A Broken Tree Read online

  A Broken Tree

  A Broken Tree

  How DNA Exposed a

  Family's Secrets

  Stephen F. Anderson

  ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

  Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

  Published by Rowman & Littlefield

  An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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  www.rowman.com

  6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL

  Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  ISBN 9781538127421 (cloth : alk. paper)

  ISBN 9781538127438 (electronic)

  TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  An undertaking of this kind is no small effort. Without the help of several people, I never would have learned the truth about my family’s story.

  I would first like to thank my brother Tim. I have to say that if it wasn’t for Tim, this book may never have been written.

  As with all great adventures, you really need a traveling companion to make the adventure complete. Tim was that traveling companion. We bounced ideas back and forth constantly. Early on, I discovered that my way of dealing with every new bit of information we discovered was to talk about it, and talk I did. Tim patiently listened to me and offered excellent feedback to help keep me on track, and to keep me from driving everyone else crazy. Thanks for everything, Tim!

  Of course, I want to thank all of my brothers and sisters. Without them, there would never have been a story. They were supportive and willing to step into the unknown when it came time to have their DNA tested, not knowing what their DNA tests would reveal. Best of all, they showed the patience of Job when it came to tolerating my constant questions and need to talk things through. I am eternally grateful that we are family.

  I want to give a special thanks to my dear wife and my four children. My wife was always there to keep me grounded, continually reminding me that regardless of what I found in respect to my DNA, I was still the man she married, before any of this happened. She constantly assured me that she wouldn’t change a thing. My children loved hearing the constantly evolving stories that came with each new DNA test and interview. They all had a vested interest in my research, because my bloodline is their bloodline. They simply wanted to know the truth, and seemed to enjoy the journey. I appreciate my family’s loving support and their continued encouragement to see this through to the end.

  A special thanks goes to Jack Anderson of Andergene Labs. Without Jack, I doubt I would have found the answers to many of my questions. I appreciate the many recommendations he provided, and for his interest in seeing each new chapter of my family’s story play out. Jack, I think the story is finally over—at least for now. I’m sure there will eventually be more to come.

  I also want to thank the folks at AncestryDNA. Where Andergene Labs helped us discover who we were not related to, AncestryDNA and their remarkable database of information helped us discover all the people we really were related to. The folks at AncestryDNA really are bringing families together. I am extremely grateful for all their help.

  I am also very grateful for my agent, Veronica Park. When she got involved, things started happening, in a very good way. She knows her stuff.

  Thanks also to the good folks at Rowman & Littlefield. They made publishing this story so much easier than I ever dreamed possible. You folks are great. Thank you to Suzanne, Mary, and everyone else who helped to bring this book to fruition.

  Section 1

  The Stories

  Chapter 1

  My Family

  When I was a young boy, I loved watching Leave It to Beaver. Every day after school, I hurried home just so I could watch it before my dad turned on the evening news. I was fascinated by this show. June Cleaver was the perfect mother. I had never seen such perfection in a mother before—not in my mom, or any of my friends’ moms. Oh, how I wished I had June Cleaver for my mother. Her home was spotless in every way. Each night, Ward and the boys came home to a home-cooked meal, complete with dessert and a beautiful smile on June’s face. It’s funny how these things meant so much to a little boy like me. Ward Cleaver was the perfect father. I don’t remember him ever raising his voice to his sons, to the level that anyone could possibly consider an honest-to-goodness yell. You could always count on Wally or the Beaver to get into trouble in every episode, but it was nothing that would merit a good grounding or revocation of privileges, much less a night in the local jail. And where were the sisters? I honestly wondered if that was one of the reasons June and Ward Cleaver seemed so calm most of the time. I had five sisters, so I knew their potential for causing excitement in a family.

  I was fascinated by this TV show, yet as entertaining as it was to watch this flawless family living out their lives, I knew this kind of life was far beyond what my own family could ever realistically hope to achieve. I didn’t realize at the time that this model was rarely, if ever, truly achieved by any family in America, much less the rest of the world.

  My family was about as far away from the Cleavers as anyone could imagine. Our parents were Linda and Mark Anderson. There were nine children in our family, five girls and four boys. I was number seven in the lineup. Starting with the oldest, we had three girls, a boy, a girl, followed by three more boys, and finishing up with a girl. It seemed like a pretty good arrangement, as far as I could tell.

