Kei LaFleur has a story behind the name she grew up with, and she says that story has given her much to be thankful for.

Born in fall 1954 to, she believes, a Japanese mother and American father, she was named Keiko and put in the care of the Elizabeth Saunders Home, an Episcopalian orphanage in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture.

She was adopted six months later by the Wardens, an American military family stationed near Tokyo, renamed Elizabeth after the home, and given "Kei" from Keiko as a middle name — Elizabeth Kei Warden.