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Sunday, December 22, 2002

By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

This is the year Marianne Sieniawski found her mom. Her birth mother, that is.

	Reunited: Marianne Sieniawski, left, and birth mother Alice Holley. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

Marianne had learned that she was adopted from her adoptive parents -- Joseph and Patricia Sieniawski of Whitehall -- when she was about 7. She loved them fine and fantasized about her birth parents being a nice couple who just could not afford her.

When she turned 12, she found a folder with her name on it. The contents were not pleasant. In addition to detailing the cleft palate she'd been born with, the papers described the learning and functioning problems of her birth mother. Some of these were attributed to the fact that the woman's father had murdered her mother, then killed himself. So after this woman became pregnant by a man with a long history of mental problems, authorities took the baby.

From another paper, Marianne believed she'd been born as Alice Hailey-Nishnick. She secretly typed all this information into her computer and labeled it "AHN."

She figured she'd start searching when she turned 18, but that time came and she still wasn't ready.

She started this June, at the age of 20 -- petitioning courts, joining registries and support groups.

Her strongest clue was the name "Nishnick," but no one in that family tree she created could help her. Then, in papers from her adoption agency, she found a "Truman Nishnick." Alas, he had died in 1997.

When Marianne contacted his two surviving sisters, they confirmed that he was her biological father. She was welcomed into the family, and they showed her a photo of her as a baby with Truman and a woman also named "Alice."

Marianne delved into newspapers at the library, even contacted a detective, trying to learn more about the murder-suicide. She finally found a news article and her grandmother's obituary, which revealed that her birth mother's name was Alice Holley. Further digging turned up an address in Homestead. And a phone number.

Marianne hesitated. She considered what she knew about her birth mother's history. She went to adoption counseling. Then, at 4:46 p.m. on Aug. 15, 2002, she picked up the phone and dialed. A woman answered.

"Is this Alice -- Alice Holley?"

"Yes."

After asking if now was a good time to talk about a personal matter and giving her phone number in case they got disconnected, Marianne asked, "Does the date Sept. 5, 1981 mean anything to you?"

"Yes," Alice said. "That's my daughter's birth date."

"I believe that's my birth date also," Marianne said. "I believe I am your daughter."

What followed was a rush of joy.

Alice told Marianne all about herself when she was a baby, whom she'd named Alice Elizabeth. She talked about her mental problems and treatment.

Marianne told her what her name is now, and that, yes, she had graduated from high school and now goes to community college. She told her about growing up and how she's engaged and how she'd wondered about her all her life.

"I can't believe this!" Alice kept saying. "Oh my God!"

On a TV in the background, Marianne heard the theme from "Happy Days."

The next day, they met and hugged and cried. They've been getting together regularly since, filling each other in by talking and sometimes just by looking, each seeing herself in the other.

Probably the best time so far was three weeks after that first phone call, when Marianne and her fiance met Alice and her boyfriend at the Waterfront Eat'N Park. This time, Alice was nervous. This time, she had a surprise for Marianne.

That day, Sept. 5, was Marianne's 21st birthday, so Alice arranged for a cupcake to be brought out and for workers in the restaurant to sing.

"I think that was a really great day for her," says the young woman who now refers to herself as Marianne Cecelia Sieniawski-Alice Holley-Nishnick. "It was the first day she had a birthday for me."