Finding the long-lost brother

My mother’s oldest brother, Donald, disappeared after World War II. He had joined the Army as a chaplain as soon as the country entered the war in December 1941, leaving a wife and four young children at home. 

The government notified his mother and his wife, that Donald had been wounded and was convalescing with a private nurse. They somehow managed to find out where he was, but he refused to come home.

Neither his wife, children, parents or five siblings were enough to entice him back to his old life. Mable, Donald’s wife, finally lost her patience and divorced him a year later when she found out that he had taken up with the nurse who had been caring for him. Word got around that he ended up marrying the nurse.

Losing track of long-lost brother

My grandmother with her 2-year-old son Donald and 2-month-old daughter Bonnie in 1915

After that, the family lost track of him. Mable remarried and her children developed a bond with their stepfather. They made no effort to find their father.

I never met Uncle Donald, but I heard about him all during my childhood and early adulthood. He was my mother’s long-lost brother, Grandmama Huckabee’s long-lost son, her first-born. 

The mystery fascinated me. I thought it was such a romantic tragedy, all the broken hearts scattered in its wake. Every time I met an adult relative for the first time – both my parents came from large, spread-out families – I asked if he was the long-lost Uncle Donald. 

During his youth, a large portion spent in Los Angeles, Donald became quite accomplished on the pipe organ. The entire family was musical – my grandparents wrote and sang songs, all the children either played an instrument or sang as well. But Donald was such a genius on his organ, people started calling him the “Dixie Organist.”

My mother tried to find her brother in 1963 to let him know their father had died. She had no luck. She tried again with no success in 1976 after their mother died.

At last, long-lost brother found

Finally, in 1984, Mable sent a letter to Mama and Donald’s other siblings. She had always stayed in touch with the family even after divorcing Donald and remarrying. She wrote this time to say that their brother had been found. And he was dead.

Jerry, Mable and Donald’s second son, found his long-lost dad quite by accident. Nearly 50 by then, Jerry and his wife lived in San Francisco at the time but often visited the wife’s sister in Los Angeles. 

The sister’s daughter, a young woman in her 20s, was invited into a neighbor’s home around the corner from her mom’s house. She immediately noticed a familiar photograph sitting on a piano in the living room.

“Where did you get a picture of my Uncle Jerry?” she asked the homeowner.

“That’s not your Uncle Jerry,” the woman answered. “That’s my late husband, Don Huckabee.”

It was a startling discovery, and Donald had only died a year earlier. He would have been in his early 70s. Turns out he had divorced the nurse after just a few years and married a much younger woman in the mid 1950s.

Together for more than 27 years, they had two daughters. The surviving daughter was named Bonnie, the same as one of Donald’s sisters. 

He had continued giving concerts until a couple of strokes led to his death in 1983. He was buried in Golden Gate Cemetery, just minutes from where Jerry lived in San Francisco.

Jerry was astounded at the number of times over the years he had walked or jogged by that very house and not run into his dad. He was sure he would have recognized him since they obviously looked so much alike.

He told his mother it just wasn’t the Lord’s will.

Reasons unknown

Whatever had Donald abandon his family like he did will likely never be known. The people I’ve talked to about it – one of his brothers, my mama and grandmama – figured something had happened to him in the war that just made him snap.

Until then, he had been a delightful and caring person and would never have done such a thing. At least, that’s what his loved ones thought.

The news he was found brought a form of closure to the siblings, but Grandmama died never knowing what became of her son. As long as she lived, she never gave up hope of seeing him again.

I think that is so sad.