From Russia with love — sisters are reunited

Russian adoption officials once told John and Amy Simmons that taking in two teenage sisters who had been pulled from an abusive home would be a waste of the couple's time because the girls were older. The Simmonses were advised they might want to adopt children who were younger and more beautiful.

But a year ago the Simmonses had adopted the girls' younger sisters. And Amy Simmons had something else motivating her to bring the four sisters together on Tuesday.

"I grew up in an abusive home," Simmons said from her residence in Francis, east of Park City.

Leaving a younger sister behind, Simmons, now 38, says she fled physical, mental and sexual abuse at age 15 and remained in state custody until she was 18.

"For me to be able to have their family — what's left of it that can be saved — to be together means a lot to me," she said. "For them to be able to have each other.... I can't put words to that."

The older sisters from Vladivostok, Russia — ages 14 and 15 — met their two younger siblings, ages 4 and 6, for the first time Tuesday after months of adoption proceedings that, for all four girls, cost at least $40,000. The older girls were pulled from their abusive home before the other two children were born. The abuse continued, and authorities also removed the younger children from the home.

The hardest part in adopting the four sisters was telling the older ones that the family could not adopt a fifth sister, who is about 12 years old. She has a severe mental disability and remains institutionalized in Russia.

One of the first changes for the older girls has been their names: Svieta is now Emily, and Natasha has become Annalise. Both kept their Russian names as middle names.

"We wanted them to feel American," said John Simmons, 42. "They were all for that. They both wanted American names."

That makes nine children for the Simmons family, including three teenage biological siblings, a boy with Down syndrome they adopted as a baby in Las Vegas and a young Russian boy who is not related to the sisters.

For now, it's two children per bedroom in the Simmonses' 3,500-square-foot home, which has a full basement. But the Simmonses are building a 13,000-square-foot house near Kamas.

"I've been very fortunate," said John Simmons, who is president of a small family-owned business that builds pumps for the semiconductor industry.

Simmons, who describes himself as a calculating person, said anyone who knows his family isn't worried whether they can handle a packed house.

"We didn't go into this blind," he said. "We said, 'What's our family capable of? Can we do this?'

"This wasn't about saving the world," Simmons added. "It was about keeping biological siblings together."