Photography by Sally Kolar

Two area sisters who were separated for 65 years formed an instant, lasting, unbreakable bond when they finally met

It’s never too late to build strong family relationships. Just ask sisters Debi Drummond, 66, of North Augusta and Barbara Hudson, 71, of Augusta. Until May of 2018, they had no idea each other even existed. For the last 20 months, however, they have been making up for lost time.

“My story began in North Augusta, South Carolina,” says Debi, when she and Barbara shared their story with a group at Wesley United Methodist Church. “God’s impeccable timing and love has brought us together.”

For 65 years however, they grew up in different families and lived separate lives. Debi was adopted at birth in 1953 by a North Augusta couple and grew up with an older brother, who was their parents’ biological child. Her adoptive parents, Jerry and Helen Baxter, had been told that Debi was one of eight or nine children whose family could not afford to keep her.

Barbara, who was born in 1948, was raised in Augusta as an only child. “In 1953, my mother was pregnant. She also was in the midst of a divorce,” says Barbara, whose mother remarried in 1957.

They think Debi was taken from their mother for adoption by a local juvenile court officer, Bee Hamilton, who died in 1988. Hamilton reportedly sold hundreds of babies to adoptive parents from the late 1930s until the mid-1960s.

“Bee Hamilton was powerful and well-respected in the community,” says Debi. “She had connections with unwed mother homes. She preyed on low-income, low-education people.”

Allegedly, Hamilton often told birth mothers that their babies had died and asked the adoptive parents to pay the baby’s hospital bills. The sisters believe these were the circumstances that led to Debi’s adoption.

Before her mother, Betty Perry, died in 2004, Barbara saw a page in the family Bible that listed the births in the family. She saw her name, her cousins’ names and their birthdates. She also saw an unfamiliar name – Beverly Kay Perry, who was born May 10, 1953 and died in 1953.

“My mom said, ‘That was a baby I had, but they told me she died,’” says Barbara.

Because her mother was terminally ill, Barbara, who was living in Jupiter, Florida at the time, didn’t ask any questions. However, she told a close friend and a cousin what she had seen.

“My cousin sent me a link about a black market baby ring in Augusta and said, ‘What if?’” Barbara says.

DNA Testing
The “what if” began to turn to reality after the younger of Debi’s two daughters, Kim, submitted a DNA sample to find answers and solace for her mother. Debi had fallen into depression when she lost her husband, Andy, in January 2014 after a brief illness and her parents died a week apart 20 months later.

Before Kim submitted her DNA for testing, however, the kit sat on her dresser for eight months. “She did it behind the scenes. I didn’t know it,” Debi says.

After she got the results from her DNA sample, Kim connected with Barbara’s second cousin in Dallas and he recommended that she contact his cousin – Barbara’s uncle Billy, who was her mother’s brother – in Evans.

After talking to Kim, Billy called Barbara and told her that a young lady had contacted him and told him that she thought her mother was Barbara’s sister. He asked Barbara to meet with Kim, and they talked on Memorial Day of 2018.

Kim, who lives in the area, and her sister, Keli, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, came to Debi’s house that night, and they told their mother they had something to tell her.

“Kim said, ‘Mom, you have a sister.’ And Keli said, “And an uncle. And they want to meet you,’” Debi says.

Her response was immediate. “I said, ‘Call them right now. I’ve been waiting 65 years,’” she says.

Barbara arrived at Debi’s house about 9 p.m., and she stayed until 2 a.m. “We bonded right away,” says Barbara, who has one daughter named Ashley.

Debi agrees. “Not only was there an instant bond between us. It has extended to our daughters and all the way down to our grandchildren,” she says.

Debi is a grandmother of six, and Barbara has three granddaughters.

The physical similarities between the two sisters are unmistakable as well. Barbara’s husband, Eddie, told her that Debi looks more like their mother than Barbara, and Ashley felt an instant connection with Debi.

“She sees her grandmother in me, and that warms my heart,” says Debi.

Their first meeting was filled with poignant moments as well. “Debi said, ‘Why was I not wanted?’ I told her, ‘My mother would have never parted with you,’” Barbara says.

