One of the biggest breakthroughs with the DNA test came on Good Friday of 2018. With the help of someone identified through DNA as a possible first cousin I was able to finally determine who my natural father was. I still do not know a lot about him outside of what I knew before, but I have dates and more of his name. Turns out he was known by family by his middle name "Deroy." He was about 11 years older than my mother and lived only to the age of 64 (1916-1980). I wish I knew his cause of death, and that is still part of my ongoing search. [Update: One cause of death I did find was stroke. One family member also mentioned the incidence of heart problems among his siblings as well.] He was born in Missouri and died in Los Angeles. Like my adopted father he apparently served in the military during WWII. He had been married and divorced prior to meeting my mother. His wife's name of Reba Louise Sims who he married on June 20, 1937 possibly in Missouri, and then divorced in 1946, years before he met my mother in California and became her co-worker at Olie Hammonds restaurant in LA. In 1940 he was working for S.S. Kresge, the predecessor company to K-Mart. His mother (my paternal grandmother) Nancy ("Pearl") nee Carver (1884-1958), died in 1958, about two years before I was born. At the time of my father's death he is said to have been survived by his two sisters Ardyth Lanier and Ina Mae Burcke, a "close friend" Victor Hanel and many nieces and nephews. It appears his family had no knowledge of me. He never had any other children. It some ways it is sad that his family never had the opportunity to know that he had a son. I wonder if he thought of the son he had but never revealed. Did he know about where I eventually moved? When he died in 1980 did he know that I had gone on to college by then? Perhaps I will never know the answers to those questions. He has now been gone 39 years. But with the blessing of the modern technology of DNA testing I am getting the answer to questions I may never have received in a previous time.
Friday, February 22, 2019
William Deroy Smith (1916-1980)
One of the biggest breakthroughs with the DNA test came on Good Friday of 2018. With the help of someone identified through DNA as a possible first cousin I was able to finally determine who my natural father was. I still do not know a lot about him outside of what I knew before, but I have dates and more of his name. Turns out he was known by family by his middle name "Deroy." He was about 11 years older than my mother and lived only to the age of 64 (1916-1980). I wish I knew his cause of death, and that is still part of my ongoing search. [Update: One cause of death I did find was stroke. One family member also mentioned the incidence of heart problems among his siblings as well.] He was born in Missouri and died in Los Angeles. Like my adopted father he apparently served in the military during WWII. He had been married and divorced prior to meeting my mother. His wife's name of Reba Louise Sims who he married on June 20, 1937 possibly in Missouri, and then divorced in 1946, years before he met my mother in California and became her co-worker at Olie Hammonds restaurant in LA. In 1940 he was working for S.S. Kresge, the predecessor company to K-Mart. His mother (my paternal grandmother) Nancy ("Pearl") nee Carver (1884-1958), died in 1958, about two years before I was born. At the time of my father's death he is said to have been survived by his two sisters Ardyth Lanier and Ina Mae Burcke, a "close friend" Victor Hanel and many nieces and nephews. It appears his family had no knowledge of me. He never had any other children. It some ways it is sad that his family never had the opportunity to know that he had a son. I wonder if he thought of the son he had but never revealed. Did he know about where I eventually moved? When he died in 1980 did he know that I had gone on to college by then? Perhaps I will never know the answers to those questions. He has now been gone 39 years. But with the blessing of the modern technology of DNA testing I am getting the answer to questions I may never have received in a previous time.
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