He was never spoken of at his grandfather’s table, and no place setting ever arranged for him. Even so, he moved about our 1965 holiday home as if an ‘essential presence.’ I pictured him watching the Thanksgiving turkey being carved as the sweet potatoes were passed, and I saw him sympathize as “we the kids” cringed (and cried foul!) at my mother’s edict to enjoy all of my grandmother’s green Jell-O holiday concoction.
In his mind’s eye he must have watched us move about at Christmas, unwrapping the coveted “I wants” and the gifts of a childhood he should have had, but must have only wondered about. For you see, his place at his grandfather’s table had been given away – to me.
His name was “Daniel,”[1] and it would be many years before we met. Growing up with sisters I had always wanted a brother, and the very idea of Daniel out there somewhere seemed to fit the bill. I don’t remember when I first learned about him.
I only knew that his grandfather, C.R. Dixon,[2] had married my grandmother Alta V. Lee as his second wife and with those starry-eyed nuptials the rumor of a “lost grandson” had tagged along.[3] I acted the part of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as I eavesdropped on adult conversations about where Daniel might be.[4] No one really knew. And no one seemed to be trying very hard to look for him. Those were different times.
From my youthful vantage point I assimilated what I could about Daniel. In the 1960s, family secrets still held great power and the ten-year-old genealogist in me was trying to piece together the facts. I did learn that Daniel’s mother had made some difficult life-style choices and, unable to care for her son, had taken Daniel as a baby to live with her sister “Polly” and Daniel’s grandmother, Clifford Dixon’s first wife.[5]
At that point, “the telling” gets foggy. It seems Edna’s circumstances changed somehow, and that Polly, a young professional, could no longer raise her sister’s now six-year-old son. “Aunt Polly,” feeling too much responsibility, decided to return Daniel to his errant mother. Daniel’s mother was by then living in the flower power days of – where else? – San Francisco.
So Polly returned Daniel to his mother. This arrangement barely lasted any time at all before Daniel’s mother, also unable to cope with a young boy, placed her son in a Catholic orphanage and walked away. Fortunately for Daniel, he was later adopted into a solid family, but one that came with its own issues.
The years rolled by, but Daniel’s fate never really left me. In the spring of 2004 I decided it was time I went looking for him. Daniel had been smart. He had been looking for his family, too. With clues here and there, I managed to trace Daniel’s story through adoption message board web sites. Discovering a post of his, I learned he knew almost nothing about his mother’s father – a man who had been, for all intents and purposes, my grandfather. The “existential genealogist” in me would not be still. I needed to contact “Daniel.”
We arranged to meet at a freeway-side “greasy spoon” of equal distance from both of us. Finally, I would be meeting this idealized brother of my childhood. Finally, I could tell him what little I knew about his grandfather, and, yes, perhaps relieve myself of some childhood survivor’s guilt. After all, I had lived the life of “the grandson”; Daniel had not.
For me this was to be more than a meeting to compare our lives. Oddly enough, I had some things I needed to return to Daniel. After C.R. Dixon had passed away in the 1980s, I had inherited a few of his personal effects. Among them were a man’s signet ring and two carved wooden statues that Daniel’s grandfather had picked up in Madagascar as a Merchant Marine. I’d harbored these items for almost twenty years, but these things weren’t mine – they were Daniel’s.
Meetings like this often don’t go as planned and this one was to be no exception. Somehow I had thought that Daniel would be excited to “find his way home,” and back to some semblance of a connection to his maternal grandfather. I was naïve and ignorant in this regard. Daniel was no longer ten years old. Our conversation was cordial but stilted. Though Daniel recounted his life’s story with a wry humor, his fifty-year-old eyes still reflected little back. Daniel wanted one thing - no pity. His understanding was deep, but there would be no family reunion here and no place for recompense.
There was however one bright spot in all of this. As I returned the wooden statues from Madagascar to Daniel, I explained to him that these had been his grandfather’s – and that they were now to be only his. As I did this, his eyes shone brightly with awe and pride for his grandfather. And in the flash of that brief moment I saw the heart of a ten-year-old boy return home again, to stay – if only for a minute.
[1] “Daniel” is a pseudonym for the purposes of this post, as is the name “Polly.”
[2] Clifford Reid Dixon (1912–1985), second husband of Alta Violet (Sage) Lee.
[3] Jeff Record, White lies, Vita Brevis, 31 May 2017.
[4] “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” an American spy-fiction television series 1964–68.
[5] Edna Sofia (Hakkinen) Dixon (1913–2007), first wife of C.R. Dixon.
