Local Man Meets Brother, Three Sisters in Toronto."

FIVE GENERATIONS of the C.W. Hubert family were present
for this snapshot on Mothers Day at Blucberry Creek. Back row,
left to right, 72-year-old John Marshall of Blueberry Creek,
daughter Anne Hubert, 99-year-old Harry Quarrie of Calgary,

Debra Johnson and the youngest member, Jason Johnson.

Flegal in Top with .563

wien & a
ISDE STGTISTICS

Kootenay International
Senior Baseball League statis-
tics: é

Top 10
(Minimum 15 at Bat)

Player AB H

Murray Flegal 16 9 |
18

Ss

Rep.
PhilAngrinon 24
.D.-Sil.
John Migneault 16
EK. A
22
N.D.-Sit.
Pat McLaughlin
‘Trail
Jack Voykin

Castlegar
- Gopher Somday

aaeaoa © ® @® &

Rep.
Butch Sager

a

P-
James Warner
Castlegar.
Runs scored: Nelson—10;
i Bruce Allingham, 9; Somday, 9.
Runs batted in: Huth, 12;
Mike Linn, 10; Flegal, 8.
Doubles: Migneault, 3;
Somday, 3.

Triptes: Linn, 2; Bill Mar-

kin, 2; Sager,

117; Bill Markin, N.D.-Sil.
{2-0), 2.50; Rory Rickard, Rep.
(2-0), 2.83.

Strike-outs: George Cloak-
ey, Col., 39; Eric Lepper, Tr.,
26; Sherstobitoff, Cast., 20,

Molson “3 Stars”
Top Five’

(Based on 5-8-1 points system)
Mike Linn, N.D.-Sil B
George Cloakey, Col. n
Murray Flegal, E.K. Angels 11
Doug Huth, Cast. n
Eric Lepper, Tr. 10
Bill Markin, N.D.-Sil, 10

Wind-Up
Activities Plan
For T-League
Sandlot and T-League Soft-
ball is rapidly drawing to a
close. With ‘only one week of

games remaining to be played,
plans have been arranged for

windup activities this Sunday -

at Kinnaird Park.

Activities will include a
fun-oriented single knockout
tournament, tug-of-war, peanut,
scramble and other games.

Families of participants
sare invited to bring.a_ picnic

ger, 2.
Home Runs: Huth, 3; Fle:,;lunch and—joinyin the day's

gal, 2, y
Stolen bases: Allingham, 7;
Voykin, 5; Joel Tremblay, 4.
Pitching (two decisions);
Rob Sherstobitoff, Cast. (3-0),

activities. .

Following the final games,
individual and team awards will
be presented for both league
and playoff winners.

Local Pensioners
Enjoy Spokane Visit —

By FAY FODOR
Tuesday of last week; the

recreation commission in ,

Castlegar sponsored a day trip
to Spokane’ for 27 senior
citizens: of this area.

Two vans, driven by Lynn
Frisk and Fay Fodor departed
from the Senior Citizens’ Cen-
tre at 8 a.m.,, arriving ‘in
Spokane at 11:30 a.m. to enjoy

-a smorgasborg at the Chuck-
wagon Restaurant.

: After a filling meal, the
senior citizens were taken to
Northtown Shopping * Centre

+ and Shadle Park, where bits of
* shopping were done. A quick

stop at K-Mart on the way out
of town, and the group was
sheaded for home.

Around 6 p.m., the group
stopped at the public park. in
Colville to enjoy a picnic dinner
in the shade of the park trees.
The relaxing shade was well-
received, as this day had been
the warmest this area had seen
for some time. Back on the road
at 7 p.m. and we were home by

“8:30.

All in all, the trip was
excellent, and well received by
all participants. Plans are un-
derway at present for another
trip—a day's drive up to: Ains-
worth Hot Springs.

Machine
Sharpening
@ Saws
@ Tools :
@ Scissors, etc.

