My favorite DNA story, is not my own, but one told by a
chance meeting with a neighbor in 1999. Our neighbor, had asked our son to
watch the dog over a weekend while they went to a family reunion in Wisconsin.
He stopped by with the house key and being curious about anything family
related, I asked about details. He told me this fabulous story about his
father-in-law and DNA. Twenty years later, it is still one of my favorites. Names
and a few details have been changed because frankly, I don’t remember them. But
the story is true and shared to the best of my ability.
We’ll name f-i-l Garett Smith. He was born in a small
town in Wisconsin, in the late 1930’s just before World War II broke out. Garett
was raised as an only child by a single mother, a hard-working waitress. He
never knew his father, and his mother, Maggie Smith, never gave him any
details. In the 40’s and 50’s, boys respected their mom’s wishes and knew not
to ask. He was not even very curious. He had plenty of friends and family,
aunts, uncles, grandparents. Garett lived his young life in this small town,
where everybody knew everybody but not a paternal hint…until in his teens, at a
family gathering someone pulled him aside and said, “You must keep this a
secret, but your father’s name is William Carlson.”
Nothing more. He wasn’t sure whether to believe this or
not, but he remembered the name. Was the story true? Would he find William
Carlson? But as good young men did in
the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, he kept this secret from everyone. Especially his
mother. He moved to the Chicago suburbs, had a wife and children, was
successful in business. The kind of guy you want as your friend.
In the 1980’s, his dear mother, still in the small
Wisconsin town, died. In going through her things, he found a box of World War
II letters, from a fighter-pilot named (you guessed it) William Carlson. Garett
read each letter carefully looking for clues. Nothing was written in them that
indicated a romantic relationship between Maggie and William. They had attended
high school together, and the letters were friendly, but nothing indicated
anything more.
Garett saved those letters. He found out more about
William Carlson - fighter-pilot. Turns out William was a hometown hero, who had
died in battle. Lots of newspaper articles and a big funeral, when Garett was
too young to remember. Over the years, William’s heroics had faded from the memories
of the town’s people, but in his day, William Carlson was well known, and sadly
missed. Other Carlsons still lived in the small town. Garett had gone to school
with Carlson classmates. Growing up, they were considered a rather prominent
and wealthy family. Still keeping his secret, he said very little.
In the 1980’s using DNA for genealogical purposes was
just developing. One needed a large sample and it was used mostly for evidence
in murders and other crimes. The only thing Garett possibly had was bit of
dried saliva from the seal on the envelopes. He waited and waited, and in 1999,
he paid a great deal of money to a lab to use his DNA and that from 50 year-old
envelopes tested. The results were astonishing – a match. He was the son of
William Carlson!
He thought of his Carlson classmates. He wrote a
carefully worded letter to those with whom he was most friendly. By then all
the Carlsons of his mother’s generation were gone. Did anyone he knew remember
anything? The reply was wonderful, warm and included an invitation to a family
reunion that the living Carlsons, his generation, would give in his honor. That
was where the Garett Smith and his entire family, including those in our
neighborhood, were going that weekend in 1999.
At the reunion, Garett learned that some of his older Carlson
cousins (William’s nieces and nephews) remembered whispers that Uncle Bill
might have fathered a child. At the time, they were too young to know the
details. They remember that Uncle Bill wanted to marry the mother of his child,
but his family said no. Apparently Maggie Smith, waitress, was “not their
kind.” In the 1940’s good men did what their parents told them to do. Still
single, William volunteered for military duty and gave the greatest sacrifice,
his life.
The 1999 reunion was a success. Garett and his family
were welcomed with open arms and continued to have contact for many years. Now,
hopefully you enjoyed this story as much as I did almost 20 years ago. DNA
testing for genealogy is so common now, we hear many stories of reunions,
successful and not so successful. But at the turn of the century (1999), this
story was nearly unbelievable and even now, is a very sweet reminder of how
nice one’s family can be.
