Barbara Lane spent more than 40 years searching for her 10 sisters after they were abandoned by their mother without heating or water in the middle of winter, taking her youngest child who was seven months old with her.

The now 72-year-old said she and eight of her sisters were left alone for three days in their 'cold' apartment in the St. Louis projects in December 1954 until neighbors realized the children had been left to fend for themselves. 

At the time, Barbara was just three years old. (More on Daily Mail)

Eleven sisters who were separated as kids when their biological family fell apart spent 43 years searching for each other. It wasn’t until they reunited that they learned the extent of the horrors they'd each suffered, but, in sharing their pain, they formed a sibling bond stronger than ever.

Reverend Barbara Lane, the ninth of 11 sisters, is a child abuse survivor and ministerial counselor living in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, with her husband, James.

“One way or another, our mother abandoned us,” Barbara told The Epoch Times. “As the story goes, she had kicked our father out for various reasons, and then she ran away with a boyfriend. It was December in St. Louis, and it was a particularly cold December. ... She turned off the heat and sold all the furniture, and just left us. (More on the Epoch TImes)

I spent nine months in an orphanage before I was placed into a foster home along with one of my sisters, Kay. Even though the time spent there was brief, I held tight to the memories we created: stormy Midwestern nights when I would get into my sister Bobby's cot for safety and comfort.

The twins, Mickey and Vickey, eating the food I didn't like right off my tray so that I wouldn't have to spend the night in the dark in the orphanage's cafeteria—till I ate every bite.

Walking down the long halls of the dormitory while holding hands with Kay, the sister I grew up with. Heading toward the little chapel where I would delight in the nun's chanting and singing while feeling my body sway in rhythm with them. (More on Newsweek)

Barbara Lane's book, ‘Broken Water,’ documents abuse and survival amid her search for her sisters after being placed in foster care as a child

In 1954, when she was about three years old, Barbara Lane and her five sisters — Kay, Bobby, Mickey, Vickey, and Annie — were abandoned in their apartment by their mother and sent to St. Dominic's Orphanage in St. Louis.

At the time, Barbara's two eldest sisters, Ruth and Ellen, were married and living somewhere else while another sister, Bernie, wasn't present when social workers showed up. Barbara later found out that her mother — who took Barbara’s other younger sister, Pam, with her when she left — bore another child named Cindy after her six daughters were placed in the orphanage.

As Barbara recalls today, her experience at the orphanage was decent because her sisters were with her, although she would later learn that those siblings experienced abuse in their lives. 

The time the six Lane sisters spent together at the orphanage would be short-lived, however, as they were soon separated from each other to live with their respective foster families. It was one of the harrowing experiences that Barbara describes in her book Broken Water, which covers her separation and eventual reunion with her sisters 43 years later.

“I remember watching my sisters leave and that was my trauma,” Barbara tells PEOPLE of the separation. “I didn't knew where they were going, I just know they didn't come back.”

After the orphanage, Barbara and Kay were placed together as foster children with a man, whom Barbara claims had ties to organized crime, and his wife. The couple later adopted the two children when they turned 16.

“The day we were placed in that home, I knew something wasn't right,” Barbara says. (More on People.com) by David Chiu