On the other side of the Atlantic, Wilson started her search for her son as soon as his 18th birthday had passed – but her inquiries didn’t begin in earnest until a bout with breast cancer few years ago.

She turned the search over to her eldest daughter, and her name went into a registry.

“I told (my daughter) that if anything were to happen to me, to find her brother,” Wilson said.

By this time, Stephen had begun the search for his birth mother, and in December, 2014, he connected with his half-sister.

The siblings talked for about a month, but Wilson wasn’t let in on the secret until she was invited to brunch with her four daughters and their partners in January, 2015. Because of her own battle with breast cancer, Wilson feared her daughter was breaking the news that she, too, had been given the same diagnosis.

“You never get together with four daughters in one place, and the son-in-laws,” Wilson said.

Instead, her daughter gave her a piece of paper — it was a picture of Vogt’s as a baby, and Wilson knew it was her son.

“It was a shock. I couldn’t wait to get out of (the restaurant) … I wanted to get on a plane and go and visit him,” she said.

Her daughters talked her out of it, and instead Wilson connected with Vogt via Skype, answering his many questions — once they got over the language barrier. Vogt is still working on his English.

This summer, Wilson went to Germany to meet Vogt in person — along with his wife, Susan, daughter Frances, and son Andrew.

“They are awesome – the most wonderful family that I could ever have,” Wilson said. “I’m so thankful for the way his family has raised him, his family is so close … My grandson is amazing, my granddaughter is just as amazing, (and) his wife is the most (amazing) because she has stuck by him, whatever he’s been going through.”

On Sunday, before going into Rolph’s home and clutching an orchid he had brought for his grandma, Vogt admitted to butterflies.

“I was shocked, in a good way,” he said of finding his birth mother. “The only information I had was the name (Wilson) gave me.”

As Wilson’s son met his grandmother – her mother – she recalled her late father’s parting words encouraging her to search for Vogt.

“If my dad was alive today, he would have been the first one on the plane to Berlin. When he passed away, that was the (last) thing he told me was, ‘you find your son’,” Wilson said.

Rolph couldn’t believe how much Vogt resembled her youngest son, Max.

“He looks like my youngest son, height and everything,” Rolph said. “At 92 years of age, I never expected to find him.”