A joyful end! - Family’s search for relative turns up trumps

By ALICIA DUNKLEY Observer senior reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com

Monday, February 20, 2012

One family's agonising 14-year search for their aunt and sister, Jamaican Elizabeth Johnson Stogsdill came to a joyful end last Friday.

This emerged after the Dade County Guardianship Program in Miami, Florida issued a desperate appeal through the Jamaica Observer for any relative of Johnson Stogsdill to come forward and assist in providing information to help them determine if she is eligible for government benefits there.

Information communicated by the Jamaican Consulate in Miami to the Foreign Affairs Ministry here said that Stogsdill, 68, who emigrated to the United States in January of 1969, has been under the care of the Guardianship Program since April of last year after personnel from the Department of Children and Families, Adult Protective Services division, found her wandering the streets of Miami Dade County and filed a petition for her to be appointed a legal guardian.

The Consulate office said that upon being temporarily placed at a local nursing home by the department, Johnson was evaluated by court psychologists who all deemed her to be incapacitated, and recommended that the Miami Dade Mental Health/Probate Court appoint her a legal guardian to further meet her needs, triggering their appeal.

That mayday call was the glimmer of light the seeking family needed.

"We have been searching since 1998 because that's the last time we had contact with her. Last year I decided to use the Internet in that search and every Elisabeth Johnson I saw I sent a friend request to them but they were never the one, we were even on Sunday Contact (a local radio programme which helps to reconnect persons)," niece Tricia Gordon told the Observer.

She said that the pending reunion with her aunt and family will be a bittersweet one as the landscape has changed since last they had contact.

"She (Johnson Stogsdill) knows her mother died in 1998 but she doesn't know her brother Alfred died in 2011. She is now my mother's only living sibling," Gordon told the Observer.

Gordon said that her mother, who has never come to grips with being unable to locate her sister, had been dealt an even heavier blow when her brother died. The prospect of a reunion with at least one sibling for whom the worst was feared, has changed the picture.

"When my uncle died my mother thought she didn't have anybody else left and she just could not keep up. Ever since my mom heard that she was alive she has been crying tears of joy because she thought she was the only one left, she (Johnson Stogsdill) had two sons but we are not sure where to locate them, but we are happy we found her," Gordon said.

The family, which has since been in contact with the Miami Consulate, are eagerly awaiting its advice as to the next step.

In the meantime, long time family friend Judith Spencer-Jarrett who was the first to bring the family's attention to the details in the article, was overcome with emotion at the turn of events.

"We have been searching for her and because we were looking for her, the minute I saw the article and her picture I called her sister right away," Spencer-Jarrett told the Observer.

"She was always so good to me, I remember when we would take children to Disney World she was always very happy to keep as many as 26 children in her house, she was very kind," Spencer-Jarrett said.

Johnson Stogsdill, her friend said, had been a worker at a hotel here when she met her husband who was vacationing.

"They fell in love and got married and he filed for her. They had one son together, she also had a son from before, who also went to live with them," she said.

In the meantime the Miami Mission, with which the family has since made contact, said that it has submitted the information to Johnson-Stogsdill's court appointed guardian from the Guardianship Program and is awaiting a response.

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A joyful end! - Family’s search for relative turns up trumps