Saturday, October 02, 1999
Separated for years, siblings united at last
Letter leads Brit to his half-sister
BY MARIE McCAIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
For much of his life Michael Eugene Pratt struggled with questions about his roots. They dwelled in his heart and mind, pounding away at him like a dull, familiar ache that annoyed but did not overwhelm.
What is the truth? What is wrong? What don't I know?
A womanfrom Loveland had sent him the answers six years ago, but her letter lay undiscovered and unopened in a box of papers in Mr. Pratt's shed in Southampton, England.
In February, the 54-year-old Brit found the letter and — in reading it — found himself, too.
On Friday, in the bustling halls of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, he wept with the woman from Loveland, his 45-year-old half sister, Jeanne Meyer-Purdy. They embraced, shaking with a lifetime of emotions. They scanned each others' faces, looking for some glimpse of familiarity, a link to their common father.
“The jigsaw puzzle is coming together,” Mr. Pratt said. ÿÿÿ
In 1993, a telephone call from a woman who found lost relatives for a living told Mr. Pratt that his family was one big lie.
The couple he thought were his parents were really his aunt and uncle. The woman he knew as Aunt Millie was really his mother, and his father was an American G.I. stationed in England the last two years of World War II. The two brothers and sister he was raised with were really his cousins. And he had an American half-sister who was looking for him.
Even before the phone call, he felt his life wasfalling apart. He was in the middle of a nasty divorce, mourning the death of his father-in-law, had retired as a financial consultant and was estranged from one of his children.
Unable to deal with this conveyor belt of emotional trauma, he retreated to a furnished room for several years to sort out his feelings and revisit the perplexing moments of his life.
ÿÿÿ
Until the age of 7, he spent many weekends with his Aunt Millie. None of his siblings ever went. It was just him.
“I always wondered what was going on, why I was farmed out to Aunt Millie,” he wrote in a recent letter to Mrs. Meyer-Purdy.
His “mother” occasionally corresponded with someone in the United States and, from time to time, would mention that when he was old enough she would tell him something. But he never pressed her.
In 1982, on her death bed, his “mother” asked for him. The doctor who watched over her told Mr. Pratt that his mother kept saying she had to see him. But Mr. Pratt didn't reach her in time and she died without divulging her secret.
After being contacted by the intermediary in 1993, he began to talk with the people he now knows as his cousins.
One “brother” admitted he always thought Mr. Pratt, at the very least, had a different father. The man who raised Mr. Pratt as his son had been away at war for two years before Mr. Pratt's birth. Mr. Pratt's “sister” would only say: “Let sleeping dogs lie, Michael.” His younger “brother” offered support but had few answers.
Meanwhile, Aunt Millie would not discuss the matter with him.
She denied being Mr. Pratt's mother and stopped speaking to him. In 1998, he decided to move on with his life, though he still had more questions than answers.
Things looked brighter. He was spending a lot of time with a new woman and had asked her to marry him.
In February, while cleaning out a storage shed that contained the remnants of his former marriage, he found the first bits of his past.
In a box of personal papers his ex-wife had handed him six years earlier was an unopened letter from a woman in “Loveland, Ohio, USA.”
His ex-wife had never told him it was there.
He read the stranger's letter and found the truth: his birth certificate had been falsified; his real father was an American who met his real mother while stationed in Weymouth, England in 1943.
The American was a then-19-year-old U.S. Navy seaman named Eugene Meyer from Clifton.
While stationed in Weymouth, a working-class port town, about 150 miles southwest of London, Mr. Meyer met a 16-year-old girl named Millie, whose parents owned the local pub.
The two began dating and in 1945, Millie gave birth to a boy and named him Michael Eugene. His father went back to America, promising to return to England to bring Millie and the baby back with him.
In the meantime, Millie had given Michael to her older, married sister to raise as her own because she feared reprisals for having a baby out of wedlock.
Mr. Meyer never returned to England. But he did tell others that he had “married” a girl while he was there and had a son with her. He also knew that his sister corresponded with Millie to find out about the baby.
Mr. Meyer eventually married and had a daughter named Lujean, whom he called “Jeanne” for short. He never knew that his son did not know about him.
Mr. Meyer died of a heart attack New Year's Eve 1992.
When Mr. Pratt found the letter from Mrs. Meyer-Purdy, he immediately replied. The twobegan corresponding and after months of letters and phone calls, decided to meet in person.
ÿÿÿ
At the International Arrivals gate at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport Friday, Mr. Pratt and Mrs. Meyer-Purdy giggled like children.
She introduced him to her daughters, Sandy, 19, and Tracie, 9, and he introduced her to his fiancee, Lynne.
“More than anything, I want to talk to Jeanne's aunt and I want to see our father's grave,” Mr. Pratt said.
Smiling widely, and looking at Mr. Pratt, Mrs. Meyer-Purdy nodded her head and said she'll have an open house for friends and family to meet Mr. Pratt Tuesday and Wednesday.
“There will be plenty of talking. I don't think anybody will sleep for a long time,” she said. “I always wanted a sibling. Now I have one and my children have an uncle.”
Homecoming: Warm tradition now overheated
West-side bridge idea revisited
Siblings arraigned in cabbie slaying
Tracing the trail of Morgan's raid
Civil War raid on house in Symmes inspired book
Teen guilty of arson in school fire
Money error adds to stress for foster parents
Hours fly as dancers stretch
Ivo Pogorelich phones it in - from Mars
GET TO IT
Arbitrator awards Lakota schools $1.78M to repair leaky roofs
Church celebrates 75th anniversary
Fired Ky. police boss sues to get his job back
No retrial for man who fled with girl
Officer indicted on burglary charges
River center is classroom in outdoors
Separated for years, siblings united at last
Township plans to legalize 'West Chester' name
Transport officials plead cases
TRISTATE DIGEST
