PRESQUE ISLE — Two Aroostook County sisters were reunited Wednesday after a 17-year separation and discovered they have the same walk, laugh and sense of humor, use similar expressions and like mush-rooms.

The sisters, Diane (Churchill) Pendexter, 21, formerly of Washburn, and Haley Pelletier, 18, of Fort Fairfield, said they have everything in common — especially their love for the parents who adopted them and raised them as only children.

In their excitement about their new-found relationship, the sisters were saddened to think of the years lost to them following their adoptions and of their impending separation.

On Monday, Pelletier, who graduated from high school in June, will leave for training in the Army at Fort Jackson, S.C.

Pendexter, whose husband, Trevor, is an Army paratrooper and heavy equipment mechanic serving in Saudi Arabia, had been living at Fort Bragg, N.C., but returned to Washburn in October to her mother’s house to await the November birth of her son at Loring AFB.

The girls, adopted from a foster home in the St. John Valley, said they are angry that their biological mother allowed them to be separated.

Pelletier said she had always known that she was adopted by Dick and Andrea Pelletier at the age of 21 months. When she was 18 years old, her mother gave her additional information about her family, including the fact that she had a sister and brother.

Last summer she enlisted the aid of her uncle, Lawrence Ayoob, an attorney in Fort Fairfield, to help her find her sister.

“Last Monday, the judge of probate called me and said I had a sister named Diane and that she wanted to meet me,” Haley said Friday. The meeting was set for Wednesday at 1 p.m.

“It was God’s timing that Diane was in Washburn this week,” said Diane’s mother, Mavis Churchill, a school teacher.

Pendexter said her 1974 adoption, when she was 4 years old, was one of the first in the state involving a single adult. She remembered taking care of her little sister and had “instant recognition” when an aged photo of the youngest sibling was shown at the reunion.

On Friday, Churchill recalled seeing the two youngsters for the first time at the foster home when she was introduced to Diane.

“Haley came toddling towards me with her little arms lifted up and I would have taken them both, but there was a stipulation that the two youngest children were to be raised in a Catholic home,” said Churchill, who is a Baptist.

“I was thrilled,” Churchill said about the call made to her on Monday concerning the sisters’ relationship. “They’ve had a few days before Haley has to leave.”

The Pelletiers also have embraced their daughter’s new-found family. “It’s just more people to love,” they said. Pelletier is an insurance salesman and his wife is a beautician and works in the local school lunch program.