FOLEY, Ala. — Leslie Lassitter spent part of the holidays sitting in a hospital in New Orleans. She was there to give support and comfort to Beth Randall of Pearlington, Miss. Beth was involved in a car accident on Dec. 23, 2009, that left her with broken vertebrae in her back and neck and broken ribs among other injuries.

According to Leslie, who is the city of Foley environmental manager, Beth is like a big sister to her. There is a 16-year difference between the two, but they share more than friendship. They share history as well.

March 3, 1974. Montgomery.

That’s the date and place where Leslie was born and given up for adoption. The birth certificate identified her only as “Baby Wall.” The 16-year-old who gave Leslie up for adoption was Beth Wall, the same “big sister” Leslie sat with in the hospital during the holidays.

Actually, the two women found each other some years back, and the years since have been filled with the good and bad stuff that typically follows families.

“We are like little girlfriends talking,” Leslie said with a laugh in referring to the conversations she has today with her biological mother or, as Leslie calls her, “bio-mom.”

The two of them occasionally take getaway trips to New Orleans together; it’s their “thing,” according to Leslie.

On the downside, there was Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that wreaked havoc with Beth Randall’s family who live in the Waveland, Miss., area. And there was the automobile accident last month from which Leslie said her bio-mom will be recovering for some time.

All in all, Leslie calls the story that has emerged since 2001 a “happy ending” and the “coming together of family.”

‘I STARTED SEARCHING’

“I always knew I was adopted,” Leslie said. “Growing up, I thought it would be cool to find out who my biological family was and to see what traits were shared.”

Adoption records had been closed in the state of Alabama, but, according to Leslie, were opened in 2001. When she found out, “I started searching,” she said.

She petitioned for her original birth certificate. Back in 1974, birth certificates didn’t list the time of birth or the hospital. Only the biological mother’s name — “Beth Wall” — was on the certificate. Thus, Leslie was “Baby Wall.”

With at least her biological mother’s name in possession, Leslie came up with “seven or eight names” she got from people searches online.

“I started calling them; none of them fit the description,” Leslie said.

With that, Leslie made a trip to Montgomery and looked at property tax records from 1974. She found a “Joyce Wall” in the property tax records who was living in Montgomery the month that Leslie was born.

She also found the name of the man who owned that particular house where “Joyce Wall” lived and who paid the property taxes on it. As it turned out, he was living in Mobile at the time and Leslie was working in Mobile. When Leslie told him that she was searching for her biological mother, the man dug into his records from ‘74 and came up with Leslie’s grandmother’s name — Joyce Wall.

Yet she couldn’t find Joyce Wall or Beth Wall in Alabama.

“Now what do I do?” Leslie remembers asking herself.

What she did was broaden her search to the southeastern U.S. She found 50 Joyce Walls.

“I kind of had given up,” Leslie said. “I was nervous trying to call strangers and say, could you be my grandmother, do you have a daughter who had a child; I gave up for a few weeks due to the stress.”

Then, one night, Leslie made yet another call and asked for Joyce Wall. The person who answered the phone said Joyce Wall was asleep. Leslie asked the person if they knew Beth Wall? That’s my sister, the person said.

“At that point, I didn’t know what to say. I was hyperventilating,” Leslie recalls.

She asked for a number and got a telephone number in Pearlington, Miss., which is in coastal Hancock County, almost to the Louisiana line. When she called and asked for Beth Wall, the young man who answered the phone said the name was Beth Randall and his mother was in bed.

“I just panicked. Now I have a brother,” Leslie said in looking back to that night.

She hung up but called right back and asked to speak to Beth Randall. When Beth got on the phone, Leslie identified herself and said she was born March 3, 1974, in Montgomery.

“She started screaming and I heard people hollering and doors slamming. I thought what have I done,” Leslie said.

As Leslie puts it, that night Beth “crawled into a closet” to talk to her. While her husband knew about the baby given up for adoption in 1974, Beth’s two sons did not at that point in time.

“I’ve been waiting so long to hear from you. I was afraid you didn’t know,” is what Leslie recalls her bio-mom saying over the phone that night.

Leslie estimates it was a six-month process in 2001 to find her bio-mom. She considers Richard and Barbara Hoffman of Elberta, the couple that adopted her, her real parents.

“My mom and Beth get along real well,” Leslie said, noting Beth’s family spent time over here in the aftermath of Katrina.

Leslie recalls the first time she met Beth in Gulfport, Miss.

“We looked identical — the eyes, the mannerisms, except she has red hair.”

The Hoffmans raised Leslie as a Catholic, which is what Beth is. And Leslie said she better understands today why dressing up at Halloween and Mardi Gras has always appealed to her. They appeal to her “big sister” as well.