Two long lost sisters have been reunited in the United States after they met by chance in university.
Lizzie Valverde, 35, and Katy Olson, 34, were strangers when they met two years ago at a creative writing class at Columbia University in New York.
As the students introduced themselves on their first day of class, Ms Olson realised that Ms Valverde’s background sounded similar to her own.
“We were going around the table and Lizzie said something about being adopted. There were just a couple of details that all started to add up. The light bulb went off,” said Ms Olson.
She approached Ms Valverde after the class, and the pair realised that they were siblings.
Their mother, Leslie Parker, placed them for adoption in the early 1980s as she battled a drug addiction.
The sisters were adopted by separate families more than 30 years ago and Ms Valverde grew up in New Jersey while Ms Olson lived between Florida and Iowa.
Despite growing up in different parts of the country, the sisters’ lives mirror one another.
Both women dropped out of high school and returned to Columbia University to study creative writing as adults.
The sisters have since made up for lost time, with Ms Valverde saying, “it feels like a fairytale”.
Ms Valverde met her birth mother, who also shares a love of writing, for the first time last year.
The three women met for the first time yesterday at Ms Valverde’s graduation.
Ms Olson graduated last year and is currently studying for a master’s degree.
