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Family reunites with newly found brother

A day of family reunion and connection
Reunited
From left to right: Shirley Jackson, Bob Elfstedt, Sherry Stringer, Eugene Jackson pose during a family reunion for two brothers who were finally renunited after 70 years.

After 70 years of not knowing he had a brother, a local man was reunited with his older sibling who was adopted as an infant.

Early in 2019, Eugene Jackson’s family discovered they had a brother they never knew existed and quickly wanted to get everyone together for a reunion.

The reunion was held Saturday, Jan. 12 at Jackson’s home in Olds, where siblings and other family members embraced their new-found family member Bob Elfstedt.

Elfstedt was put up for adoption after he was born in 1939 and never knew about his biological family until he used ancestry.ca, a website that helps people learn more about their lineage and lost family members.

“There are no words. I was hoping this would come together,” said Elfstedt who lives in Edmonton. “I never expected to have a family but now I have three sisters and a brother, full-blooded brother and sisters.”

The experience is one that has made a lasting impact on Elfstedt.

“It’s been just hugs and thank yous — it’s unbelievable to be accepted. I’m the guy they never knew about. I’m 80 years old for God sakes — it’s a long time coming,” said Elfstedt.

“It was fairly shocking at first and kind of overwhelming but at the same time it was truly exciting,” Jackson said about finding out about Elfstedt.

There is a lot of lost time that Jackson and his siblings are looking forward to catching up on.

“We’re going to be busy for the next while because we got a lot of years to catch up on,” Jackson said.

The Olds resident said he would have liked to have played his favourite sports with his brother growing up like hockey and baseball if he had been around.

One sister, Shirley Jackson, flew out from Nova Scotia to be a part of the reunion.

“Hard to believe. It’s still surreal and really hard to process.

“I talked to him on the phone a couple of times. We’ve been talking back and forth trying to speculate how this could happen.

“I didn’t realize I’d have the reaction I did seeing him this morning. It was just amazing,” said Shirley.

Before meeting her brother in person, Shirley felt apprehension and wasn’t sure how she would react.

“He walked in and it was a lot more emotional than I thought it would be and it just kind of hit me like wow, this is really true,” Shirley said.

The Nova Scotian will be in Olds visiting until Friday when she will fly back home. While she’s here, she hopes to catch up on as much as she can.

“I hope we can get to know each other and find out more about each other and share our lives for as long as we can,” Shirley said.

Elfstedt shares the same sentiments.

“I can’t even express how it feels. We’ve only been talking for a week — we got 50 years to catch up on here,” Elfstedt said.

Shirley anticipates being back in Alberta in the summer when she comes with her band, Shirley Jackson & Her Good Rockin’ Daddys, and hopes to have Elfstedt come to one of her shows.

Shelia Jackson, another sister, says that she learned what it was like to truly be excited about something.

“I’m not the kind of person that gets excited but honest to God when I got that phone call, I knew what it is like to get excited,” said Shelia. “I wasn’t able to sleep for four days I guess until I got a phone call from him. Once we talked for two and a half hours I could sleep again.”

The experience is something that Shirley never thought would happen but is happy that it has and that she has a newly found older brother.

“We’ve always looked at Gene as our older brother but coming to find out that we have an even older brother that’s still alive is quite amazing,” Shirley said. “Hopefully we’ll have a lot of time to make up for those lost years.”

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