It was a meeting nearly 70 years in the making.
Steve Nemeth and Cindy Pearce shared their first hug Monday at McCarran International Airport.
"Is that you?" Nemeth said. "You're little, I'm not tall but you are little.”
The first meeting of the 68-year-old sister and her 71-year-old brother came just two months after Nemeth tracked his sister down.
The Ohio native placed a call to the Moapa Valley mortuary that handled his birth mother’s burial.
An employee there was able to track down Pearce.
"I said, ‘Tell her this. Tell her that. Tell her who our grandparents are and tell her who I am," Nemeth said.
Pearce said she was initially skeptical of the call thinking it was a scam, but quickly called Nemeth back.
"It was 37 minutes it took me to call him," Pearce said.
The 68-year-old Moapa resident was careful not to offer any information, but says Nemeth quickly offered up plenty of proof that convinced her that he was in fact the brother she didn’t know about.
"He sent me his adoption file, and everything was in place," Pearce said. "Of course my mom's name was in the file. It was on the birth certificate."
Pearce said her mother died 10 years ago, but had never mentioned she had given a child up for adoption.
Nemeth learned he was adopted when he was in his 30s, but didn’t start looking for his birth family until recently after his parents passed away.
He says he considers Pearce his second family and has talked to her almost daily since finding her. He is now spending nine days with Pearce and her husband in Southern Nevada to get to know them.
"She's been around. I've been around. We've just never been around together," Nemeth said.
The 71-year-old says he talked with his other sister before meeting with Pearce.
During his time here, Nemeth and Pearce plan to visit their mother’s grave site and thank the mortuary employee who made the connection.
