A Broken Tree Read online

  I really wanted to know what had been happening in her relationship with Dad that would have led to her having all of these extramarital relationships. And why was Timmy Jacobson, who was

  single and about twenty-eight at the time, fooling around with a married woman? This was getting crazier with each question I asked. As weird as it was to hear about Timmy Jacobson, I was delighted to know that at the very least, my brother Tim and I both came from the same paternal family line. From what I could tell so far, we were a bit more than half-brothers.

  By this point, I knew the names of the fathers of five of us nine children—at least, according to my ninety-year-old mother. Not bad. Now I asked about Diane.

  Mom told me that Diane’s father was a guy named David Smith. When I first heard that, I had the distinct impression this was bogus; it sounded like a very generic name someone would use to hide their real identity. Now I was confused. If Mom was being truthful about the others, why would she lie about Diane’s father? I knew most of the people in town, and I didn’t remember a man by the name of David Smith. I knew something wasn’t right with this bit of

  information.

  So now, I was six for nine, with some uncertainty about number six. When I asked Mom who the fathers were for the others, Mom assured me that Paul, Gloria, and Judy were all Mark’s kids, without a doubt. All three had been fathered by Mark Anderson, the man who raised us. She was sure of that and didn’t offer anything more about these last three names.

  I had all nine kids accounted for now. However, just like Mom’s answer for Diane, something didn’t feel right about her comment about Paul, Gloria, and Judy all being fathered by Mark Anderson. I don’t know if it was her body language or the way she said it, but it just didn’t feel like she was telling me the truth about the fathers of Diane, Paul, Gloria, and Judy. Was she lying, or was she not able to remember? I had a hard time believing it was a memory issue, as she’d been very straightforward about telling me the names of the fathers for five of us kids. For some reason, she seemed to be hiding something about the last four children. I had nothing of any substance to prove she wasn’t telling me the truth; I was just going on a gut feeling.

  After we talked a bit more, I decided it was time to go back to Neil’s and mull everything over. As I was leaving her room, Mom said, “Steve, do you hate me for what I’ve done?”

  I assured her that I didn’t hate her. But I was also honest, saying that all of this was so weird and crazy, I would need some time to figure out how it all fit together. I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of this.

  She laughed and agreed. She reminded me that she’d never made life easy for anyone. No apology; that’s just how it was.

  I would have loved to have taken the time to probe into that comment a bit more. Through all of this, I kept asking myself what had happened to her that she would have had so many extramarital relationships. According to Mom, there were at least six relationships that ended up in pregnancies, and possibly all nine. I wondered if there had been many others who’d come and gone without her getting pregnant. I had to wonder if there was some kind of arrangement between Mom and Dad that had allowed each of them to have relationships with anyone they wanted. Did they have an open marriage? Was that okay with both of them? I just couldn’t picture my parents as swingers; they didn’t fit that image. Did my mother experience some kind of abuse as a young girl? Did she have a sexual drive that made her willing to do almost anything to get the love and approval of any male figure willing to give it to her?

  My parents would eventually divorce in 1965, after twenty-five years of marriage. I don’t know all the reasons for their divorce, but surely this infidelity of one—or both—of them must have played a role.

  I felt lucky to have obtained the information she’d given me that morning. I had come to her room doubting that she would be willing to discuss any questions that dealt with such personal issues. But I must say, I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall, listening to a conversation between her and a psychiatrist. I would love to know what was going through her head.

  Before I left she made me promise that I would not talk about any of this with my sister Diane. My sisters Diane and Gloria were two of the few people who ever came to visit Mom on a regular basis. She knew that if Diane found out about this, she would be furious, and would probably never come to visit her again. If she did come to visit, it would be only to badger her into telling her more. She also knew that Diane would likely go around town telling people about what she had discovered, and asking people who her father might be.

  I called Tim to let him know the news about Timmy Jacobson. He was interested, but didn’t seem shocked by the news. He was pleased to hear that it was likely our fathers were brothers. We’d been close all our lives; we seemed to share a bond that was stronger than most. News about Timmy and Ray Jacobson just helped to reinforce the sense of brotherhood that Tim and I had always

  enjoyed.

  I met with Mom a few more times to finish completing her oral history. However, I finally gave up on that. I knew that too much of what she was telling me was not true. Mom had a way of changing her perceptions of things to fit her needs. If anything was unpleasant, reflected badly on her, or didn’t fit the image of what she wanted her reality to be, she simply changed the facts. Once she had introduced a fabricated memory into her mind, it became truth to her. Listening to the things she told me, I was amazed by her remarkable imagination. While it made for a great story, as far as being a reasonably accurate personal history, it failed miserably. What I had recorded of her personal history was of no real substantive value whatsoever.

  When I got back to Neil’s house, I called my sister Gloria and told her what Mom had shared with me. She knew why I had come to visit Mom and didn’t seem too surprised that Mark was not my father. When I originally told her that I was going home to talk with Mom, I’d promised that I would report back to her what I had found out. Gloria has been my sounding board almost since the beginning of this journey, and has kept me from getting sidetracked as I look for answers to my many questions. She keeps me focused and prevents me from giving up in despair.

