Sisters reunited 78 years later thanks to DNA test, 'persistent kids'

HANFORD, Calif. (FOX26) — What started as a lunch with her children in Turlock turned into a life-changing event for Esther Vargas of Hanford.

“I knew it!” she said, as she spotted her sister, Dolores Staat. “I knew it!”

The two hadn’t seen each other in 78 years—and reunited with the help of technology, and very persistent kids.

“You have everything to gain from it,” said Veronica Parker, Vargas’ daughter.

Vargas had a rough start to her life—making headlines at just two months old.

Vargas and her four siblings were left in their Oakland home with just $5.

“Mother Abandons Five,” the headline read.

The children went to different adoptive homes.

Vargas wound up with a family who later moved from the Bay Area to Hanford.

“She said my biological mother just handed me over, told her when I was born, where I was born and my name. That’s it,” Vargas says.

She says her biological mother visited her when she was six years old—and still has a black and white picture from the brief visit.

“I never found out why she gave me to her,” Vargas says, praising the love she received from her adoptive mother and family.

“They never made me feel any less,” she says.

Vargas grew up, got married and had a family of her own.

And that’s when her children had plenty of questions.

“We didn’t know anything about them,” said Parker. “We had no kind of background to see if anything had any medical conditions because we didn’t know our family history.”

Vargas’ grandkids bought her an Ancestry DNA kit for Christmas in 1999 in hopes that would be the first step to learning more about their family.

She was skeptical.

“I put it in a drawer,” she says.

It stayed there for months.

Her children and grandchildren persisted.

“They kept after me for about a year. ‘You gotta do it.’ ‘We gotta find out,’” she says. “We were pushing my mom, and my Aunt Dolores’ daughter was pushing her to do it.”

It didn’t take long for the results to show a match.

“We had family out there, that we didn’t know who they were,” Parker says. “It’s family that we didn’t have that we wanted.”

She learned their brother, Lou Calderon, had been looking for her, too.

“He was a cameraman for Channel 2 in Oakland,” Vargas says.

The sisters and grandchildren exchanged messages.

Then the pandemic hit—putting a pause on their meeting in person.

Finally, the families planned to surprise Vargas in Turlock.

Her sister made the drive to meet them there.

The surprise was caught on cell phone camera.

“It feels like a miracle!” Staat says.

Vargas praised the technology that made the reunion possible.

“It’s pretty good. They let you know if you have lost family. You find them without too much of a hassle!” she says.

“Go for it,” Parker says. “You have everything to gain from it.”

Vargas’ adoptive family is thrilled as well.

“They tell us, ‘You know we’re still family. But we’re happy you have your family,’” Parker said.