A father never forgets the first time he holds his daughter and in Bubba Stewart's case, that opportunity came 47-years after his daughter Melissa Jo Wissner was born.
Last Wednesday she flew in from her home in New Jersey and visited Stewart at his workplace, the Market Basket in Orange. Stewart's wife Sally arranged the entire meeting. "She said I found our daughter and she wants to be a part of our life," said Stewart.
{"author_name":"Lance Edwards","author_url":"https://www.facebook.com/LanceEdwards12News/","provider_url":"https://www.facebook.com","provider_name":"Facebook","success":true,"height":281,"html":"&#lt;div id=\"fb-root\"&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;\n&#lt;script&#gt;(function(d, s, id) {\n var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n js.src = \"//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3\";\n fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));&#lt;/script&#gt;&#lt;div class=\"fb-video\" data-href=\"https://www.facebook.com/LanceEdwards12News/videos/613750155495039/\"&#gt;&#lt;blockquote cite=\"https://www.facebook.com/LanceEdwards12News/videos/613750155495039/\" class=\"fb-xfbml-parse-ignore\"&#gt;&#lt;a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/LanceEdwards12News/videos/613750155495039/\"&#gt;Father meets his daughter for the first time&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;p&#gt;47 YEARS OF HOPE - Back in 1969, Bubba Stewart knew his daughter, Melissa Jo Wissner was born. But he had never met her until she made a surprise visit to his workplace in Orange last week. I'll have the complete story tonight at 6, only on 12 News.&#lt;/p&#gt;Posted by &#lt;a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/LanceEdwards12News/\"&#gt;Lance Edwards&#lt;/a&#gt; on Monday, March 27, 2017&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;","type":"video","version":"1.0","url":"https://www.facebook.com/LanceEdwards12News/videos/613750155495039/","width":500}
The roads travelled by Sally and Bubba are far from smooth. They were high school sweethearts back when Sally was 15-years old, but there lives parted ways before Melissa was even born. "I had to give my daughter up for adoption and could no longer see her father," said Sally.
According to Bubba, "It was a nightmare because we had planned to get married after high school." That never happened.
Sally held Melissa Jo for just one day and then she was adopted by a family that eventually left Texas. Forty-five years later, a facebook message connected Wissner and her biological mother for the second time.
Wissner described the message, "Hi my name is David Burman, my mom dropped a bomb on us years ago that I had a half sister and I think that might be you."
Eventually the two talked on the phone and that fall, Wissner made the trip to Southeast Texas, meeting her birth mom's entire family, except Bubba.
Shortly after that, Sally took a trip to the east coast to visit Wissner. Eventually, after discussing medical histories and talking about the past, Wissner as Sally if she could connect with Bubba. He was in Dallas, but soon he returned to Orange and got married to Sally.
Over the last year, father and daughter have seen each other through applications like Facetime, but until Wednesday, they'd never met.
"I got to touch my baby, I didn't ever know I was going to be able to do that," said Bubba. "There's only one person around that could do that and that's God almighty Father up there, that can put our family together, and if you don't believe, believe now."