  As it turned out, my mom didn’t care much for kids. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she’d had so many children if she didn’t like taking care of them, but that’s just how it was in our home. Because of that, the first three girls pretty much raised the last three kids. The middle three were more or less left to take care of themselves. Don’t get me wrong: My parents never outright abandoned us, nor did they leave all the discipline to the older sisters. My parents were there for the most part, and when necessary, they would bring discipline and order to the chaos of our home life.

  My father worked for a local manufacturing company as a salesman, selling fire trucks for a living. This always seemed a bit funny to me. I remember the Jewel Tea man who came by to sell his hardware products, and the vacuum cleaner salesman who was always trying to get us to buy a new Hoover. But as a young boy, I couldn’t imagine someone knocking door to door, trying to get someone to buy a fire truck. It simply never made sense to me. It wasn’t until I was older that it finally dawned on me that somebody had to be out there hustling up the city officials who were responsible for buying fire trucks for their community’s fire department. To this day, I have never met a fire truck salesman other than my dad.

  Actually, his job was kind of cool; when we had Career Day at school and we had to report on what our parents did, I never had to worry about duplicating any other kids’ accounts. I knew I had something very unique. When Dad sold a fire truck, he always delivered it personally to the town he sold it to. It was unimaginable to him to send someone else to deliver the final product. He wanted to be the only face that a fire department captain or a city official would ass
ociate with their purchase of a brand-new truck. He took great pride in what he did, and knew he could guarantee with complete confidence each truck he delivered.

  The night before he delivered the truck, he would bring it home so he could leave bright and early the next morning to make the delivery. From time to time, he would get started a little later than usual. When that happened, he would load us younger kids into the fire truck and personally deliver us to school. Just before he got to the corner of the elementary school playground, Dad would turn on the siren and ring the bells. It was like a full-scale alarm. You could hear that siren and those bells throughout the entire town. At our school, all the kids had to play outside and wait until the school bell rang before they were allowed into the building to start the day. Dad made sure we got there a bit early so that every kid, from kindergarten through the sixth grade, would witness our grand arrival. With the sirens still sounding, Tim, Carlee, and I would step down from the brand-new fire truck and make our way through the crowd of kids. It was such a wonderful experience to be given so much attention by our dad. He wanted to make sure our schoolmates remembered us with flair, and parental attention. We felt like we were special, and all the kids at school let us know how lucky we were to have a dad who would do this for us.

  As a salesman, Dad spent the work week traveling through several states, meeting with community fire chiefs and city council members in an effort to convince them to spend a lot of money on one very big truck. Because of this, Dad wasn’t home much. When he was home, I have no doubt that with nine kids, he had a lot of damage control to address. I am sure this task alone kept him very busy. Dad was also a World War II vet, so he spent a lot of time drinking with his war buddies at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) club, a hot spot on weekends. Dad was right in the middle of all VFW affairs.

  As far as I can remember, Mom worked at several different jobs during my childhood. She came from an affluent family, so she wasn’t too interested in settling down to a life of housekeeping and raising kids, especially since she was on her own five days a week when Dad was on the road.

  Maybe this is why June Cleaver fascinated me so much. She genuinely seemed to love being at home, taking care of the place and making sure her boys were well cared for. On top of that, she did it in a perfectly ironed dress that never showed a spot of dirt or food. She was remarkable. I couldn’t understand why she would enjoy it so. No woman I knew ever felt that way about keeping house. Add nine kids to that equation, and the thought of enjoying being a stay-at-home mom seemed utterly unrealistic. Such was the case with my mother.

  Mom often left the older three girls to care for the youngest three, which included me. On average, there was about a ten-year difference in ages between the older girls and the three youngest. This means that when I was four years old, my sister Gloria, who was responsible for my care, was fourteen. Decades later, we three youngest still have a special bond with our older sisters because of the care they provided us. They weren’t perfect caregivers, but they made sure that none of us died, and as far as I can remember, our diapers were changed and we were fed. They were more mothers to us than our own actual mother was. Unfortunately, the middle three didn’t fare nearly so well. They were left alone much of the time to fend for themselves. One thing I’ve learned in life is that young kids left alone don’t usually make the best decisions; in fact, they often make some seriously bad ones.

  As I was growing up, I remember hearing my oldest sister, Holly, talk about how different the family was before the three youngest were born—even something as basic as what kind of food was on hand. She told me that the older kids never had any fruit to eat when there were six kids in the family. It wasn’t until the older ones had moved out and the number of kids in the house dropped to a more manageable size that Mom started buying fruit when she went grocery shopping. I was surprised to hear that; I had always assumed that the fruit available to us younger kids—just the basics, like apples and oranges—had also been available to the older ones. It’s not like we’re talking about mangos, kiwis, or other exotic fruits. I guess I was wrong. I was left to wonder what the early years were really like.

