
Michigan alumnus who grew up in White Plains,
N.Y., two blocks from her three sisters' first
cousin Ralph Marash.
"Irwin and Ralph actually had mutual friends
but didn't know each other," Linda said.
Pam and Irwin Miller have two sons, Eric, 41,