When I Met My Other Brothers

Bill Jepson and Peter Jepson on Coronado Island, San Diego, CA, circa 1991

 Meeting my father's two sons took some doing.

First, as you read in a previous post, I had to get confirmation from my birth mother Irene Sargent Nielen that Roscoe Jepson was my father. At that meeting, she also told me my brothers' names: Bill and Peter. (For a thrill, here's the Roscoe Jepson page.) Irene also told me she thought Peter lived in Galveston, Texas, but Bill was still in San Diego.

That done, I called Peter and William Jepson in the San Diego phone book. No luck.

Then I had this very weird experience, which I now

must acknowledge is not any weirded than all the other eerie things needed to take place for me to find Irene.

I enrolled in a three-day grant-writing class in downtown Los Angeles. One of the participants was the radio communications instructor (or maybe he ran the campus radio, can't remember) named Barry. I can't remember his last name. When he announced he taught in Galveston, I recklessly asked if he knew Peter Jepson. His shocked expression said it all. "Pete!" he said. "Pete's one of  my best friends."

I echoed his shock and gave him my phone number.

He then asked how I knew Peter. I said, like there was nothing strange about it at all, "He's my brother, but I've never met him."

Within this same time frame I asked my friend Francis Furtaw, who moved to Coronado Island, to see what he could find. Bingo! He found William, whom he said had married the admiral's daughter. He also game me William's phone number.

And that one part of how I skipped wondering about my brothers and entered the fast track to meeting them.

I decided to be surreptitious when calling Bill. I said I was looking to give his brother Peter a message. I had no idea what sort of reaction my existence would incite in Bill. That's always a problem for adoptees. 

Bill said he'd give Peter my message, which I took as my invitation to tell him I was his sister.

Bill was not pleased, and the phone call last mere seconds after that.

Maybe a month passed after this when I received a phone call from Peter. He told me a date he'd be arriving in San Diego from an Alaska fishing trip. He asked if I'd pick him up, and they'd go to Bill's house, which wasn't that far away.

Gleefully I accepted.

I don't have pictures of the moment I met Peter, but he was the last one off the plane. He sported a baroque goatee, which I loved. I didn't know anything about him, but I loved him. And I couldn't get over how happy he was to have a sister.

When we arrived at Bill's, the energy changed. Bill was not thrilled. While they discussed who in the family I favored, there was this issue that the secret of my existence could reach other members of my family. I accepted, at the time, their request, and never contacted any other member of their family.

But it's been almost thirty years. I know Peter has died. So has my brother Jim. I have decided to no longer keep my existence a secret. It is not my fault I was born a certified bastard. I hope you who read this understand my change of sentiment.

Me with my brother Bill Jepson in his kitchen on Coronado Island.

Me with Peter Jepson in his brother's living room on Coronado Island. I'd just picked him up at the San Diego Airport upon his return from an Alaskan fishing trip.

Me, my brother Jim Cook, and my sister Cecilia Nielen Games, circa 1981.

This is a picture of our grandfather, William Nils Jepson, who's seated in the middle. I cannot get over how much he looks like my brother Jim Cook (ne Jaime Alexander Sargent).