FAMILY REUNION

WASILLA — Marsha Carlisle looks up to all her older brothers.

Although she’s the baby of the family, she calls Robert Bruce Myers her “little brother,” Preston Myers, “baby brother,” and Roger Paul, the eldest of the group at 75, “my special little brother.” It wasn’t until last Tuesday that Carlisle, 64, finally met her oldest sibling.

“I didn’t know I had another brother until I was 50,” she said, explaining how she first learned her father had been married before and had another son. “We were all just in shock; we had no clue. Dad never spoke of anything.”

It was a reunion more than a decade in the making.

Carlisle and her siblings learned while helping their father, Robert B. Myers, prepare his will shortly before his death in 1993 that he had another child. It was a bombshell that sparked her curiosity.

“I had one little clue,” she said, pointing to an old black-and-white photograph of a toddler on a tricycle. “That was Roger when he was little. That was the only picture Dad had of him.”

After years of searching for a birth certificate for her long-lost sibling, or other documents, like a license or certificate for her father’s first marriage, it was Carlisle’s own children who initiated a change in tactics. While trying to identify old baby pictures to pass on to her children, Carlisle turned to the Internet. That’s where, on the popular genealogy site Ancestry.com, she found a thread.

“I just did a bland search and it came up with this whole genealogy somebody had done,” she said.

The research was posted there by the mother-in-law of Paul’s niece. Carlisle e-mailed the tricycle photo, along with photos of her father.

A shocking revelation

Paul is emotional recalling the day at the end of March when he received an e-mail from his niece’s mother-in-law.

“What came over were three pictures, one of a man about age 20, one a man about age 50 and a little boy on a tricycle,” he said. “We have that same picture, and (the e-mail) said ‘searching for Roger Myers.’ … It was a big surprise. When the whole thing happened, it just blew my mind. In fact, when I first saw the pictures I thought she had found a picture of me. My wife said, ‘No, I think that’s your dad.’”

The result was overwhelming emotion, said Paul’s wife, Diana Paul. “When he saw that, he just started crying.”

While Carlisle had known that, somewhere, she had an older half-brother, Paul was oblivious.

He knew since about the age of 9 that he was adopted, and was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother and adoptive father died.

While younger, Paul said he didn’t think finding his father was important. That was a desire that blossomed as he grew older. Still, he always wondered.

“I wondered what he looked like, who he was, what he did,” Paul said. “People didn’t talk back then. I had no idea anything about him — no pictures; it was just blank.”

Later, Paul tried to find his father, but even having a name didn’t help.

What’s in a name?

The name on his father’s birth certificate is Benny Myers, but Paul learned at about age 17 that his father had changed his name, but not to what. He assumed he needed to find someone with a different last name, but it was the first name Robert B. Myers changed. Add that Paul also changed his middle name when he was baptized, and the other end of the search was a dead-end for Carlisle.

Paul’s grandparents also thwarted what could have been a reunion decades ago.

“You know, back then, things were different,” he said. “I guess my grandfather didn’t care for him for whatever reason, because after my mother died, I went to live with my grandparents. Evidently, he called and my grandfather took the call and told him he’s not going to get to me, he didn’t want to have anything to do with him. After the call, my grandmother finally told me, ‘He tried to get ahold of you, but (your grandfather) wouldn’t let him.’”

Catching up

After receiving Carlisle’s e-mail and photos, it didn’t take Paul long to track down his sister. He found her phone number in Wasilla and called her.

Right away, Carlisle knew Paul was the person she’d been searching for. He sounded just like her uncle, her father’s brother. After spending the past week together, she’s positive.

“Roger and my father are so alike with their planning, they’re neatniks,” she said. “He looks like my dad. … And then when he came here he drags out his cans of peanuts, and our daughter was here yesterday and said, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s what grandpa did.’ They both love peanuts.”

While catching up, the siblings learned of some other coincidences that, in hindsight, make them think the world’s a little bit smaller than they did before.

While in the Air Force, Paul was stationed at Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado and was there for six months of the same time his half-brother Robert Bruce Myers was there. Later in his enlistment, Paul spent two years at a base in Okinawa, Japan, where his other half-brother, Preston Myers, was also stationed.

Although the reunion comes about 17 years too late to see his father, Paul said he has no regrets.

Finding anything from that part of his life is, at age 75, is “something I never thought would happen,” he said. “It’s a feeling inside that I finally found him. I wish it would have been in person, but I’m sure that through my sister and brothers I’ll get to know him better.”

There’s also solace in the reinforcement of another belief he’s held since childhood.

“That picture of me on that tricycle,” he said. “That shows he didn’t forget; he always cared.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.