Clovis native looking for missing piece

Teresa Stewart-Nash said she has no real expectations for success. But she's convinced she has a long-lost sibling and she's trying to make a connection.

"When you find out a piece of you is missing, you want to find that piece," she said.

The story began in Clovis, probably in 1957. Teresa was 5, so she's had to craft the details from second-hand accounts, rumors and vague memories.

"As my mom told it, a man came to our house and said he was Rosie's father. He said there (was) a baby and my father (was) the culprit. He wanted to know what my father's intentions were."

A few days after that, Ruth Stewart told her children years later, the family packed up and left Clovis in a hurry. They went to North Carolina and never returned. Most of their belongings were left in Clovis.

Rosie - Ruth and Sloan Stewart told their children - worked with Sloan at the Clovis rail yards.

Nash, 64, who now lives in Toney, Alabama, and grew up with eight other siblings, said she has never been able to learn Rosie's last name.

The search for Rosie's baby began when the story "slipped out" in the early 1990s, Nash said. Her parents have both died - Sloan in 2009, Ruth in 2014 - but interest in the story about the child lives on. Family members have searched ancestry and adoption websites for clues. The most recent interest was spurred after family members submitted DNA samples to a websites hoping to find a match.

No luck so far.

Here's what Nash knows, or thinks she knows:

The encounter her mother had with Rosie's father probably occurred in the summer of 1957, maybe later. She's not sure if Rosie had already had the baby or had recently learned she was pregnant.

Nash wonders if neighbors or friends from Clovis might know something about the mysterious child.

She remembers a family named Davis was friends with hers. City records from 1955 through 1959 show Walter Davis lived at 909 West Street. The Stewarts lived at 1007 West Street, a city directory shows, though a family photo from that time shows a house number as 1009.

Nash said she remembers Darlene Davis, who was about 17 in 1957, was a sometimes baby sitter.

Nash said she and her siblings have exhausted their ideas for finding the brother or sister they've never known. Their best hope is that someone in Clovis can help.

"At this point, I am very discouraged," she said. "I think our hope lies in our sibling's desire to find us. Hopefully they were given the Stewart name.

"Everyone on our street knew of our last name and that we were going to our family home in North Carolina. We had neighbors, who probably knew Rosie, as I heard she came to our house and would hang out with the young people."

Rosie's baby would be about 60 today.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Anyone with information about Rosie or her child may contact him at: [email protected]