REUNION TO END SISTERS' 37-YEAR SEPARATION.

Byline: Jeff Munson Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

She just disappeared.

That is what Helen Helgesson and Ronda Watson remember most about their sister, Janet.

``We knew she had a lot on her mind and she was confused but we never thought she would leave,'' recalled Helgesson, 59, about an afternoon in May 1959 when she learned Janet Dumont - the wife of a Eureka sawmill operator and the mother of two children - left without telling anyone.

Helgesson, a retired cook in Redding, recalled that Dumont was intimidated by her first husband, Clifton, and that they had marital problems.

The two agreed to divorce and share the duties of raising their two small children, Clifton Jr. and Marilyn, said Watson, 55, a cook at the Redding Moose Lodge.

But that never happened.

Their sister packed up and left without leaving a forwarding address.

Watson said Janet was sensitive, thoughtful and close to the family. That's why it is still hard for the sisters to understand her disappearance.

``There are so many things that we don't know and reasons why these things happened that are hard to understand,'' said Helgesson.

On Monday, some 37 years later, the three sisters will reunite in Redding after spending much of their lives apart.

They have Dumont's daughter from a second marriage, Cheryll Ryan, to thank for the reunion. Ryan's five-year crusade to find her mother's roots and her half-sister, Marilyn, ended in May when she located her relatives in Redding.

Ryan, 35, and her mother work as food servers at a small cafe in Blaine, Wash., near the Canadian border. She said the Redding visit would help her mother heal old wounds in her life.

``Life is too short and I thought, you know, there are some broken ends in our lives that have to come full circle,'' Ryan said Thursday from Washington.

Dumont, her daughter and the owner of the cafe, Connie Thiboeaux, will drive from Blaine for Monday's reunion in Redding at Helgesson's home.

The three sisters have spoken by telephone since May but have saved the deeper and more burning questions for Monday's meeting. Although both Redding sisters say they have forgiven Janet, they also want to know why the separation happened.

``There are things we can't talk about over the phone that I have to know,'' Watson said. ``I need to know why all these things happened but I need to see her face to face first.''

Ryan said her mother, who prefers not to talk about her first marriage, left her husband in 1959 because of his drinking but intended to return for her children. When Dumont tried to contact her children, her husband threatened to call the police, Ryan said.

Dumont said she lived in Eureka for two months after she divorced her husband and then moved to Washington. She married a man she said was physically and mentally abusive to her until the day she left him in 1980. The couple had one child - Cheryll.

While they were married, Dumont's second husband told her she would never be allowed to see her children or her family in California again.

``He told her that part of her life was over and that if she tried to make contact with them, he would kill her,'' Ryan said of her father.

The Redding sisters had no idea. Dumont's disappearance left the Eureka family stunned. In 1963 the sisters hired a private detective to find Dumont. Two years later, with a drained bank account, the family ended the search.

``We thought she was dead,'' said Watson. ``We finally gave up. We never forgot about her. We just lost our hope.''

As Ryan grew older, she thought more and more about the family she never met. When her father died in 1991, she began a search for her sister and brother.

Dumont said she lived in fear of her husband and that is why she never made contact with her family.

``I never stopped loving or caring about my children or my sisters,'' said Dumont, 57. ``I was just so afraid of him (her second husband).''

The search for Dumont's family ended in May when Ryan found her half-sister, Marilyn Tanner, living in Speculator, N.Y. The three united within two weeks in Ferndale, Wash.

Ryan found her half-sister after a telephone operator in New York agreed to look for her phone number in rural areas of the state where Dumont's father grew up. The operator found the names of distant relatives of Dumont's father. Ryan made several telephone calls until she learned Dumont's father, who died in 1991, had lived in Redding.

Ryan found an obituary and contacted the funeral home that handled his services. The mortuary gave Ryan the names of the man's daughters, Watson and Helgesson.

Dumont, who is remarried and lives in Blaine, said she never thought she would see her family again and wants to develop a close relationship with them.

``I wanted this to come true and now it is,'' she said.