They say everything that comes out of a bakery is sweet, but this story didn’t start out all that sweet for Vamarr Hunter. In fact, he had a pretty challenging childhood, growing up at the hands of an abusive mother, who at the time had undiagnosed mental and emotional issues. Vamarr’s saving grace was his loving and devoted aunts and uncles who gave him the love and guidance he needed to experience a wholesome, healthy and loving childhood. “I was surrounded by love,” he says, “I had great uncles and aunties, even though my relationship with my mother was garbage.”
When he was thirty-five years old, his mother confirmed what he always believed in his heart. He was indeed adopted. “I had already concluded that there was no way I could be her kid. I just couldn’t imagine anyone treating their child that way.”
After learning he was adopted, Vamarr says he was even more upset. “She didn’t give birth to me, so she willingly brought me into a situation to do harm,” he says, “And the last thing I said to her was ‘I wish you would have left me where the hell I was.’ It was that type of interaction.”
Vamarr didn’t try to search for his birth mother at first. He says that he really didn’t have any expectations of ever finding his biological parents. “I was just going through life,” he says, “I’ve got four kids, so my main thing is to make sure that I’m involved in their lives and to try to be the best father that I could be.” He just went on living his life, spending time with his children, frequenting the places he loved best. One of his favorite spots was Give Me Some Sugah Bakery. He and his then fiancé, Megan, loved spending time there, enjoying the delicious bakery goods, like their signature potato chip cookies, and talking to the owner, Miss Lenore. “I felt a special connection to that bakery that I couldn’t explain,” he says.
On one occasion, Vamarr’s Aunt Sheila gave him a DNA kit. He registered it and sent a sample to the lab, and thought no more about it until a year and a half later. “I was at home watching TV when this story comes on about a woman looking for her child who was abducted in 1974. As I watched it, I wondered if I was stolen from a hospital, but I wasn’t thinking about anything else beyond that.” When the program was over, he received a phone call from his friend, Denise, who was watching the same show and thought about his situation.
She suggested that he call the number they had given. “What makes it so amazing is I usually take what this particular friend says with a grain of salt,” he says, “but this time I said OK, and I called and spoke with a young lady named Brenda who took it as far as she could and then put me in touch with Gabriella Vargas, a forensic specialist.” Vargas explained to him that she usually only dealt with dead people, but since Brenda had been so passionate about his case, she would see what she could do. About a week or two later, she phoned him and said she had located his biological mother who would be contacting him.
When the call came, Give Me Some Sugah showed up on his caller ID. That’s when he realized that his biological mother was Miss Lenore, the owner of the bakery in his neighborhood that he had been frequenting for fourteen years. That’s when Miss Lenore realized that one of her favorite customers was the son she gave up for adoption when she was seventeen years old. “I understood that it was rough for a seventeen-year-old to have a kid in the 70’s, and I can only imagine what it meant, at that age, her wanting to go to school and do things with her life, and from what I can see, she did well in her life.”
Mother and son were overjoyed to find each other, and they quickly bonded. Lenore Lindsey, has one daughter, Rachel, who lives in Taiwan. “Rachel and I have a relationship,” he says, “We talk, but by her being so far away of course it’s not as tight as we would like but we’re getting to know each other.”
When he reunited with his mother, she was having health challenges, so he went to school to learn the baking business, and eventually quit his job to help with the bakery full-time. Miss Lenore’s health has improved. “She’s still heavily involved in the bakery,” he says, “And my role is basically to take care of the heavy lifting.”
“My mother and I are quite similar in our love for our people and for our neighborhood,” he says, “and I admire the way she treats people and how she contributes to the neighborhood and how she cares.”
As for the future of the bakery, he says, “Her vision for this place is also my vision, and the only thing I want to do is to make sure that we keep it stabilized and profitable and beneficial for the neighborhood and for our family legacy. That’s very important to me.”
