SUPPLY, N.C. -- Up until last weekend, Barry Minnich had not seen his sisters in fifty years. They were all put up for adoption by their biological mother after she decided she couldn't take care of them anymore.
After moving from foster home to foster home, Minnich was adopted by a family in Ohio, while his sisters, Tanya Pitman and Elizabeth Beach, were adopted together by a family in Virginia, according to WECT.
As the years went by, and their names were changed, they weren't able to stay in contact because their adoption files were sealed.
"When we got all separated, it was my mission to get us back together, you know? Because I was supposed to have kept us together. I managed to keep my sister, but I didn't keep him," said Beach, the oldest sibling, who still lives in Virginia.
Barry, who now lives in Wisconsin, said he always had the urge to find his sisters, but it was tough trying to track them down. Then he and his wife stumbled upon a revised law in Ohio that gives people adopted between 1964 and 1996 access to their files.
"One day we loaded up in Wisconsin where we live, and we drove to Ohio, and we wasn't taking no for an answer," said Minnich.
Barry ended up tracking his sisters down, and on Sunday, the three reunited for the first time in five decades. They met in the Holden Beach area of North Carolina where Pitman lives.
The reunion was a great birthday present for Pitman. She turned 53 on Tuesday.
"It's closure, it's peaceful," said Pitman. "Everything is back to the way it should have been years ago."