By KAREN LAPIERRE
For Great Bend Post

GREAT BEND — Things are good for Ron Mason in Great Bend with a wife, children, grandchildren, and his wife’s side of the family. Still, he was missing a piece of the puzzle in his own life for more than four decades.

He had no family medical information and no known biological siblings or cousins and was curious about both.

Mason grew up in picturesque Monroe, La. hunting and fishing on the bayou, making wonderful memories with a group of boyhood friends. He was the only child of Earl and Peggy Mason.

“It was fantastic. I had a great childhood,” Mason said. “I was an only child and spoiled rotten.”

Mason’s father died when he was four and unfortunately, he has few memories of him.

When Mason was 12 years old, his mother told him he was adopted as a baby. His parents could not have children of their own.

Peggy took him to show him Sellers Baptist Children’s Home in New Orleans, La., where he was adopted from.

In the 1980s, Mason began the search that has lasted most of his life. He and Tammy would look in telephone books or in libraries for the family name.

Internet was not available at that time, nor was there fast Internet in the 1990s.

In 2000, Mason was in Louisiana for a funeral. He contacted the children’s home only to be told the records had been moved from New Orleans to Monroe Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home.

Mason stopped by, and after some persuasion, the director gave Mason a copy of the file.

Mason learned his birth father went to the U.S. Naval Academy and was a University of Alabama graduate, and his birth mothers’ date and location of birth and name, Margaret Eloise Jordan.

“I’m going to try and find them,” Mason told the director. He and Tammy continued looking through old paper records without results.

In the last couple of years, Mason saw ancestry shows on television where people found relatives through DNA analysis. In October 2017, Mason had a DNA analysis on Ancestry.

On Dec. 27, Mason got his results by email, and found that he was Irish, English and Scandinavian.

To find relatives on Ancestry, one must join. Mason took the plunge and joined, and found three people who were related by blood. They were second cousins from both sides of his birth family.

He sent those people a message through Ancestry and waited for them to contact him. On his way to a basketball game, one called.

In February 2018, they hit the jackpot. His second cousin, Bridgette, helped Mason find Margaret Eloise Jordan’s burial place in Montgomery, Ala. They contacted the cemetery for information on who had placed the plaque.

“The connection hit,” Mason said. He was given the phone number of his youngest half-brother, Richard Smith, whom Mason called right away.

Mason said that there is no easy way to tell Smith but to clearly state that he thought he was related to him.

“He’s in shock,” Mason said, after verifying their mother’s name and DOB were indeed the same.

Smith said there were 10 children on his birth mother’s side.

“That’s when we got shocked,” Tammy said, as this was on Mason’s mother’s side only.

Slowly, several of the siblings began calling. Ron’s older half-sister, Bunny, had met William Richard Stewart, Ron’s biological father, much to everyone’s surprise.

There were even pictures of Mason’s biological parents together. The couple had dated for a few years and then split up.

“We’re putting all of these puzzle pieces together and everything starts to fit,” Tammy said.

The Masons found biological father William Stewart’s obituary and saw that there were siblings on his biological dad’s side too.

On May 1, 2018, Mason received a phone call from his half-brother, Bill, Jr. on his dad’s side. They talked for an hour-and-a-half. Bill told Mason that they had never known they had another half-brother, and was certain their father had never known about Mason.

There were two siblings on his dad’s side, Bill and a half-sister, bringing the total to 12 siblings.

The Masons decided they were going to Montgomery, Ala. to meet all of the family in June, 2018.

“Everybody looked at me because I look just like my birth father,” Mason said.

Mason has visited both of his birth parent’s grave sites and saw the house where his mother lived, and visited the Stewart home in Greensboro, Ala. On his dad’s side, Bill and Beth played a tape of his father’s voice, so Mason heard his father speaking one time.

“After 62 years, he finds out he has got this huge family,” Tammy said. “I have to say they were so accepting and so nice.”

Finally, all of the pieces of Mason’s life’s puzzle have been put together.