ABOVE

Uncle’s house, where Minka grew up (Jennie on left, Uncle on right)

MIDDLE

Jane (L) and Minka (R), around 1917

BELOW

Uncle at Scatterwood Lake—where, years later, Minka would attend the sewing class picnic

ABOVE

Reverend Kraushaar’s letter to the Lutheran House of Mercy on Minka’s behalf (1929)

MIDDLE

The only picture that exists of seventeen-year-old Minka and Betty Jane

Minka’s inscription on the back of the photo: “Sweetest little girl in the world—Betty J”

BELOW

One of the many letters Minka wrote asking after Betty Jane

ABOVE

Minka in Victoriaville, Canada, on a 1941 visit to Roy

MIDDLE

Roy mailed this photo to Minka in 1943, after he’d transferred from the RAF to the US Army Air Force.

Jennie and her grandchildren Dianna and Donnie (1951)

BELOW

Roy, Minka, and their daughter, Dianna (1947)

ABOVE BACKGROUND

Ruth on a parade float for “Hospital Days” in Viroqua, Wisconsin (1948)

ABOVE INSET

Ruth at age twelve

BELOW BACKGROUND

Ruth and Charles on their wedding day: September 24, 1948

BELOW INSET

Ruth (“Betty Jane”) with her adoptive parents, Olava and Peder Nordsletten

ABOVE

Mark Lee floating above Earth during NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery STS-64 mission, September 1994

MIDDLE

Ruth and Charles with son Brian (center) at his West Point graduation in 1981

BELOW

The Lee family gathers for Charles’s eightieth birthday party in 2008.

ABOVE

Minka at the Portland, Oregon, rose gardens with (L to R) grandson Gary; sister, Jane; daughter Dianna; and grandson Grant (1993)

MIDDLE

Minka with the flowers she tends at her apartment building; taken in March 2006, just two month before she would pray to see Betty Jane again

BELOW BACKGROUND

Minka and granddaughter Cathy (author of The Waiting) in 1995

BELOW INSET

The last photo taken of Minka and her sister, Jane, together (1999)

ABOVE

On August 18, 2006, Minka and her long-lost daughter were reunited—after nearly eight decades of waiting.

BELOW

Minka with her two daughters (Ruth and Dianna), together for the first time

ABOVE

Minka and Ruth today

MIDDLE

Celebrating birthdays . . . together at last

BELOW

Four generations united for the college graduation and Army commission of Taylor Lee (Ruth’s grandson): (L to R) Taylor, Minka, Ruth, and Brian Lee (Ruth’s son).