Foreign student helps resident reconnect with Brazilian roots

Exchange reunites family

Teri Leet was born Nov. 6, 1966, in Brazil to a poor, unwed 14-year-old girl who surrendered her to a Catholic orphanage because she was unable to care for the 6-month-old baby.

Fast forward to Nov. 6, 2003: Leet, living in Lawrence, with a family of her own and sheltering a Brazilian exchange student who was attending Lawrence High School, reconnects with the mother she could not remember, whose language she could not understand.

It was an emotional, seemingly miraculous telephone call set in motion by the coincidence of the student exchange.

“It was amazing,” Leet said, recalling that phone conversation. “I cried. I couldn’t understand anything. I didn’t know how many brothers and sisters I had. I was trying to write them all down.”

Leet listened, with the help of translation from the student, Guilherme Fernandes Jr.

During the phone conversation and later visits to Brazil, she heard the story of why her mother gave up her first-born daughter.

“She claimed her mother — who had died many years before — came to her in a dream and said, ‘You have to give your daughter up. You are too young and you can’t take care of her.’ She cried about it. She said she always wondered about me and said she would never have done that again,” Leet said.

Now, look forward to May of this year:

Leet, with her adoptive parents, plan to return to Brazil for a reunion with Leet’s biological mother and siblings. It will be the first time her American parents will meet her Brazilian family

Teri Leet was born in Brazil but her mother, at age 14, gave her up for adoption. Leet was adopted by Americans and now lives in Lawrence. Two years ago Leet tracked down her mother and this spring will make her third visit to Brazil.

“I’m just so excited about them meeting my parents from here, and they are, too,” Leet said.

Nuns of Mineiros

Almost 40 years ago, Wendell Burns and his wife, Eleanor, of Shawnee, were living in Brazil.

Wendell Burns had already worked in Brazil as a Catholic missionary for five years when he returned to the United States and got married. He and his wife, then both in their 30s, decided to adopt a child. Catholic nuns in the town of Mineiros told them about the 6-month-old baby they had just taken to an orphanage after her young mother had turned the infant over to them.

“We went up to see her and it was love at first sight,” Burns said of that long-ago trip to the orphanage.

With their new child, the couple shortly after returned to the United States.

As the little girl grew up, the couple never tried to keep her background a secret. They even told her they would support any attempt she made to find her Brazilian mother.

“We wanted her to know about her native land,” Wendell Burns said.

When Leet was 18, the Burnses returned to Brazil for a visit. They made inquiries about Leet’s biological mother with the nuns in Mineiros.

“They thought she was dead,” Leet recalled. “They said she had been so sick.”

Lawrence High connection

In August 2003, Teri Leet was living in Lawrence with a family of her own. She accepted a request from Lawrence High School to take in an exchange student from Brazil. The student, Guilherme Fernandes Jr., helped her learn a little Portuguese so she could “converse” online with his father in Brazil.

“His father spoke a little bit of English. We just made do,” Leet said.

Guilherme Fernandes Sr. learned about Leet’s Brazilian background and asked her whether she wanted to try to find her biological mother. Even though she thought her mother was dead, Leet sent him a copy of her Brazilian birth certificate. The elder Fernandes worked for a judge and began sending the birth certificate information to other judges requesting a list of matching or similar family names in their areas.

Teri Leet enjoys a reunion with her Brazilian birth mother, Marilda Lopes Dos Santos, in July 2004.

Fernandes received some names and began making phone calls or writing to the people. It was a difficult task, Leet said, because Brazilians have multiple last names and many do not have telephones.

But the effort paid off. Fernandes found a woman who was Leet’s aunt. More phone calls led to the discovery that Leet had a brother and three sisters in Brazil. Leet also came to learn that her mother, Marilda Lopes Dos Santos, then 51, was very sick but still alive. She had suffered a stroke at age 42.

“They were flabbergasted,” Leet said of her Brazilian family’s reaction when they heard from her. “They thought I was still living somewhere in Brazil.”

In April 2004, Leet traveled to Rio Verde, Brazil, to see her Brazilian family for the first time. She took along a friend to help her with the language. Her grown Brazilian brother met her at the airport.

“I felt close to him,” Leet said. “We hugged. I was never embarrassed or shy. I felt right at home. He did too.”

Leet described her first meeting with her biological mother as “amazing.”

“I have pictures and there are tears in everybody’s eyes,” she said.

Leet returned for a second visit with her Brazilian family in July 2004. This time she brought her husband, Frank.

And this year, come spring, her American parents, the Burnses, will meet her Brazilian family.

Leet’s American parents, now in their late 70s, said they were looking forward to the May trip to Brazil.

“A lot of things have happened and they’ve happened quickly and all at once,” Wendell Burns said.