‘My favourite teacher is my long lost sister!’ Mum finds out beloved tutor from 30 YEARS ago is actually her sibling
Diane Cook, 53, was adopted at birth and discovered her new found relation while tracing her real parents' history
A MUM has told of her shock at finding out her favourite school teacher from 30 years ago is actually her long lost sister.
Diane Cook, from Rochester, New York, was adopted as a baby and spent her childhood longing for a sibling.
In February, the 53-year-old's dream came true when she tracked down Karen Cometa-Zempel, with the help of a local genealogist.
And in a further weird coincidence, Karen currently works with one of Diane's childhood friends, Kathy, who spilt the beans about her sibling's identity.
Diane recalled: "My friend Kathy tells me, ‘I don’t want to steal anyone’s thunder, because she’s probably going to contact you, but I think I know who your sister is’.
"I’m like, ‘Tell me, tell me!’
“She says, ‘I think I work with her. I think your sister is Karen Zempel.' I almost fell over.
"I said, ‘Oh my God. That’s my teacher at Bryant and Stratton College’.”
It had taken a mere few weeks to unravel the mystery of her secret sibling Diane had spent years trying to solve.
The mum-of-two was raised in a big Italian-American family and had always known she was adopted as her parents, Joseph and Anna DiProspero, never kept it a secret.
Diane explained: "I didn’t have that feeling of being unwanted because my parents focused so much on the, ‘We wanted you, you were chosen’ that it didn’t occur to me to dwell on someone else who didn’t want me.
“My (adoptive) mother until the day she died said, ‘Your mother was a very unselfish woman because she knew she couldn’t give you as good a life as a two-parent, stable family’.”
Although she sometimes wondered what her biological mum looked like, Diane never tried to search for answers.
But as a 25-year-old newlywed and future mum, she was keen to learn details about her birth parents’ health for the sake of her own children.
In 1987, Diane wrote to the state adoption registry and was provided with 'non-identifying information'.
She recalled: "My mother was Italian [American] and my father was German [American].
"I learned that her mother had died at 50-years-old of cancer and it said her father had cataracts and that he was in deteriorating health, but they didn’t say what.”
Diane also learned her birth mum had had an affair with her dad, who went back to his wife, and that was why she was put up for adoption.
It wasn’t until 2006 that the adoption registry wrote to tell her she had an older sibling.
But there was one catch - legally they couldn’t tell her who it was and even if it was a man or a woman.
With such little information to go on, Diane and her husband Rick agreed that hiring a private investigator to dig further would have been too expensive at the time.
She explained: “I couldn’t afford to do that, so I tossed that letter aside.”
But in 2015, after hearing a friend had found her birth sisters with the help of a local genealogist, Diane decided to give it another try.
He encouraged her to contact the adoption registry again to see if they could provide any more information.
In January, Diane received a form to fill out giving the state permission to share her information with her sibling.
On Valentine’s Day this year Karen – who had filled out the same form – received a letter naming her younger sister.
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Diane told how Kathy immediately went onto Facebook and up popped her friend Kathy, who was a mutual friend as they worked together.
She said: "Karen said to Kathy, ‘Do you know Diane DiProspero Cook?’ and she said, ‘Yeah, I’ve known her since first grade’. It was the craziest thing.”
Diane instantly recognised Karen as her stylish teacher who taught job preparation classes at the local college back in 1985.
She recalled: “I thought Karen was awesome, and I’m not just saying that now. She always stuck out in my mind.”
Diane then called Karen and the pair got chatting like old friends.
She said: "We were just so excited. We couldn’t believe it.”
Karen, who admitted she didn't remember her younger sister when she was her former student, explained: “I was so excited because I felt that she was very bubbly, like I was.
"I instantly felt that I was going to like her.
“We started talking about our lives and she told me she had always wanted a sister.”
They agreed to meet up the following week, but accidentally bumped into each other that weekend.
Karen, 61, recalled: “I went to Niagara Falls with my friend Gail. We were sitting on a bench (at an outlet mall) and I see, walking down the hall, Diane.
"I started screaming, ‘There’s my sister!’
“So Diane came over and we were jumping up and down. We were hugging, it was totally amazing and awesome. I kept pinching her, asking ‘Is it really you?’”
Since February, the sisters have been inseparable and have even gone away on holiday together.
For Karen – a mum-of-two, whose husband Paul died of early onset Alzheimer’s last year – it’s a welcome pick-me-up.
With the help of the genealogist, the sisters have since identified their birth mother who unfortunately died of oesophageal and stomach cancer in 2005.
The women are in the process of trying to find out if they have the same dad and, if so, who he is.
But, in the meantime, they’re just enjoying being together.
Karen, who has an adoptive sister, said: “To have somebody like Diane who has the same interests that I do, the same mannerisms, with the same personality; we laugh alike. We like the same things. I feel like I’m looking into a mirror and I see myself.”