In fact, Barbara says her mother had contacted the Georgia Adoption Registry to try to find her daughter. However, she was searching for Beverly Kay Perry, who was born on May 10, 1953, and Debi’s birth certificate said she was born May 8, 1953.

Debi believes divine intervention played a role in the reunion with her sister as well. “God’s design for me and Barbara is perfect,” she says. “His timing was exact. At that time, God said, ‘This girl needs her sister.’ I think Andy Drummond walked up to God and said, ‘Please help her.’”

Parallel Lives
From the first night they met – when Debi was wearing black pants and a white shirt and Barbara was wearing white pants and a black top – the sisters realized how much they have in common. Talking late into the evening, they discovered many similarities in their parallel lives.

Both of them met their husbands when they were 15 years old and married at age 19. “Our husbands could have been brothers,” says Barbara. “They had the same mannerisms.”

Debi and her first cousin were in the same Sunday school class in North Augusta, and in 1985, Debi was a bridesmaid in a wedding where Barbara was a guest. They even discovered that they had flown on the same airplane several times through the years.

Both of them do freelance interior design work. And now, as a reminder of their story, each of them wears a dragonfly bracelet with birthstones from the months that Debi, Barbara, their mother and their children were born.

The dragonfly bracelet is meaningful to them because it plays a significant role in the novel Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. The fiction-based-on-fact book recounts the actions of Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization who kidnapped and sold more than 5,000 poor children to wealthy families all across the country from the mid-1920s until 1950. The book is set in 1939 Memphis and in present-day Aiken, South Carolina.

As for their true-life experience, the sisters believe that Debi may have been the only baby that was sold to a local family. “We grew up within a 10-mile radius of each other our whole lives,” Debi says.

Finding an Identity
Debi found out she had been adopted when she was about 3 years old, and she was told how fortunate she was to have been adopted.

“It was the ’50s, and we didn’t talk about it. But I didn’t have anybody I looked like,” says Debi.

“I was raised with a loving family in a loving home, but I struggled. I had questions, but I held it in because I didn’t want to hurt my parents’ feelings.”

Finally finding a blood relative has made a huge difference in Debi’s life. “With Barbara, I can look in her eyes and her big heart, and that has given me an identity,” says Debi.

Their reunion has answered many questions for Barbara as well.

“All through the years, my mother suffered emotionally, but we never knew why,” she says. “Now we know what happened to her.”

At the end of her life, Betty survived in a coma for seven weeks while she was in hospice care. “The hospice people said that never happens. They asked if there was anybody she had not said goodbye to,” says Barbara.

At the time, she knew of no one else that her mother needed to see. Now, though, she understands. “There was only one person left,” says Barbara. “It was Debi.”

Barbara, who was raised as an only child but found her sister at age 70, is relishing her new identity as well.

“It’s been a blessing for both of us, but especially for Debi. And I’m loving being in a sister role,” says Barbara. “What if our mother could see us now? We have to know that she does.

By Betsy Gilliland

After founding a nonprofit organization to help vulnerable populations, a local veteran changed his own life by changing the lives of others.

Rock bottom is a holy place. And U.S. Army veteran Don Cummings, who retired in 2012, has been there.

During his 23-year military career, he served in Special Operations for 11 years. He was deployed to Afghanistan six times and to Iraq three times, and he traveled the world with General David Petraeus as his community Noncommissioned Officer for 15 months.

Two events in 2003, however, had a lasting, profound effect on the Hephzibah resident.

As part of the 3rd Ranger Battalion, Cummings was one of about 120 soldiers who took Haditha Dam that spring and defended it from Iraqi forces for 72 hours. For the first two days, the battalion endured nonstop mortar and artillery fire. At one point, a tank leveled its turret and aimed directly at Cummings.

“That started making me rethink life in general,” he says. “When you’re in combat, it’s not so much about the big picture. It’s about just living the next five minutes.”

Then, when he was deployed to Thailand in the fall, one of his men suffered serious injuries. Cummings had to call the soldier’s mother to tell her that her son might not survive. “She said it was all my fault. I was supposed to protect him,” Cummings says.

