As a very young child, Eun-Sook – now known as Meagan Hughes – had been taken from her alcoholic father by her mother. But the woman left Hughes’ half sister, Pok-nam Shin, known as Holly Hoyle O’Brien, who was two years older, in the care of the father.

When the father died, O’Brien, then aged five, ended up in an orphanage in Pusan. In 1978, aged nine, she was adopted by an American couple who gave her the new name and took her to be part of their family in the state of Virginia.

Her half sister, Hughes, also has memories of a Korean orphanage but recalls little of her biological mother or what happened to her. In 1976 she was also adopted by an American family, growing up in New York state, about 300 miles (480km) from her sister.

Earlier this year, O’Brien was hired at a hospital in Sarasota, Florida, working as a nursing assistant on the fourth floor. Three months later, Hughes was hired to work on the same floor.

The women, now both in their 40s, were stunned to learn that they were related, having not seen each other since the early 1970s.

bbabo.Net