Anita Adams retired from a career in newspaper advertising at five different newspapers, followed by a second career as a Meat/Food Inspector for the State of California and Southwest Airlines. Always a Pollyanna, she always knew tomorrow would be better! But sometimes tomorrow took a long time.
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Uncle Dean
Uncle Dean
My niece in Stockton called me eight years ago to tell me that my brother had received an email from Ancestry informing him that he shared the same grandparents as a woman named Deanna—and that her dad and our dad were brothers.
I moved from southeast Kansas just before my 18th birthday. From then on, I knew very little about my dad’s family, so I called my cousin Rebecca in Missouri and asked her if Uncle Dean had any other kids besides Patricia and Deborah.
“Not that I know of,” she said.
“Well, listen to this!” I replied.
I vaguely remembered my Uncle Ernest telling me that Uncle Dean had been escorted out of Chetopa, Kansas, at the end of a shotgun in 1942 by the very angry father of a girl Uncle Dean had been seeing. Shortly afterward, he suddenly joined the Army.
Eventually my cousins—Raymond, Bill, John, and Rebecca—met Deanna. She was thrilled to have a “family.” We agreed we wouldn’t tell Uncle Dean’s two daughters in Florida, since no one had any contact with them anyway.
Hello, 2026! Our cousin John, a recently retired transplant physician in Kansas, made a New Year’s resolution to get in touch with all his cousins. He called Deborah in Florida and told her she has a half-sister in Missouri.
He did WHAT?!
I found out when Deborah called me, since we’d been in contact for a couple of years. Oh, goodie! I get to sort out yet another Duncan family Pandora’s box.
Back in 2020, I received a phone call while I was in a Zoom class. A man said he was looking for Anita Duncan and asked if I knew her. Why, yes, I did—and could he call him back since I was in a meeting?
A couple of hours later, I spoke with my nephew Logan for the first time in 38 years. He is the youngest child of my brother Norman, who fathered nine children that we know of!
I met Logan when he was just a few months old, when my mother and I met my brother, his wife, and Logan in Oklahoma City. After that phone call, Logan came out to visit a few months later. When I told friends he was coming, they asked how long it had been since I’d seen him.
“Thirty-eight years,” I said.
“How old is he?” they asked.
“Thirty-eight,” I replied.
Logan is a Special Agent in the Army and knows how to find people. He found his nine half-brothers and sisters and got all of us together in a Zoom meeting so everyone could meet.
So back to the present: I resisted the urge to call cousin John and rake him over the coals for letting the cat out of the bag. Instead, I simply answered questions from Deborah in Florida.
Deborah’s daughter has the ability to find records and trace leads online. So far, she’s discovered that her dad married Deanna’s mother when she was about six months pregnant—and then met and married Deborah’s mother just a few months later. There has been no record found of a divorce from Deanna’s mother.
“My dad’s a bigamist!” she told me the other day.
Deborah also discovered that her dad had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for about two years. Uncle Dean had a lot of debts, no job, and no money for his car payments, so he left and traveled for several years. There was an APB out for him, along with a poster bearing his picture.
When the FBI finally caught up with him, the charges were dropped, and he joined the Army. He ended up flying P-51 Mustangs as a fighter pilot based in northern England, escorting bombers on raids over Europe. He was a typical “fly guy”—hard drinking, hard living, and a womanizer.
When I was about four years old, I met him. He was in uniform and very handsome. He picked me up and tossed me into the air while I giggled and felt like a princess. He made a very lonely little girl deliriously happy; I thought he was a god.
After World War II, the Army Air Corps became the Air Force. He was credited as an ace, with two confirmed kills in air battles over Europe.
Uncle Dean later became a base commander at several Air Force bases before retiring to Pensacola, Florida, where he taught high school until his death.
Ah, life is full of surprises. I can’t wait for the next chapter in my turbulent life.
~ Anita Duncan Adams
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