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Posted September 16
Siblings Reunited After 34 Years - Thanks to PI
By Lisa J. Huriash South Florida Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE - He remembers how she helped with his homework and the way she devoured raw lemons for her skin.
That was 34 years ago, the last time Max Martin saw his only sister.
A family squabble separated them. After years of searching, they reconnected at an airport reunion Friday.
"I know it's you!" hollered Martin, 46, an antiques dealer who lives in Margate as his sister walked through the gate.
"I know it was you," replied Donna Martin Zimmer, 52.
"You look beautiful," said Martin, as Zimmer sobbed during their embrace.
"My brother still looks the same," she said, "although he's taller and has no hair."
Martin didn't meet his sister, Donna, until he was 12. He learned he had a sister when his father sat him down with his three brothers and confessed: He was married before, and his 17-year-old daughter was coming to live with them. Martin said he was "dumbfounded," but thrilled.
"They were so cute," Zimmer recalled in an interview last week, describing her new little brothers. "They were watching everything I did."
After just eight months, however, a tiff between the teenage girl and her father sent her packing.
"I was wild," Zimmer admits. "It was a butting of heads."
Martin didn't know where she went, but he never forgot her. About 16 years ago he decided to try to find her. He hired two private investigators but they came up empty.
He was about to quit when his 15-year-old daughter made a new friend. The friend's father, Steve Taylor, of Tamarac, came to the Martin house on Aug. 23 to see where his daughter was hanging out.
Turns out Taylor is a private investigator. The men started talking and Taylor promised he would crack the case.
"I've heard that before," Martin told him, but he agreed to another try.
Four days later, Taylor found an address for a Donna Martin in Jersey City, N.J. He searched for more and found five--Donna Martin had been married five times. Taylor had five possible phone numbers. On the second try, she answered the phone.
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