FRANK'S SHARPENING

1. SERVICE
i(Behind Castle Theatre)
t 365-7395

Other events which will
take place during the summer
are a bingo at the new com-
munity complex, picnic at
Christina. Lake, trip to Balfour
for ferry ride and round trip
home, the zone picnic in Nelson
at Lakeside Park, and a trip to
Fort Steele.

“The recreation commission
would like to thank Mr. and
Mrs. Hunter for helping to ar-
r range meeting times-and con-

| tacts.

A 33-year-old focal man
ended 25 years, of separation
from his brother and three
sisters last month at a family
reunton in Toronto.

Doug Gray, who is a
Canada Pont supervisor here,
sald the meeting unveiled a

his of ad

up in person and I just couldn't - last ‘names don't oxplain who's

afford it. I guess they wanted to
see me because they just don't
Uke giving Information over the
Phone or by letter in case it's
some kind of weirdo.”
Joanne’s query went no-
where but she kept in touch

aplit-ups and relationships
which bad built up during the
separation, .
“But it just seemed like
we'd never parted,” Gray told
the Castlegar News. “I guess
you have them in your mind so
long you just put everything
out to them when you do see
them.” Seas
Gray, who {s married and
the father of four children, says

he is looking forward to taking «

his whole family to, Toronto in
three years’ time to repeat the
reunion, which gained cov:

from the daily Toronto Star and
CBC radio. :

“As a result of the news-
paper article a man phoned
Fred (his brother) and told him
he thought he was related,”
Gray said. “I haven't found out
yet whether he is or not.”

Currently active in local
amateur sports, Gray moved to
Castlegar in 1967 from. Trail
after being stationed with the
Royal Canadian Navy in Hali-

Reprinted below is Toron-
to Star writer Anne Carey's
account of the reunion:

Fred Lefler, 34, Doug
Gray, 83, Joanne Gray, 31,
Doreen McFarlane, 30, and
Lorraine Sanders, 29, couldn't
have cared less about the phone
bill. s

é ‘They burned up the wires |

between Castlegar, B.C., Pic-
ton, Richmond Hill and Willow-
dale the night they all found

-each other.

Children of the same
mother and grandmother, they.
had been separated for almost
25 years after the family was _
split up by adoption.

It had -been a long, heart-
‘wrenching search before the
family was reunited—thwarted
along the way by officials who
refused them information on
where the others might be.

Fred, the oldest of the five
children, started when he was
18 to try to trace. Doug and
Joanne through the Children’s
Aid Society in St. Thomas.

He ran into an official who
would give him no information
at all about where they might

“She said it was none of
your business. Remember,
Fred?" interjected Lorraine.

“My grandmother tried to
help me, too, but no way,” said
Fred. “I tried every other year
until just a few years ago, but
that woman sort of ruled the
roost down in St. Thomas.
She'd ‘see me coming and take
off out the back door.

“She kept saying ‘They're
better off without you. Leave
them alone’.” x

When Fred gave up his
long battle to find Doug and
Joanne, Lorraine took it over,
but she wrote to the-London
Children's Aid because that
was where she was born.

And. then something
clicked—finally a copy of Lor-
raine's letter was sent to the St.
Thomas office at the right time.

While Fred and: Lorraine
had been hunting for Doug and
Joanne, Joanne had been trying
since 1968 to find Doreen and
Lorraine through the Picton
Children’s Aid office.

Joanne's birthplace was St.
Thomas. She wrote the Child-
ren’s Aid office there—on the
advice of Ruth Thompson, the
worker in Picton who had
helped place Doug and Joanne
with the Gray family.

The reply from St. Thomas
wasn't very encouraging, Jo-
anne said:

“They wanted me to come

South

PUBLIC NOTICE

COMPULSORY SANITARY SEWER

CONNECTIONS

Sewer C

are that_In_ acco!
Ww

days of receipt of being

ind F
compulsary fer any owner to connect such bullding witht!
within ane (1) year after the date that the sanitary
rendered operational. The
rendered operational August 20, 1976.

