Set Another Place at the Table : 35 Years After His Adoption, Brother Will Meet the Family He Never Knew

For 38 years, John Johnson believed he was the only son in his family.

Then a week ago, he received a call from a man named Dean Gilbert, who claimed to be his long-lost brother.

Astonished, he telephoned his parents--and a 35-year-old secret began to unravel.

Not only did Johnson have a brother, but he had another sister as well. Years ago, his parents, fearing they could not adequately support five children, had given up a boy and a baby girl for adoption. The boy grew up as Dean Gilbert. Neither parent ever breathed a word to their other three children. But since the sudden appearance of Gilbert, a search for their daughter, who was born in 1958, is under way. The family hopes it can locate her by Christmas.

In the meantime, the family’s Thanksgiving dinner will have a special significance, when 18 family members gather at Johnson’s home to meet their new-found relative.

“I always wanted a brother,” said Johnson, a contractor who owns JH Johnson Industries in Westlake Village. “It’s made our holiday season.”

Gilbert, a respiratory therapist at Kaiser Hospital in San Diego, said he has known about his adoption since he was 18 and has always dreamed about meeting his birth parents.

Just before his 35th birthday on July 20, Gilbert decided to find his parents so he could piece together his medical history. As he searched for them, he became consumed by the need to recover fragments of his past, he said.

“I felt that this was a missing chapter in my life,” he said.

With the help of a genealogical expert, Gilbert found 10 couples who shared his birth parents’ names: John and Marylou Johnson. Only one was in the right age range.

After combing through public records at the registrar of voters and the Department of Motor Vehicles, Gilbert located the couple in Buena Park and wrote them a letter. Before he received an answer, he found the phone number for the Thousand Oaks man whom Gilbert believed to be his brother.

John Johnson said he was skeptical when Gilbert identified himself.

“I thought it was somebody trying to con me,” Johnson said.

But as Gilbert began describing his parents and details of the Johnson family history, Johnson was convinced that the man’s claims were authentic.

Soon the two brothers were sharing intimate details about themselves and their childhoods. They spent hours on the phone comparing notes on how they grew up, Johnson said.

Since Johnson told his older sisters in Arizona and Oregon about the discovery of a lost sibling, they have been excitedly making their own plans for seeing their brother.

Helen Weber, 43, of Eagle Creek, Ore., said she was 8 years old when her brother was born, but never knew him. Weber said she was overjoyed to learn she has four siblings instead of two.

Weber said there may have been a good reason her parents never mentioned her brother. “I know they felt like they didn’t have money,” she said. “I imagine there’s some guilt there.”

Gilbert’s other sister, Pat Adams, 40, of Phoenix, said that even as a 5-year-old, she knew her father worried about how to make ends meet after a pending layoff from his job at Douglas Aircraft.

“It’s hard to be in my mom and dad’s shoes . . . 35 years ago,” Adams said.

Marylou Johnson was a 28-year-old mother of three when she gave birth at Centinela Hospital in Los Angeles. Although her husband was working at the time, they both decided they could not handle another child, she said. The decision was heart-wrenching, but she and her husband have never looked back.

“In those days, it was something you didn’t talk about,” the 63-year-old mother said. “It just wasn’t mentioned, that’s all. It’s something that happens and life goes on.”

Gilbert said he is not angry at his parents for choosing to give him up for adoption.

“I respect them for that decision,” Gilbert said. “In today’s world, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Though a little frightened by the prospect, Gilbert is eager to make up for lost time by introducing his wife and four children to the family he has never met.

“It’s been 35 years,” he said. “I think a couple of days won’t hurt.”