Lisa Gestall lives in Ottawa, but she's searching for a man in Sudbury she's never met.
This man would be her uncle, and about 75 years ago, a series of events resulted in him being adopted, to the best of Gestall's knowledge, by a family in Sudbury.
Gestall said her grandfather, George Hilliard Wight, went to fight in the Second World War, leaving at home his wife, Phyllis, and their son, Robert. When he came back from the war, Phyllis had a second son, whose birth certificate listed him as Wayne Richard Wight, born March 9, 1942 in Ottawa, Ont.
But it wasn't George's child.
“Obviously, this did not go over well,” said Gestall.
The two split up, with Phyllis taking Wayne with her, and George taking Robert. Father and son stayed in Ottawa, while Phyllis and Wayne made their way to Sudbury. Phyllis put Wayne up for adoption and remarried, Gestall said.
“How she ended up in Sudbury, I don't know,” Gestall said. “Why she put Wayne up for adoption, I don't know.”
It would seem Robert, being six years old at the time his parents split up, was too young to remember having a brother.
Since the split, Robert had seen his mother two or three times that Gestall knows of. Gestall herself only met her grandmother once. Phyllis passed away in 2000, but a few years prior to her death, she revealed her secret to her estranged son.
“I guess she figured because she was getting older, she revealed her secret to my dad that he has a blood brother,” Gestall said. “She kept this a secret her entire life. I don't know, maybe she thought she was ill or something. What made her decide to tell my dad, I don't know.”
The startling revelation received a lukewarm reception from her father, Gestall said. He was of the frame of mind that he wanted to “let sleeping dogs lie.”
Gestall said her grandmother tried to find Wayne in 1985, but his adoption records weren't open at that time. Children's Aid managed to provide his birth record and a photo of him as a child, and she also managed to find out that Wayne has been made a permanent ward of the Crown and a resident of an orphanage in Sudbury around 1945.
A letter from CAS in Sudbury states Wayne was placed in foster care when he was just over two years old. He was legally adopted by the same foster parents in 1946. The adoptive parents were described as “very upstanding and well-respected individuals in their community who lead a very active social life.”
Now that her father is getting older — he's 78 — and her mother passed away three years ago, Robert seems to be taking more of an interest in finding his long-lost brother.
“Time is ticking away here, and I guess my dad figures before it's too late, we should do something about this,” Gestall said. “As the family geneologist, I've taken it upon myself to try and find Wayne. At this point, I'm just messaging people and searching sites to find as much information as I can.”
Gestall said she has three words to go on that her father remembers from his conversation with Phyllis: Gatchell, Woodruff and Lorne. She has no idea if there is any correlation between the man who would be her uncle and those three words, but her grandmother received information that led her to believe Wayne had been adopted by a well-to-do family in the Gatchell area.
“I know there's a Gatchell neighbourhood, and Lorne Street is one of the main drags, but I haven't been able to find a Woodruff Street,” she said. “But, I know there is a Woodruff family in Sudbury. It's been really difficult trying to put things together with so little information.
“We don't even know if he's still alive, but the Wight boys have a tendency to live forever,” she said.
If her grandmother were still alive today, they'd be able to find that information, said Gestall. The best they can do now, though, is fill out the papers for the province, which will be stored in a database. If Wayne ever decides to look for his biological family, her father's name will be there.
If anyone is able to provide any information about the man who was born Wayne Richard Wight on March 9, 1942 in Ottawa, Ont., and who was adopted in Sudbury sometime after 1945, they are asked to contact Gestall at [email protected].
