Denise Devillier Hebert, left, found her birth mother, Jenni Reagan Mouhot, and gained a sister, Marcie Richardson, who surprised her with a visit from Ohio the first Christmas they met.

Some families are traditional, man and woman marry and they begin a family.

Sometimes, however, circumstances are such that a mother chooses to let go of a child, giving another family a blessing. For two local women, the journey to find their birth mothers led to joyful reunions.

As a teen growing up in the free love era of the 1970s, Angela Broussard Lemaire said such a lifestyle has consequences with long lasting effects.

Married with children and grandchildren of her own, Lemaire said giving up her first child as a young mother will forever be the right decision.

Lemaire was a free spirited teenager. Her boyfriend was beginning law school when they found out she was pregnant. Coming from a strict Catholic family, she considered her options but knew she would have to face her father.

She had a lifelong friend who lived in New Orleans. She knew she could go there and have an abortion, then continue “my extremely selfish, living for myself, having fun and very irresponsible life,” Lemaire said.

“We were taught by the culture it was our right to do with our bodies as we wanted,” Lemaire said. “I learned you have a choice until it involves someone else, a baby.”

Lemaire said a visiting priest in her Lake Charles church said something she had not heard a clergyman say before.

“He was talking straight to me saying abortion is murder. The Catholic church teaches it is a human life,” Lemaire said. That’s when she started having dreams that included her best friend’s brother, who drowned a few years before.

“He started appearing to me and saying, ‘don’t have an abortion.’ Things like that got me to thinking,” she said. “There’s no going back with an abortion. So I changed my mind.”

The decision wasn’t easy. Lemaire’s boyfriend left her for his education. She had to face her father alone.

Adoption & Marriage

As suspected, her father told her she would have to leave Lake Charles to have the baby. Being one of eight children, Angela’s older brother Jack lived in Lafayette and invited her to stay with his family.

Catholic Social Services handled her case and told Lemaire there was a wonderful couple that would like to adopt her child. The prospective mother was a teacher and her husband was an architect. Lemaire wasn’t told where the couple lived. She was told only that they had another son about 5 years old who also was adopted.

While visiting her mother in Lake Charles, Lemaire went into labor and gave birth at St. Patrick’s Hospital in 1972. After the birth, the nurses allowed Lemaire to say goodbye to her daughter.

“I had to see her, but God put it in my heart, ‘don’t hold her,’ or I would never have let her go,” Lemaire said. “That was it for 20 years. After I got married and started having children the loss intensified.”

When Lemaire met her husband, Todd, she was still pregnant.

“I was working 109 miles offshore,” Todd Lemaire said. “Her brother and I shared the same room. Jack wanted me to date his other sister, but when we flew in, Angela was with Jack’s wife. She sat on the back seat, big and pregnant.”

A few months after Angela Broussard had the baby, Todd Lemaire was at the house visiting Jack and down the stairs greeted Angela with a great big smile. The two dated and married about a year later.

Always Searching

Through the years, Angela Lemaire would become sullen around the month of her first child was born, Todd Lemaire said.

“We were praying Angela would get some relief. Then the answer to our prayers came,” Todd Lemaire said. “It’s a miracle. We were so close and yet so far away.”

The Lemaires had five children of their own and were active in New Iberia life. One afternoon before the Andalusia Ball, she was rushing to a hair appointment and was almost stopped by a motorcycle cop. At the last minute a woman at the neighboring fence distracted David Lester who had a reputation for ticket giving.

Upon arrival at the salon, the missed ticket was a subject of conversation.

“Helen Dore’s son was in the room and said ‘They call him the ticketmaster. He’d give his own grandmother a ticket’,” Angela Lemaire said. “I thought ‘What kind of family would raise him to be so mean?’ But Helen corrected me. Donald and Norma Lester are his parents.”

Lemaire was told his mother was a teacher, his father an architect and that he had an adopted sister about five years younger.

“I was tingling all over. It had to be the Holy Spirit. I didn’t hear a word after that. I was zoned out, thinking,” Angela Lemaire said. “I went home and told Todd, ‘I think I know who my daughter is.’ ”

Lemaire’s sister-in-law was at the house later for the ball and said she worked with Norma Lester at North Lewis Elementary School. She knew the Lester family. She said she often looked at the Lemaire children and Lauren Lester and thought how much they favored each other.

The process of connecting birthdates and circumstances and whether to tell Lauren, when or how, took months. Through stories, the families started putting puzzle pieces together of how close their lives had been. The Lemaires also learned Lauren had once been a babysitter to her half-siblings at a mutual friend’s home. Soon the Lemaires and Lesters grew to be close friends.