Any person who omits or refuses to comply with the above provision of Bylaw No.
436, 1975, may be required by Council to comply with this

served with a notice.

Inthe event an owner falls to comply within sixty (60) days of receipt of such notice,
then the owner shall be guilty of an Infraction of B lo. 1
under the Summary Conviction Act of up to $:

law

Your in
requested.

the C South Sewer Project is respectfully

rdance with Section 7 of
No. 136, 1975, it shail be
he common sanitary sewer
sewer system Is completed and
Castlegar South Sewer System was completed and

.00 plus court costs.

ylaw within sixty (60),

36 and subject to a fine

~ with Ruth "

And, on March 9 of this
year, Lorraine's letter asking

related to who and how.

-The biggest news for Doug
was that he wasn't the oldest
child, He knew he had three
alsters, He even remembers
being told when he was small

for the whereabouts of Doug. °

and Joanne escaped the paper,
‘shuffle “and it hit Ruth Thomp-
son."

<0 -Mrs. Thompson phoned

Joanne immediately—gave her |

Lorraine's. married name,
phone number and © address.
Joanne phoned Lorraine im-
mediately—and set off those
excited telephone’calls,

: “Ruth Thompson. If it
wasn't for her,” Doug said,
“this reunion wouldn't have
happened. She was Joanne's
and my. teacher in a one-room
school in Picton; so she knew

“She made this reunion
happen—it'll be 25 yeats this
July since we lost each other,”
- Lorraine added.

Now the four in Ontario— -

Fred, Joanne, Doreen and Lor-
ralne—are trying.to persuade
Doug and his wife, Barbara, to
move back to Ontario with their
three children and their foster
child, a nephew.
bara Gray

DOUG GRAY
that Frod was his half-brother.
“I didn’t really understand
what that meant. I knew that
meant we had the saine mother.
But I thought that Fred and my
mother were brother. and sis-
ter, instead of mother and son!”
: Joanne thought Fred. was
her cousin: °
As Jim Nelson put it, even
if The Star did manage to

the boy would have been “put
up for adoption and put into
another family if we hadn't
taken him’ in.” They may
formally adopt him.

The reunion took place at
the Willowdale: home of Ruth
Nelson, who with her husband,
Jim, had ‘adopted : Lorraine
when she was five to be a sister
to her other adopted daughter,
Mrs,. Ann Jones,

The reunion: started on
March 9 when Joanne phoned
Lorraine in Richmond Hill from
Picton. 3

“She didn't give. me- any
warning at all. Got me out of a
deep sleep. I thought it was
Doreen playing a joke on me
because Joanne and Doreen
sould alike’ on the phone,”
Lorraine said. F

“It took me the longest
time to realize I wasn't dream-
ing. That's :
never forgt

‘ogel 8
the reunion that brought Doug
and his’ wife, Barbara, from
B.C, Joanne had moved to

Richmond. Hill from Picton *

since March to be close to her
family. « >

The five children’s search
for each other was complicated
by all kinds of misconceptions
they had as young children,
which they've been sorting
out—mostly under Fred's guid-
ance. ye

The surnames of the five
have not been used to tell their’
story because their names have
been changed by adoption and
by marriage to such a point that

bisthday, Til
‘tiective Alsnnedch 2

explain the i d-outs of the
lives of the five children since
they lost track of each other,
their story’ would be “clear as
mud.” 6

Ifyou're ready fora merry-
go-round of names, here's a
sample of the confusion they've
‘been unscrambling.

Ruth Burgess married
Ernie Smith and Fred was the
son of that marriage.

Fred was adopted when he
was one, by’ his mother's
mother, Gladys, whose’ first
husband was killed in World
War I. She had remarried and
become Gladys Lefler by .the

teen years in'successive foster
homes until sho married,
“She wasn't adopted be-
cause she had Hodgkin's di-
sease,” explained Fred. “She
was one of the first kids to take
the cobalt bomb treatment for
it. They told her she should
plan on a quiet life and. no

«children.

