Search for father leads woman to Cedar Lake
Alice Bibby, 54, was born in this country, but has lived in England since age 5. She has been in search of her biological father for 25 years. I met with Alice and her husband, Philip Bibby, at Harry O's in Cedar Lake. My go-betweens, Dawn and Russ Gower, of the Cedar Lake Historical Society, sat in on the interview.
At times, Alice and I had difficulty understanding each other. I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who said, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” But we got through it as she proceeded to unveil a deliciously fascinating pot-boiler of a tale.
***
“My maiden name is Brooks,” she said. “But actually it's Stubbings, I find. You see, my mother went from Austria to England, where she married an Englishman. Eventually, they settled in Canada, where they lived for six years before moving to Cedar Lake.
“While my parents weren't quite together (estranged) my mother got herself a job at Midway Ballroom in 1961.”
“Mother had an affair. A summer fling, if you will.”
“Donald Stubbings. I have only found this out since March, although my mother told me that my father wasn't my father when I was 18. I didn't start looking for Donald Stubbings until I was 29. My search has now brought me to Cedar Lake.”
“He was born in 1937, and was a barman at Midway Ballroom. Donald also was a lifeguard somewhere on the lake (Cedar Lake). He was training to be a (physical education) teacher in California. He was only here for the summah.”
“Yes, summah. When it's hot outside.”
“In 1991, I spoke to Cedar Lake historian Beatrice Horner, who put me in touch with Martha Kubel (former owner of Midway Ballroom). I wrote to ‘Marti' for three years — we became pen friends — but she couldn't help me. But I did eventually discover that my biological father was good friends with the members of the Nite Caps band. They were the house band at Midway Ballroom.”
“No, he was from Middletown, Conn. Only three days ago, we found a paper in my father's belongings that said he was in the Navy training with missiles. Jim Kimber, of the Nite Caps, also was training with the missiles. I think that's the connection of why my father came here.
“I really was getting nowhere. I decided to forget it. But after six years, I told myself I wasn't going to forget it. I decided to reopen the case. I put ads in the local newspapers here. Plus, over the past two years, I've put my DNA on three sites. The last test was the ice breaker. My mother was on her deathbed, so I took some cotton swabs and got some DNA from her. I then downloaded her DNA on a site called Gedmatch. By doing this, you can take away your mother's DNA and you're left with your father's DNA. That way, whoever matches with you there you know is on your father's side.”
“Bingo — second cousins. That was this January. My mother could remember, in my father's bedroom in Cedar Lake, there was a picture of two children and a woman. I phoned the woman who was in that picture. She was still alive. The woman in the photograph turned out to be my father's sister-in-law. Then, she tells me, ‘You have siblings, two sisters and a brother.' ”
“I told her that all I wanted was a photograph of my father because I didn't know what he looked like. She said, ‘No, you must ring them.' I said, ‘I can't ring them.' She said, ‘I'll ring them.' So she rings one of my sisters, and my sister tells my father's sister-in-law that she wants to see me.”
“She said, ‘My dad always joked that if we didn't want him, he had another family that did.' Ha. That was a bit rough.
“I wanted to see my siblings, so I flew from Heathrow to Boston. I stayed with my second cousin. We traveled to Vermont and eventually to the cemetery in Middletown, Conn., where we found four graves immediately. Then we went to the town hall to get a death certificate of our grandmother. And who should serve us but a doctor who went to school with my father.”
“It gets better. Then we traveled to New Jersey, where both of my sisters live. We then traveled to every house they lived in, including Middletown which has a historical museum near a beach resort similar to the one in Cedar Lake. I was leafing through a book in the museum, and sure enough there was a picture of my dad taken in 1958. He was standing with 20 other lifeguards. That same picture is in my brother's box of goodies.”
“Yes, we flew to Kansas, where he took me to a Kansas City American football game. All three of my siblings welcomed me in. That was fantastic, because I was raised an only child. One of my sisters had her DNA done and we matched.”
“She only knew certain things. She knew that one of my father's parents was either Irish or Scottish. Both of them died young, so he was raised by his sister-in-law, the woman in the photograph. My father was nine years younger than my mother. He also was an extra in films and knew Tarzan.”
“Yes. You see, soon after my mother told me about Donald when I was 18, she was hitchhiking and got attacked by a man who hit her head four times with the butt of a shorn-off (sawed-off) shotgun. She had headaches for two years after that. A surgery was performed, but it went awry. The left side of mother's brain was affected. You could hold up this glass of water and she would call it a car. I did find my mother's diaries, but being Austrian-born, she couldn't write in English properly.”
“Yes, at the age of 48.”
“Cirrhosis of the liver. He wanted my mother to go with him to California, but she couldn't see herself on campus with a baby. Mother reunited with her husband and we moved back to England. He assumed I was his child. My mother eventually told him I was not his child, but he wouldn't believe her.”
“I wanted Cedar Lake to be the final stop of this journey. It is where my parents met, where Midway Ballroom once stood.”
***
Closure.
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