  Even though Mom had told me that Paul, Gloria, and Judy were Mark Anderson’s children, I was not convinced she was telling the truth. Neither was Gloria. For years, the older girls had joked about Paul not being Dad’s son. Paul’s name was Paul Michael Anderson, and Mom had often entertained a guy by the name of Michael Paul Keller. Gloria said that he was around the house often enough that the girls wondered if their brother was really Keller’s son, and not Dad’s. Paul never looked like an Anderson, but he did look amazingly like Michael Paul Keller. With this in mind, Gloria wasn’t convinced that Mom was telling the truth, either—at least where Paul was concerned.

  With the success of Tim’s and my DNA testing experiences, Gloria decided she would like to have her DNA tested, as well. I’m not sure if she seriously questioned her paternity or just wanted to be 100 percent sure, but she decided she had better be tested so she could know the truth. Tim sent her a swab kit with instructions on what to do. In fact, Tim decided to pick up several kits. He knew chances were good that as we continued to investigate this mystery of our family’s heritage, one or two kits would most likely not be enough; we’d probably need several.

  Gloria Discovers the Truth

  Gloria got the results back from Andergene Labs about two months later and discovered that she, too, was not Mark’s daughter. Although she’d had her doubts, at the same time, she was surprised to learn for sure that this was the case when the test results came in.

  I talked to Gloria about this latest discovery and what it meant to her. I asked what her next step would be. Of course, she wanted to know who her biological father was, but the thought of asking Mom seriously scared her. Gloria was from that generation where you just didn’t talk about intimate matters with your parents. Parental respect, whether it was earned or demanded, didn’t allow for a child
to ask such personal questions. Gloria was not comfortable telling Mom that her DNA test results showed that Mark was not her father.

  Gloria had power of attorney over Mom’s estate. Diane, Paul, and Neil were the only children still living in the town we all grew up in. The rest of the family had moved far away by the time all of this new information about our family was coming together. Neil wouldn’t have anything to do with Mom because of the pig incident and other conflicts they’d had over the years. Paul’s health had been deteriorating badly, and he was having a hard enough time running his own affairs. There was no way that Gloria or anyone else was going to put the burden of taking care of Mom’s affairs on Paul’s shoulders. This meant that Diane and Gloria were the only two left to take care of Mom’s legal and medical matters. Gloria lived about two and a half hours away from our town, but would come visit her every week to make sure things were taken care of. Diane was available to take care of the more immediate needs and participate in the regular council meetings with Gloria and the care facility’s management staff.

  Several months after Gloria got her test results, I asked her if she had spoken with Mom yet about who her father was. She had kept putting it off because she didn’t know how to approach her. It was hard for me to raise this issue with Mom, so I understood completely what she was going through. I encouraged Gloria to talk to Mom soon; if Mom died before Gloria had a chance to ask these questions, she might lose all hope of ever knowing the truth. At that time, Mom was ninety-two years old, and we knew she could go at any time.

  About three weeks later, I got a call from Gloria. I could tell by the sound of her voice that something was up. She said she had just talked to Mom and found out who her father was. They had just been chitchatting when Gloria decided it was time to do it. Out of the blue, she told Mom that she’d had her DNA tested so she could have information available for her grandchildren. The tests told her that Mark was not her father; she wanted to know who it was so that if there was a medical emergency, or if one of the grandchildren gave birth to a child with some unusual disease, they might know which family line it came through.

  Gloria said that Mom didn’t seem especially upset by this news. She came right out and told her that she was fathered by a man named Robert Marsh. When Gloria said she hadn’t ever heard of a man by that name in our hometown, Mom said that Marsh was a soldier from Missouri who had been temporarily stationed at a military base in Chicago during World War II. She said that she and a few girlfriends had made a mad dash into Chicago to have a night of dancing and drinking, and that’s when she met Marsh. Mom was married at the time with two very young daughters, and Dad was overseas, serving in Europe. Mom assured Gloria that this was just a weekend fling, not a long-term relationship.

  Gloria decided to ask Mom about Paul as well, and Mom revealed that Michael Paul Keller was indeed Paul’s biological father. Mark wasn’t Paul’s dad like she had originally told me when I first confronted her. Once again, she had not told me the truth about either Paul or Gloria when she had said they were both Mark’s children. I had suspected these were lies at the time, and this revelation simply confirmed my suspicions. Now we knew that seven of the nine children in our family were not fathered by Mark

  Anderson.

  With Mom’s penchant for not telling the truth, however, we could not be 100 percent certain that Paul was not Mark’s son until we could prove it through genetic testing. Some time had gone by since we had started this journey, and Paul had died recently after losing his battle with cancer, the second of the nine children to die. This presented a problem for us.

  When we all returned to our hometown for Paul’s funeral, Judy, Neil, and Diane had little to no idea of what had been going on with my research. Tim, Carlee, and Gloria were all on board and, except for a few pieces of information, were fully informed about what had taken place thus far.