“She’ certainly.: proved

them wrong,”'he added, be- |

cause she has three children
one by her first, and two by her
second husband ‘from whom
she’s separated. ° Mi

Lorraine, who became Lor-
raine Nelson before .she. mar-
ried John ‘Sanders, was the
baby of the family, only five
when it split. up: y

“I don't’ remember” ariy-
thing about “my. original
family—just what I was told by
my grandmother Lefler while I
was growing up.”

Lorraine didn’t lose track |

of her'grandmother, Fred and
Doreen because she was adopt-
ed by the Nelsons, who were
next-door neighbors of the late
Mrs. Lefler,, who lived in
Willowdale for 47 years. t

Mrs, Nelson said: Lor-
raine's grandmother and I be-
longed to the same club and
that's how I got to know about

. her being up for adoption...

Joanne’s phone call was
the second ‘time a sister has.
greeted Lorraine out of the
blue. Doreen came to visit her
grandmother one summer and
showed up at. the Nelson's
home, wie

“She just appeared at our
‘door one day and said, ‘Hi, I'm
your sister’,” Lorraine recalls,

Lorraine, Fred and ‘their -
grandmother, through letters,
calls and summer - vacations,
kept in touch with Doreen as
she moved from foster home to
foster home and after she mar.

ried, but the other two child-

ren, Doug and Joanne, had
dropped off the face of the
earth :

time she. adopted Fred—so™

Fred Smith became Fred Lef-
ler,

His mother’s second’ mar-
riage to Ross Bennett produced
four children—Doug, Joanne,
Doreen and Lorraine.
Bennett died and that was the

apgigtiat which their mother

ond? herself unable to cope
id gave them up for adoption.
Doug and Joanne were

‘adopted by Henry and Della”

‘Mae Gray.of Picton when they
were nine‘and seven—so they
‘became Doug and Joanne
Gray—and lost track of Doreen
and Lorraine whom they knew
were their sisters—and of Fred,
their half-brother, whose rela-
tionship to them they didn't
really understand.

Doreen wasn't adopted.
She remained a Bennett until
her first, and then her second
marriage. She's now a Mc-
Farlane. She wasn't adopted
but spent her childhood’ and

The Original —

Mitchell Buildall

Available at

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my 576"

Get Yo rs Soon! i

Fred'and Lynn Lefler have

carried on the’ tradition of .,

adoption begun by Fred’s
grandmother. The couple
adopted an older sister, 16, for
their two sons, age seven’ and
four “because we liked her,”
Fred says. , ‘

One ‘of the happiest and
most excited peéple at the re-
unfon was Lorraine's sister by
adoption, An.

Though; everyone's as

pleased and exelted about the

reunion as they can possibly be,
‘Ann's Been told—in no un-
certain,terms by her dad, Jim
Nelson—that ‘if she all of a
sudden discovers a raft of
(brothers and sisters she didn't
“know existed:-“You're to keep
it to yourself,”

- Why?) Because none of
them could ‘stand this much
excitement ‘all over again!”

There's another reason to
be happy about the reunion,
said Ian Pearson, one of the
party guests.

“The fact that these people

have gotten together has help-

Joanne blushed, as he ex-
plained, “My wife passed away
in October of last year but
through Lorraine I met Jo-
.anne—here at the house when
she first came up from Picton.”

The next gathering of the
clan may. be for a wedding.

Thank You

To-the many students, par-
ants and friends who call
and brought gifts to my
Open. House retirement
evening. Special thanks to
the Castlegar: Primary Staff
for making this opportunity
possible. ‘,

Kae Andreashuk

The summer
job

Hire a Student

Err e e
What's Missing?

ase contact Rene Rilkotf at

: | we The Canada Manpower

Castlegar: 365-7235 (avery Tuesday afternoon)

Trail 386-8418 (Monday - Friday)

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City of Castlegar

i a