16 | MAY 26 • 2022 

After the portion stating, “In the Matter 
of,
” the line below reads “Baby Girl,
” followed 
by a redacted last name now known to be 
“Katz,
” and then “Pludwinski.
” Jack, Rachel 
and their attorney signed the document.

FINDING OUT
How did cousin Tracey’s mother, Janet, now 
deceased, learn about the adopted Katz 
baby? Tracey said the most likely source 
was Frances Jackson, her grandmother and 
Janet’s mother. Ethel and her sister-in-law 
Frances were close friends and perhaps 
Ethel confided in her.
Frances also told the story to her other 
daughter, Sharon (formerly Jackson) 
Tapper, now of West Bloomfield, and much 
later to Sharon’s daughter and Frances’ 
granddaughter, Leslie Tapper of Southfield. 
It turned out that Leslie and her sisters, 
and Susie, all lived on Selkirk Street and 
were biological first cousins once removed. 
The girls went through Southfield schools 
together, but none of them knew of their 
close relationship growing up.
There’s an alternative theory about how 
Frances learned the family secret. Sharon 
said her parents, Frances and Newtie 
Jackson, were living on the same block of 
Mansfield in Detroit as Rachel’s Aunt Ida 
Diem. Ida told Frances (Ethel’s sister-in-
law) that her niece Rachel had adopted a 
baby girl. Because of the timing, Frances 
might have realized it was too much of a 
coincidence and surmised that Ethel and 
Harry’s baby hadn’t died but was put up for 
adoption.
Sharon said she never broke her prom-
ise to mother, Frances, to stay quiet about 
Susie, but still felt a curiosity to see the 
baby, possibly her own first cousin. Sharon 
walked over to the Pludwinski home on 
another block of Selkirk “just once. But I 
never did go again,
” she said, “because I 
thought something might spill out.
”

SIBLINGS SURPRISED
Only a few of Susie’s birth family mem-
bers knew of her existence. The siblings 
who weren’t told are her sister Maureen 
Lefteroff, 75, of Royal Oak; she was 12 
when Susie was born, and brother Marvin 
“Marv” Katz, 69, of Redford; he was 7. 
Their deceased brother, Phil, had been 13 

or 14 at the time. 
Marv and Maureen told 
Susie they never quite 
believed it when told 
the baby had died in the 
hospital. 
“When they had 
Marvin, they had a crib 
set up for him — we 
didn’t see anything 
for the new baby,
” 
said Maureen. She 
has a daughter, Rebecca 
Militzer, adopted from 
Bogota, Colombia, and grandsons Jackson 
and Owen. Her late husband was Ronald 
Lefteroff.
“We didn’t see any baby equipment wait-
ing at home,
” agreed Marv. His immediate 
family is his wife, Cherry, and their son, 
Jason, married to Erika.
Maureen is bothered that some cousins 
knew the secret about Susie long before she 
and Marv did. “Why could they be told and 
not us?” she asked. “I was 40 and Mom was 
65 when she passed away. There was plenty 
of time for her to tell us.
”
After Susie and her cousin Tracey spoke 
on the phone, Susie asked the best way to 
approach her siblings. Unsure of Marv’s 
reaction, Tracey decided to contact Marv’s 
wife first with the news. Then it went like 
this:
“Cherry told me to turn TV off while I 
was watching a hot rod show,
” Marv said. “‘I 
have something to tell you,
’ she said. ‘What 
do you want?’ I replied. ‘Your sister Susie 
called Tracey — your baby sister is alive.
’ 
It was like I always thought. My insides 
flipped a bit because she’s alive. Then I got 
excited. ‘Give me her number, give her my 
number,
’ I said.
”
There was no reason to doubt Marvin’s 
enthusiasm. “I was so looking forward to 
that baby coming home” in 1959. “I think 
if she had, my life would have been a little 
different.
” His older brother and sister had 
each other but with Susie, “I would have 
had someone to look out for.
”

FIRST MEETING
With everyone now informed, the next 
step was for Susie to meet her siblings and 
cousins in person. Marcy and her hus-

band, Jeff, hosted 
a home-based 
gathering in West 
Bloomfield on May 
9. Out-of-towners 
Tracey, and Susie’s 
son Benji, flew in 
for the occasion. In 
the meantime, Marv 
got his DNA tested 
and it confirmed that 
Susie was indeed his 
and Maureen’s full 
sibling.
Susie’s daughter Halli said she was going 
to the reunion “to fully support my mom 
during this time. I really can’t say what the 
future holds, but I’m excited to meet the 
new relatives and see how it goes.
”
Prior to the evening, Susie said she “cheat-
ed” by taking her birth sister to a Starbucks 
in the morning. “It was amazing,
” Maureen 
said, “Like I had known her my whole life.
”
After seeing her, Marv decided Susie “has 
more of [our father’s family] Katz features, 
but I can see [our mother’s family] Jackson 
resemblances, too.
”
The new family members talked easily 
at the gathering and seemed to relish the 
opportunity to speak with and hug Susie 
and her children. It was a good time to be 
together. 

A ‘SELFLESS GIFT’
Susie’s daughter Abbi said, “We were 
raised by my parents to be advocates for 
adoption.
 “My mom always told us it was the 
most selfless gift someone could give to 
another family and the child. 
“I believe that my mom’s biological 
parents likely had an incredibly difficult 
time making their decision. I am thankful 
that they gave my grandma and papa the 
opportunity to be parents and blessed us in 
return with our big, loving, crazy family!”
Susie said, “This is a story of two families 
enjoying each other. One family that gave 
up a baby and another that wanted one. 
“Now all the parents are gone so nobody 
is getting hurt on either side. And now 
cousins and siblings can be whole, and one 
family did another a mitzvah.
“It’s a beautiful, happy ending.
” 

ON THE COVER

band, Jeff, hosted 
a home-based 
gathering in West 
Bloomfield on May 
9. Out-of-towners 
Tracey, and Susie’s 
son Benji, flew in 
for the occasion. In 
the meantime, Marv 
got his DNA tested 
and it confirmed that 
Susie was indeed his 
Susie and her loving adoptive mother, 
the late Rachel Pludwinski.

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