Terry Jones searched for decades — and the world over — for a precious part of her life that she worried would be lost to time. At 76, Jones feared she would never know what happened to her younger sister, Masami Grey, who she last saw in a Japanese orphanage.
Their mother had abandoned the girls when they were four and one in an Osaka park in the 1940s. When Jones was adopted by an American military family, she lost touch with Grey. Thoughts of her sister and where she might be continued to haunt her as she raised her own children on American soil in Georgia.
Jones’ knowledge of Grey was limited: She knew their mother was Japanese and that their father was an African American soldier.
About 15 years ago, Jones began earnestly looking for Grey, armed with the only clues she had: her adoption documents written in Japanese. A breakthrough came in October 2022 when her daughter who worked for an airline bought her a ticket to travel to Japan for her birthday with the hopes she could further track her roots — kicking off an international investigation that brought Jones closer, then closer to solving the mystery of what became of her sister.
At her hotel in Japan, Jones enlisted the staff’s help in locating the government office where family records are kept, which still had the sisters’ adoption records, including the surname of the U.S. family that adopted Masami — Grey.
Her financial resources limited, Jones and her adult children set to work, scouring the internet for more leads until they located Grey's adoptive brother. Now in his 70s, he had enlisted in the military when he was 18 and lost touch with Grey but told Jones that she was disabled and was moved into a residential placement in New Jersey where they had lived all along.
More research yielded that Grey, 72, had been living in a care facility in Somerset County for close to a decade as a ward of the state. Jones connected with Grey's appointed guardian and began flying regularly from Georgia to New Jersey to visit her sister, who is non-verbal, deaf and required care.
Then Jones learned a heartbreaking fact from the staff: She was the first family member to visit her sister since she moved in.
She began calling attorneys to help her obtain guardianship of Grey and allow her to move her sister to Georgia — but the firms would either not take her case or quoted her fees she could not afford.
Then, in November 2023, Joanna Adu, a partner at Lyons & Associates in Somerville, who specializes in guardianship cases, picked up Jones’ call, changing the sisters’ lives forever.
Initially, Adu, too, quoted Jones as a retainer. “I knew this would not be a standard guardianship process, and I wasn’t sure how much time it would take. We did not know whether Grey's guardianship was in Somerset County or elsewhere, because we didn’t know where she lived previously,” Adu says. “And I could not identify a docket or court number since guardianships are presumptively confidential.”
But Jones, unsure if she could afford the retainer, asked for time to decide.
That night, Adu, a parent of a teenager with autism, couldn’t stop thinking about the sisters. “It was such a compelling story, and I felt I could definitely help. There were so many connections we shared: I also am African American and Japanese and have a family member with a disability. I understand how expensive it would have been for Terry to get guardianship of her sister. Adding to that, caring for her sister for the rest of her life would be a financial endeavor in and of itself,” she says.
Adu decided she would help Jones navigate the legal process of transferring Grey’s guardianship from the state to her as well as to obtain court approval for her to relocate her sister to Georgia — at no cost to Jones. “I called Terry and told her I was going to take on her case pro bono, and she burst into tears,” Adu says.
The work was painstaking. Adu investigated how to structure the application, gathering proof to make a case for the court to grant Jones guardianship. The firm rallied around the cause, with associates and paralegals contributing their skills — including an associate’s friend who was a native Japanese speaker who volunteered to translate the adoption documents for the court
“It was really a Herculean effort on the part of the team,” says managing partner Terry Lyons. “It was spectacular.”
After the court accepted the application, the judge appointed an attorney to do due diligence to determine why Jones wanted guardianship. “The attorney met Masami at the facility and asked Terry to fly to New Jersey so he could see the dynamics between the sisters,” Adu says. “After the meeting, he called me and told me how moved he was by their relationship. He confirmed that Grey knew who Terry was and that although she liked where she was living, she wanted to live with her sister in Georgia.”
The hearing was held in June 2024, during which the attorney explained the basis for his support of granting Jones’ application for guardianship and requested that the court grant permission for Grey to move to Georgia as soon as possible.
The judge, likewise moved by the story, granted Jones’ application. Two days later, Grey flew to Georgia with Jones.
“What touched my heart during my initial conversation with Terry was when she said she had been wondering about her sister her whole life and looking for her. And now that they were both in their 70s, she really just wanted to spend the last chapter of their lives together,” Adu says.
Today, the sisters share simple pleasures, like getting manicures, along with more momentous moments: Grey recently took her first hot air balloon ride. “Freedom to be in the community is something that most people take for granted,” Adu says. “It was wonderful to see someone who was a ward of the state — forgotten for decades — being taken in and loved by a family who gives her the attention that she deserves.”
Lyons & Associates, PC
Address: Hamon Building - 76 E Main St 2nd Floor, Somerville
Phone: (908) 923-3823
Website: www.lyonspc.com