Lauren Lester Council is now married, a mother of four and a successful physician in St. Louis.

Now the Lemaires and Lesters share almost weekly outings together and larger family gatherings with Lauren’s family at holidays and for special occasions.

“She’s at the top of her field in dermatology,” Norma Lester said. “Our grandchildren are Claire, 8, Sophie, 7, Jack, 5, Kathryn Avery “Katie” is 3. When Lauren’s youngest child was born, they wanted the name her Kathryn and something ‘New Iberia.’ They chose Avery.”

Lester said they didn’t know there was another famous Kathryn Avery who was a nurse and happened to be a co-worker at the health unit with Lauren’s grandmother, Lillian Lester. Lauren looked her up on the Internet and discovered Katie and Kathryn Avery were born on the same day.

“I don’t believe in coincidences anymore,” Angela Lemaire said.

The happy story of Lauren’s adoption was not mirrored in her brother’s life. Although David Lester was a respected law enforcement officer and was instrumental in bringing the two families together, his personal struggles brought an early end to his life at the age of 34.

“I can’t imagine how we would have gone through all these years without them. Wonderful years,” Norma Lester said. “I still get stopped by people who knew him and they tell me ‘David stories.’ There were tough times, but still there was total joy.”

Wasn’t Hard to Find

Denise Devillier Hebert also was adopted by a local family. Kay Devillier had a difficult pregnancy and complications during delivery. Her doctors told her it would be best to adopt if she and her husband, Leighton, wanted another child.

Three years later, they adopted Denise Devillier Hebert. Although the Devilliers would not have chosen to tell their daughter she was adopted at such an early age, Hebert said she was 5 years old when she found out.

“My brother and I were jumping on the bed,” Denise Devillier Hebert said. “He was three years older than me, and we were arguing. He said, ‘That’s OK, I came out of mommy’s stomach and you didn’t.’ ”

Hebert said she had a curiosity about her birth mother since she discovered she was adopted and she long wondered about the circumstances of her birth. She said her mom told her when Hebert was older they would look into it together. When Hebert reached her 20s, had married and was pregnant with her first child, Kay Devillier died before they could find Hebert’s birth mother.

“It was 10 more years before I found my birth mother. I wanted to know if I had any siblings,” Hebert said. “It didn’t haunt me, but it was a big part of my life. It wasn’t hard to find her really. It was a God thing.”

Hebert’s adoption also was handled by Catholic Social Services. The agency said she could write a letter of request to the Diocese of Lake Charles. If a match from her birth mother was found, CSS could help them make contact.

“I got up the courage and wrote the letter but there was not a match,” Hebert said.

One evening before attending a Rosary prayer time, Hebert went online and searched her birthdate. She found information on a woman from Louisiana who had a daughter on the same day as Hebert was born. The same woman also had another daughter three years later, the notice said, who now lived in Ohio with her husband and two sons.

“I knew my birth mother had been 19 when she put me up for adoption. My birthdate matched, the birthplace, it had to be,” Hebert said. “I still had to verify it.”

Instant Connection

The website listed a phone number. It took a week or two to build up the courage and two phone calls before reaching the woman she came to know as Jenni, her birth mother. Instantly they had a connection.

“She immediately told me ‘I didn’t give you up because I didn’t love you.’ She wanted to know if I was OK,” Hebert said.

Hebert learned that every year her mother had celebrated with a cake and sang happy birthday not knowing her daughter was a short drive away.

The first time they met, Hebert and her husband went to West Lake. The next weekend, Jenni Reagan Mouhot and her husband came to New Iberia to meet their grandchildren.

The visit that really sealed the family bond was when her sister who had been calling daily since finding Hebert, announced her family was coming from Ohio to meet them.

“My sister called me two days before Christmas Eve 2003 and said ‘My husband came home and asked if I wanted to drive to Louisiana for Christmas?’” Hebert said.

They arrived at 3 a.m. Christmas morning and stayed for the week. Mouhot came to visit from West Lake and Hebert said it was like they had always known each other. People came in and out to see and meet, Hebert said. It was a special Christmas.

“One click of a button, first website, and I found her,” Hebert said. “I had such a profound revelation. God has a plan for every part of your life and when you see it unfold like that, it just blows your mind. It was all like it was suppose to be.”

“My birth mother told me one time that she prayed so hard to know what she should do,” Hebert said. “When we met, that was her blessing. She was so grateful to my parents who took such good care of me.”

Hebert said the timing was a Divine appointment.

“I feel blessed even though both are now deceased,” Hebert said. “Having two beautiful mothers, even if for a short period of time, it’s OK.”