Natalie Cole’s Sister & Niece Reunited As Shocking Family Secret Surfaced
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“I pull the car screeching to the curb as I realize that the voice is mine. My head is shaking. ‘No!’ I’m now yelling. ‘No-no-no!’ I cup my hands over my mouth to stifle my cries as I struggle to fit the pieces together and, simultaneously, push them away.
“I can’t be right. This can’t be true . . . this can’t be happening.”
“I know this family!”
She not only knew them, but she knew them well.
During her undergraduate years at Smith College she had become close friends with a woman at Amherst College, introduced by their boyfriends. Timolin Cole (Natalie Cole’s younger sister) had always tried to play down the advantages she enjoyed as a result of their privileged backgrounds. Nevertheless, she drove a new BMW and had a “golden Hollywood vibe” that stood out.
Though Timoline was extremely discreet about her famous family, in the course of their 20-year friendship Clarke had become aware that she had a much older sister Carole — who acted on TV in “Sanford and Son” and movies like “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.” She had also once given up a baby.
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Carole herself had been adopted after her mother, Maria’s sister, had died young. Maria hadn’t wanted to take the child in, but Nat had insisted. Later, Nat had visited Carole at the Washington Square Park home and promised she’d never have to give up another baby. Maria never made an appearance.
Carole had grown up close to her younger sister Natalie, who went on to become a major star.
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Timolin later admitted that she suspected the truth about Clarke and had confided in her own mother, who had kept what she knew from Carole. Clarke later reached out to her friend, Timolin for Carole’s number. Then she made the call.
“My name is Caroline Clarke. I was born on Christmas Day in 1964 in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and I was adopted by a wonderful family,” she started off.
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“If none of this means anything to you, or if you don’t want me to continue, I’ll . . .”
Carole interrupted. “This means everything to me,” Carole exhaled, before describing the pain that had never eased after unwillingly giving up her daughter.
Mother and daughter had seven years together before Carole died of cancer in 2009. At the end, Clarke’s aunt Natalie called, urging her to come fast, saying, “She’s waiting for you, honey. Get here.” Clarke writes that she actually felt her mother’s passing while on the plane. She glanced at her watch in that moment, and the timing was later confirmed.
There were ups and downs in their relationship, and disclosures. Her mother, Carole, told her that her biological father was a white Jewish man she met in college and never told about the pregnancy. While her adopted parents knew this fact, they lied and told her that her biological father was black. While Clarke was at first furious, she accepted that her parents wanted to spare her the stigma of being raised biracial in a more punishing era.
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The love Carole and Caroline felt for each other saw them through. Perhaps the most moving, magical moment of all came early when Carole, who ran King Cole Productions throughout her life, welcomed her daughter and her still young family into her home in Tarzana, Calif.
There was a party attended not only by Carole’s two grown sons but the extended Cole family and friends. As the day-long affair faded to a close, she and her children were presented with a cake decorated with their picture.
At that moment, her uncle, Nat’s baby brother, the jazz musician, Freddie Cole, stepped to her side and began to sing in a voice eerily like his brother’s, “Welcome home, welcome home, we’ve been waiting for you…”
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Source: nydailynews.com