  Of course, when I heard this story, I had to find out more.

  When I was in my mid-forties, I was working with my town’s historical society, gathering dozens of oral histories from many of the original settlers. I felt comfortable talking with people and capturing their stories on my tape recorder. It was during this time that I decided I was going to fly back to my hometown and visit my oldest sister, Holly, who still lived there. I brought my tape recorder, ready to spend as many hours as it took to capture all the memories she had stored away in her head. When I asked Holly if I could record her stories of our early family, she made it clear that this was not going to happen. She was not going to share a single recollection with me.

  I couldn’t believe what she was saying. What could have happened during those years that would make my own sister so unwilling to share what was going on in our family? By now I was really intrigued. I knew there was something there that we had to get on tape, so I started pushing the issue. I wouldn’t let her brush it off. After barraging her with a list of reasons why she needed to let me record her memories, she simply said, “Wait until Mom and Dad are both gone, and then come back with plenty of tapes, because I have a lot to tell you.” Although I begged and pleaded with her, it was pointless. When Holly said she wasn’t going to do something, you knew it wasn’t going to happen until hell froze over. Even then, it would only be on her terms.

  After Dad died, I approached Holly about the interview, but she said the time still wasn’t right; we had to wait until Mom was gone, too. Unfortunately, Holly developed cancer and died a few years before our mom died. When Holly was on her deathbed, my sister Gloria talked to her about passing on the stories she had planned to share with me after our parents were gone. She wanted Holly to share them with her, promising that no one would hear about them until after Mom’s passing. Holly simply told Gloria that she had decided she wasn’t going to pass them on to anyone. She felt that it was appropriate to let these stories die along with her, and nothing could convince her otherwise. The stories would be lost, and there was nothing we could do to convince Holly to let us record them.

  I was not at all happy to know that Holly would be taking these remarkable stories to the grave. Fortunately, not all of them were lost; a small handful was shared over the years with the older siblings who had also lived through those years. They usually came out when we’d gather for reunions, weddings, and other family events. Some were shared by Holly, while others were shared by our aunts and cousins. Of course, they were never shared in the presence of Mom or Dad.

  Over time, this small collection of stories was repeated at every gathering. As I grew older, I purposely declined invitations to go and play with my cousins. Instead, I’d park myself out of sight but within hearing distance so I could hear some of what my older siblings and aunts were talking about. Later, recalling some of the stories, I realized many of them provided me with enough clues to begin some in-depth research on my own. Without Holly or anyone else knowing what I was doing, I soon discovered some key facts and details.

  Not all was lost with the passing of my oldest sister. With the advent of affordable DNA testing, I hoped we might be able to find out why Holly felt so strongly that these stories needed to be taken to the grave.

  Fortunately, some stories never really die. When suppressed, they simply find other ways to manifest themselves.

  Chapter 2

  The Stories

  When Holly died, we lost a big part of our family’s early history—the part that took place before the last three kids were born. She was the oldest child and, as such, witnessed the greatest portion of our family’s early history. Also, as the oldest, she took charge when, for whatever reason, Mom and Dad were not able or willing to

  do so.

  Despite the loss of Holly’s knowledge, som
e events were shared by other people many years before her death. My sisters Judy and Gloria were born only a few years after Holly, so they lived through most of those early years, as well. Over the years, Holly had shared some of the stories she remembered with Judy and Gloria, so some of the stories survived through them. In fact, not only did they survive, but they were told repeatedly, not only to us younger kids but to the nieces and nephews. In this way, without realizing what they were doing, they made sure that a handful of our stories would survive the loss of several family members. These are the ones that helped open the door just wide enough for me to see some of the events that helped to shape our family’s history. They also allowed me to realize that something wasn’t quite right. I had begun to wonder what really went on during those years—and who were these people whose names kept popping up?

  Following are a few of the stories that played a key role in the events that would come to a head and begin the process of discovering the real nature of our family, a story we would find almost too incredible to believe.

  The Accident

  One important event took place when I was about fourteen years old. Four decades later, this very event would set a quest in motion to discover answers that would entirely reinvent our family’s

  history.

  This event was important not just because it was the first time we would come face-to-face with the possible death of an immediate family member, but because of a secret it revealed, and what else it would set in motion. I have no doubt that much of what we discovered during those days involved some of the stories Holly was so unwilling to talk about.