The soldier lived and received a medical discharge. Nevertheless, between those two incidents, Cummings says, “It put me in a really bad place. Everything in my life fell apart.”

Serving The Disadvantaged
Cummings went through PTSD, a divorce and a battle with alcohol, which left him feeling suicidal and depressed.

He started to turn his life around in October 2010 when someone invited him to church. He enrolled in Bible seminary and got involved in mission work, which led him to found Sons of Consolation Ministries.

The all-volunteer ministry, which earned 501(c)3 status two years ago, supports the area’s most vulnerable populations including the elderly, inmates, the disabled and children in poverty.

The name of the organization comes from the New Testament figure, Barnabas, a selfless man whose name means “the son of consolation.”

“I have traveled all over the world and seen poverty,” says Cummings, senior pastor and chairman of Sons of Consolation. “I know what it’s like to hurt. I know what it’s like to think nobody cares or understands.”

The ministry relies on the help of about 12 volunteers, including veterans George Wardy, who serves as associate pastor and vice chairman, and Cummings’ wife, Maria.

Martinez resident Craig Stone serves as president and CEO. He manages day-to-day operations and coordinates efforts with corporate sponsors, third-party sponsors and volunteers.

Cummings and Stone met through their work with Kairos Prison Ministry International. “Don told me his vision,” says Stone. “I believed in what he was telling me, and I still do.”

The volunteers visit residents and holds weekly church services at two local assisted living facilities, Amara Health Care & Rehab and Windermere Health and Rehabilitation Center. The nonprofit also gives birthday and Christmas presents to the residents and visits them when they’re hospitalized.

In addition, Sons of Consolation has continued its work with Kairos. Volunteers visit inmates at Richmond County Detention Center and Augusta State Medical Prison, where twice a year they also hold four-day Kairos programs to introduce inmates to Christianity or encourage their spiritual growth.

“The whole idea of Kairos is to build a Christian community inside the prison,” says Stone. “Some of the men have gone through a complete transformation. For the men that go through the program and stay in the program, the recidivism rate drops by about 50 percent.”

Expanding Its Ministries
Through meeting elderly or incarcerated individuals with disabilities, the volunteers discovered another critical need. Many disabled people in the United States need a power wheelchair that they cannot afford, and the disabled in developing countries lack access to basic care. As a result, Sons of Consolation created a wheelchair repair and reassembly workshop.

“After we take them apart, clean them up and repair them, we ship the ‘newsed’ wheelchairs to South America,” Stone says. “The end product looks and functions like a brand new piece of equipment. We recycle the parts that we don’t use.”

Focusing on children in Bolivia and the elderly in Uruguay, they ship wheelchairs to South America twice a year through a partnership with Fridla, or Friends of the Disabled Latin America. The organization donates some refurbished wheelchairs locally as well.

Reaching out to children in poverty is the ministry’s newest program. This fall Sons of Consolation gave more than 100 backpacks, which were filled with school supplies, to four churches to distribute to children in their congregations.

“We don’t donate to individuals,” says Cummings. “We go through a third-party organization such as a church or a nursing home.”

The ministry, which operates in a facility off of Gordon Highway, would like to build its volunteer base.

“People can volunteer one morning a week, or provide financial support,” says Stone. “We will bring church mission boards and civic boards through the building to show them what we do. We steward our money very well.”

Volunteer opportunities range from visiting assisted living homes and refurbishing wheelchairs to baking cookies and filling backpacks.

“People can participate any way they would like. We would like for them to come see what we’re doing, and then they can tell me how they would like to help,” says Cummings. “Our goal in all of our programs is to reinforce a sense of community.”

Serving those who feel forgotten and alone certainly changed his outlook.

“Your choice in life is to sit and dwell on your own problems, or meet the needs of others,” Cummings says. “The more you’re focused on others, the smaller your own problems seem.”

For more information, visit sonsofconsolationministries.org or email info@sonsofconsolationministries.org.

By Betsy Gilliland