‘Little Miss X,’ who was abandoned in Hampton Roads, finds her birth family after 70 years

Allison Suzanne Donithan drove from Virginia Beach to Cape Charles one sunny day in October 2019.

At the same time, Bridget Buckaloo was driving from Lewes, Delaware, to Cape Charles.

They met at a restaurant and shared a “magical embrace,” Buckaloo remembered.

After decades of not knowing the other existed, the two learned they were half-sisters and decided to meet. They toasted with champagne to the “discovery.”

Donithan, 71, made local headlines in August 1952 when she was found in a driveway in an area of what is now Chesapeake.

The Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch showed a picture of a baby, “Little Miss X,” in a student nurse’s arms, with the headline “Deserted Babe’s Parents Sought.” She had been found with a pile of clothes, bedding, extra diapers and formula.

Authorities never found her birth parents. She was eventually adopted by Guy and Pauline Donithan. They lived in Suffolk and had cows and gardens. Pauline could can and cook anything, Donithan said, and her adoptive mother’s sense of tradition influences Donithan’s home and values today.

Donithan — then going by her adoptive name, Barbara — grew up with an older sister, Nancy McDonald. She was Nancy’s baby doll, and Nancy would teach her about makeup, hair and all things feminine.

In 2000, McDonald developed leukemia. Donithan wanted to donate bone marrow, but Nancy told her she would not likely be a match. Nancy had been also “living my lie,” Donithan learned, and had known that her “baby doll” had been adopted. Nancy died soon after.

Donithan was 47.

It had been a shock. Donithan had questions. What was her name before “Barbara?” When was her true birthday? She had grown up in this traditional, hardworking family but had felt out of place as an artistic and opinionated child, always writing poetry and playing the piano.

“I never felt authentic,” Donithan said. “I never felt happy with myself, so self-critical, because I always felt like I didn’t fit in wherever I was.”

Finding her birth family took years. When she took an ancestry DNA test in 2019, she found answers.

Several members of her birth family had taken the same test and Donithan pieced together her family tree. She found her birth mother’s name, as well as many aunts and cousins, many of whom lived in Delaware. She reached out to those she could find and connected with an aunt. She learned she had a younger half-sister.

Buckaloo never knew she had a sister. She grew up an only child until the day her aunt called her with the news.

“There was no hesitation,” Buckaloo said. “I was like, ‘I gotta know. I need to connect.’”

The aunt connected the two. First, it was a phone call. Donithan and Buckaloo talked about their lives and how they had been separated. They made plans to meet at about the halfway mark in Cape Charles.

During that first meeting, Donithan noted their similarities, the way they laughed and held their heads. Buckaloo was stunned by how much her older sister looked like their grandmother.

Not long after they met, Buckaloo hosted a party in Delaware to celebrate. Donithan was introduced to about a dozen cousins, aunts and others. They bonded while sharing stories about their childhoods.

Donithan learned that this family was outgoing, artistic and expressive. She came from a line of musicians, and the way she had picked up piano made sense. She loves and respects her adoptive family, but being accepted into this newfound family was “just delicious beyond description.”

One of Donithan’s aunts was the first to call her “Allison,” the name given to her at birth. Something about it clicked.

“I like it. I am Allison,” Donithan said with a wide smile.

“Barbara” means “stranger” in Greek, and represented the disconnect Donithan felt from her sense of self.

Donithan met her birth mother and is “comforted” to know that she is doing well. Her father had died years before.

She did not have much keeping her in Virginia Beach as her adoptive parents had died years ago. In February 2020, Donithan moved to Milton, Delaware. Since then, she has become known as “The Happiest Girl in Delaware” — Buckaloo even had a shirt made for her that says so — surrounded by family with answers to questions that had been nagging her since she learned she was adopted.

Donithan is working on a book to share her story. It is one with many twists and turns, hardships, but also love and joy. She hopes her story will “comfort people who are suffering because of life’s circumstances.”

Because Donithan was “Little Miss X,” a baby all alone. Now she is Allison, who found a way home.

Kelsey Kendall, kelsey.kendall@virginiamedia.com