  Judy Wants to Know

  Tim, Carlee, Gloria, and I were wondering when and how we were going to tell Judy about what had been going on. Judy was the second child of Mark and Linda Anderson. With the passing of our oldest sister, Holly, Judy was now the oldest living child in our family. We were concerned about how she was going to take this. She was close to Mom, and we were sure she would not approve of the fact that we’d been gathering all of this information, much less the information itself. Judy, like Gloria, comes from that generation that disapproves of digging into personal matters, believing it shows a blatant disrespect for one’s elders.

  After some discussion, we decided it was time to include her in our family history mystery. We decided we’d just wait until one of us felt the time was right. A few days later, Tim and Judy were driving together, heading to pick someone up for a family activity. They had to wait for about twenty minutes for their passenger to get ready, so they started talking in the car. Tim came right out and told Judy about what we had discovered. He told her that he, Gloria, and I had all had our DNA tested, and that none of us belonged to Dad. He also told her that Gloria and I had both spoken to Mom and learned that Gloria, Diane, and Paul were not Mark’s kids. He revealed that when I had originally spoken with Mom, she’d told me that Diane, Paul, Gloria, and Judy were all fathered by Mark, but later, when Gloria had talked with her, Mom had said that Paul was Michael Paul Keller’s son. And of course, we’d found out through Gloria’s DNA testing that Gloria was not Mark’s.

  Judy listened in complete awe as Tim recounted the details of what we had discovered, saying, “Are you sure about all this? I just can’t believe it!” Tim suggested she might want to seriously consider having her own DNA tested to see if Mom was telling us the truth about Judy. Tim had come prepared with a DNA test kit, just in case she consented, which she did right away. I was happy to hear later on that Judy was so open to the idea of being tested. I had been concerned she might feel it would be disrespectful to do it without Mom’s knowledge.

  Tim sent Judy’s DNA sample to Andergene Labs in California to have Jack run the standard tests on it. By this time, Jack had become quite intrigued by how this Anderson family story was developing. Little by little, he’d learned more about our family, and he was fascinated. Each test revealed a new twist. He thought this was as good as any story you might find in a checkout-stand tabloid. The difference was that this was all truth—no aliens or Elvis Presley sightings. This was all on the up and up. Jack was more than happy to help us in any way he could.

  It was no surprise to most of us when Judy’s test results showed she was not Mark’s daughter. Still, it was a shock to Judy, raising the same list of questions we’d had to deal with: Who was her father? What were the circumstances that led to her conception? Why hadn’t Mom shared this with her? So many questions, with very few answers available to help her come to terms with this bizarre story.

  At this point, we felt pretty confident that of the nine children in our family, none of us had been fathered by Mark Anderson. This only added credence to our previous thought that Dad may have been sterile. Through the indisputable proof of DNA testing, we now knew, without a doubt, that Judy, Gloria, Tim, and I were not fathered by Mark, and there was a very high probability that Neil was also not Mark’s son. The other four children had an extremely high probability of not being Mark’s children because of a variety of clues and information provided by Mom, which, in and of itself, was not reliable. However, by looking at photographs of the purported fathers of the remaining four children, we felt confident there was sufficient resemblance between these men and our siblings that we could safely state that none of them could claim any DNA from Mark Anderson. Two of those four, Holly and Paul, had passed away and could not be tested directly. The only thing we could do at this point was test their children to see if they carried any of Mark’s DNA in their blood. The other two are still alive, and we expect that eventually we will have them tested to validate what we already believe to be the case: that they are also not Mark’s children.

  Carlee Wants Some Answers

 
; About a year after Gloria and Judy learned that Mark Anderson was not their real father, Carlee decided to have Andergene Labs test her DNA. She was already confident that she was not Mark’s daughter, but was looking for indisputable evidence. A few events happened around the time Carlee was born that raised questions as to her real paternity. Over time, those doubts began to wear at Carlee’s mind until she finally decided it was time to have her DNA tested, so she could put these doubts to rest.

  Carlee is the youngest of our family of nine children. Several months before she was born, my oldest sister, Holly, was dating Brian, a guy she knew from school. He looked a lot like James Dean, the famous movie star and cultural rebel. As a young kid, I thought he was so cool. He always treated me well. Even though he looked tough, he was nice to me. That was enough to make Brian a great guy in my mind.

  Several months before Carlee was born, our parents decided that our sister Holly would go to Montana and spend the summer with our aunt Jean. This wasn’t too unusual in our family. With nine kids in the family, most of the older ones were more than happy to spend the summer with their aunts and uncles. Most of them lived on farms, typically not more than seventy miles away from where we lived. These farms provided plenty of space for my siblings to play and work with their cousins. The aunts and uncles seemed more than happy to let them come and stay for the summer; after all, it meant more hands to help with the farmwork.

  Holly’s summer trip to Aunt Jean’s house was a bit different, in that Aunt Jean lived a few states away. No one had ever gone that far away to stay with relatives for the summer. Another thing that made Holly’s stay so different was that Aunt Jean was a single mother and had never taken in anyone’s kids like the other aunts and uncles did. Nor did she have any daughters; she only had one son, who was about Holly’s age. Finally, this stay extended into the school year, which had never happened with any of the other kids.