A Lost Brother’s Big Feat

“I’m 6’5” tall and I’ve got big feet.”

That was the tip-off. By mentioning his size 16s on the Internet, Robert Atwood of Anchorage, Alaska, helped to unlock the mystery of a past he had wondered about for most of his 56 years.

It brought him back to his roots in Orange County, and the family he’d never known. A whopper-sized family at that.

“I’m more than just happy,” he said to me about the discovery. “It just feels good.”

Atwood’s Internet inquiry about his family floated in cyberspace for two years. That it was spotted at all came by chance.

First, let me tell you about the family Atwood did know:

He was born in 1942 at what is now UCI Medical Center in Orange. His mother and father already had 11 children, so when the 12th came along, they decided it was best to put him up for adoption. That would be Atwood’s brother, just a year older. Atwood was the last, at No. 13. He was put up for adoption too.

He was raised almost from birth in Southern California by a Methodist minister, John Atwood, and his wife, Louise, a schoolteacher. They also adopted a second boy, Charles, from a different family.

Robert Atwood always wondered about his birth parents. But because the Atwoods were so close, he never felt compelled to find them. Plus, he worried that his mother, Louise, might take it the wrong way.

Atwood and his wife, Bonnie, moved to Alaska in the 1980s, where he worked in the petroleum industry, and raised five children of their own. After his adoptive parents’ deaths in recent years, Atwood’s interest in tracing his roots deepened.

Two years ago, Atwood and his wife were visiting a friend who had a computer; she suggested he try finding his first family through the Internet.

“I didn’t expect anything to come from it, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to put something out.”

Using a Web site for birth information requests, he sent out what few facts he had known from childhood: that he had been the 13th child in a large Danish family from Orange County, California.

After that, Atwood did track down independently the name of the agency that had handled his adoption. He learned for the first time about the other brother that had been adopted.

When two years went by and he’d not had a single hit on his Internet inquiry, he assumed he had hit a dead end.

The Thornton siblings in recent years had wondered about him too.

This may sound a bit incredible, but most of Atwood’s original family did not even know he existed until four years ago. For whatever her reasons, the mother made her two oldest daughters promise to keep boys No. 12 and 13 a secret. And somehow the other children never found out.

“My mother was a rather large woman, and it was actually possible for her to be pregnant and most of us kids not even know it,” said Loren Thornton of Laguna Niguel, who is one of Atwood’s brothers by birth.

For some 50 years, the two sisters kept their promise to their mother. (Both of their parents died many years ago.) But one day, inadvertently, Loren Thornton’s wife, Marie, heard the sisters talking about it. Marie realized for the first time her husband had two brothers he’d never known.

After the family secret was out, they all wanted to find their two missing brothers.

“We wrote to Sacramento seeking information, but nothing came of it,” Loren Thornton said.

Then three months ago, Loren Thornton was browsing the Internet searching for genealogy information, an interest of his. By quirk of fate, someone had picked up on Atwood’s inquiry and had included it on a personal Web site about genealogy research. Loren Thornton spotted it.

No doubt the most salient points were those about there being a 13th child from a Danish family. But it was the “big feet” that convinced Thornton he was onto something.

“All us Thorntons are large; when I saw that about the feet, I told my wife, ‘I think this might be my brother,’ ” Thornton said.

Atwood’s plea would still be roaming in cyberspace if the Thorntons had not discovered their mother’s secret beforehand.

Loren Thornton called his brother John Thornton, who immediately e-mailed Atwood in Alaska. But John was so anxious to find out if it was true, he wound up phoning Atwood before he could even see the e-mail.

“When my daughter told me that my brother had called, I assumed she meant my adopted brother, Charles,” Atwood told me. “When I finally talked to John, we exchanged enough information that, for the first time, I knew who my original family was.”

Last month, the Atwoods flew to Orange County, where most of the Thornton clan still live. They were greeted at the airport by some 25 relatives--including four brothers and four sisters-- touting a huge welcoming banner. The reunion had taken more than a half-century to occur and three of his siblings had already died. A fourth suffering from cancer died after Atwood met her.

While everybody was thrilled, Atwood said he could tell the two oldest sisters took special delight. Maybe because they now knew that spilling their mother’s secret by accident had turned out to be a good thing.

I asked Atwood, now that he knows his family background, how he feels about his parents putting him and his brother up for adoption.

“I think I understand it,” he said. “They were a poor family, with so many children to feed and care for. They probably believed this was best not just for the other children, but for my brother and me.”

I haven’t mentioned that other brother’s name, because no one in the family knows it. In fact, that’s why the Thorntons and Atwoods agreed to my request to tell their story. They are hoping it might generate some type of information about his whereabouts.

“It’s not going to be easy; a lot of doors are closed when you’re dealing with someone who’s been adopted,” Atwood said. “But it’s important to us. I wish I’d known my brothers and sisters a long time ago.”

Admittedly, they don’t have much to go on. Except this: The missing brother is Danish, and he’s likely to be a large man. Oh, and he’s probably got big feet.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com