: Separated as young boys, two brothers seek a third

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Desiree Cooper



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DESIREE COOPER: Separated as young boys, two brothers seek a third

June 26, 2003

BY DESIREE COOPER
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST


Robert Kubina has only a few memories of life before he turned 5 in August
1967. He remembers strolling to the store with his dad in their east-side
Detroit neighborhood. He remembers how his little brother Gary followed him so
closely, the family called him "Me, too." And he remembers being left alone to
fend for himself and Gary, then 2, and their youngest brother John, 1.

"I have a picture of a woman standing at the top of the stairs throwing a
turkey down at a man," said Rob, now 40. "I assume that was my mother and
father." Agency, removed the boys from their home. Rob was placed in a Walled
Lake foster home, then adopted by a Macomb Countyfamily a year later. He never
saw his mother, father or siblings again.

"I lived my whole life thinking I'd let my brothers down," said Rob, sitting in
his Macomb Township home.

Then one day in 1989, he got a letter from Catholic Social Services telling him
that his brother Gary was trying to find him.

"It was like a dream come true," said Rob. "I finally got a piece of my past
back."

Now Rob and Gary need the answer to one last question before their lives will
be complete: What ever happened to John?

A twist of fate
"If things had been done right, Rob, Gary and John would have been raised as
farm boys in Alpena," said 83-year-old Margaret Robb. She's the boys' long-lost
aunt, the sister of their father, Robert MacKenzie.

Margaret, whom the family calls Aunt Dede, is a retired Alpena schoolteacher
who ran a small farm with her husband. Although most of the family lived in
Alpena, her brother Bob left in the 1960s to work at General Motors Corp. in
Detroit. Dede remembers that he had three boys with his girlfriend, Mary. The
children took the MacKenzie last name, even though Bob and Mary weren't
married.

But the couple had problems and eventually, Mary left.

"Bob called me and asked me if I would come down," said Dede. "I arrived with a
trunk of clothes in three sizes for the boys. I told him that because I lived
on a farm, I'd be happy to take them back to Alpena with me. The next thing I
knew, Bob called and said that social services had taken the boys and he didn't
know where they were."

Dede said she wrote a letter to Wayne County Social Services offering to raise
the children but never heard anything.

"We kept looking for three MacKenzie boys," she said. "They never turned up."

Oh, brother, where art thou?
A report prepared by an adoption research worker at Catholic Social Services of
Wayne County offers some clues as to how the boys may have slipped away.

Records confirm that in 1967, Bob was taking care of the boys in a downstairs
apartment in Detroit while Mary lived upstairs. A petition was filed alleging
the brothers were "not often fed, seldom given a change of clothing" and that
their birth mother "drank frequently."

The state removed the children from the home when a second referral for neglect
was filed after the youngest brother, John, was treated for malnutrition.

"I remember trying to find food for me and my brothers," said Rob. "We would
eat spinach out of the can like Popeye."

Rob believes his mother eventually gave up her parental rights, and because the
couple were not married, her actions cut Bob off from his children. The
Catholic Social Services report, however, states that "your birth parents did
not feel that they could take care of you and your brothers," indicating that
Bob may have been included in the decision to put the children in foster care.

The boys became state wards in February 1968. Rob spent several months in
foster care, but in 1969, he was adopted by the Kubina family. In August 1968
at age 3, Gary was adopted by the Miscovich family. Both boys lived most of
their lives in Macomb County. John, then 2, was adopted through the Wayne
County Probate Court in September 1968.

"We heard that he was adopted by a doctor in Grosse Pointe," said Rob. "That
might make sense, because the hospital where he was treated for malnutrition
was in Grosse Pointe."

Unable to find his children, Bob moved back to Alpena.

"He searched for those boys for seven or eight years," Dedesaid. "Every
birthday, he'd remember them. Gary, John and Bob were all born in December, so
December was always the hardest."

A band of brothers
In 1989, Rob got a call from his adoptive parents.

"They said they'd received a letter from Wayne County Social Services that my
brother Gary was trying to find me. They gave me an address and a phone number.
I couldn't believe that we lived less than 5 miles apart."

Gary, too, had been feeling the loss of his brothers all of his life.

"I didn't even know my mother had sent the letter," he said. "Then, out of the
blue, my brother was on his way over. When he came to the door, we hugged. I
thought, 'Cool, one of them found me.' "

Rob eventually formed a family of his own. He married Shelley in 1998, and they
are raising Rob's 7-year-old son. Anentire living room wall in their home is
papered with family photos. Both Rob and Shelley wear lockets containing the
ashes of their purebred Keeshond named Stormy, who died at Christmas ofstomach
cancer. With several other pets, including cats, dogs and turtles, the house is
a monument to kinship -- all the more reason why finding Rob's roots became a
priority for both of them.

"One day Rob mentioned that before he'd been adopted, he'd spent time in a
foster home in Walled Lake," Shelley said.

She contacted the school district and asked for the 1967 records of a student
named Robert Walter MacKenzie. The district had no such record, but there was a
similar one. A boy who had siblings named Gary and John had enrolled that year.
But the boys' last name was Martinson, not MacKenzie.

"Then it all made sense," said Shelley. "When the boys were taken by social
services, they'd been listed under their mother's last name -- Martinson --
since the parents were unmarried."

The name change may explain why the MacKenzies never were able to trace the
boys. Armed with new information, they were able to find Rob's family in
Alpena.

"It's a good thing I was sitting down when Shelley called me," said Dede. "It
was out of the blue. She asked me, 'Did you ever have three nephews, and one of
them was called "Me, too?" ' Right then, I knew it was them!"

In February, Rob was reunited with his Aunt Dede, but he was too late to meet
his father. Bob passed away in 1987.

"I went to my father's grave," said Rob. "I was so disappointed. I told him
that I forgave him -- it wasn't his fault. I told him that I'd see him one day
again."

Last Wednesday, Rob took Gary to Alpena to meet Dede and the rest of the
MacKenzie family. The trip was tension-filled: Their 84-year-old aunt was going
into the hospital the following morning for hip-replacement surgery.

Dede was nervous about the procedure, but heartened with the boys at her side.

"If things don't go well, at least I can say I know where the boys are," she
said. Her worst fears were not realized. She came through the surgery well,
grateful for the chance to live to be reunited with her remaining nephew.

"When I think that they could have been raised together with me, as brothers. .
.. . Well, that's life, and now I have a big piece of it back. If we could only
find John, then the family will be complete."