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PatchWork
by Joyce Whitis |
One Man's Family
Father's Day normally comes the third Sunday in June but for Roy Lynn Goode, of Stephenville, Father's Day arrived on April 18 in Phoenix, Arizona. That was the date he hugged the daughter he hadn't seen since she was five years old, twenty-six years ago! There were enough tears of joy between the two of them, to wash away all those fatherless years as the reunion both had searched for, was completed.
We'll take up the story of one man's family during the dark days of the Viet Nam conflict. Roy was in the United States Navy, stationed for awhile in California. He met , fell in love, and as often happens, was married. Later he was sent to Viet Nam and while he was at sea, the first of two daughters, dark haired Sandra Lynn, was born. When Roy came back from Nam, a lot had changed in the way he and his young bride felt about each other. The terrible experience of the war had put a real strain on this marriage and the months of separation had made them strangers. Never the less, they tried to make a go of the marriage and three years after Sandra Lynn was born, her fair haired sister, Linda Sue joined them.
Sadly it seemed that the marriage wasn't worth fighting for anymore and Roy left California for Texas. He settled in Ft. Worth and got a job with Hopkins Wholesale Florist as a delivery man and Roy had never had a driver's license! He got a license, learned to drive a van, and became an experienced driver delivering flowers all over the metroplex. Roy continued to pay child support to his ex-wife, although he was finding it very hard to support himself.
In 1970 Roy's father died in California so he borrowed money from a friend to go back there for the funeral. He said that when he walked in the house to see his little daughters, his ex-wife had a new television set and was driving a new car and she immediately told him that he had to send her more money because she couldn't live on what he gave her. Sandra Lynn was five and Linda Sue was two at that time and when he left he never thought that it would be twenty-six years before they would meet again.
Once back in Texas, Roy worked at a few other jobs but decided that he wanted to be a butcher so he began training. His job took him to several places in Texas and while working in Comanche, he fell in love again and was married. From this marriage two sons were born, Roy Lynn and Charles. This marriage too failed and about eight years ago, while both were employed at a grocery store in DeLeon, Roy met Dori. They were married and have experienced a life together that has seemed beset with disasters.
Throughout all the years, Roy had tried to contact his ex-wife and find out about his daughters, but had been unable to get anything to work with. He tried the motor vehicle department and got friends to search the internet. He realized that his daughters might be married and had no idea about their last names. When he and Dori married, and she saw how much he wanted to find his girls, she determined to help but they were struck with one tough break after the other so that they had no money to make phone calls. Dori got the phone number of the Maury Provich show, which helps locate misplaced persons, but she never called because they didn't have a phone and there was no place for the show to call back.
The Goode's lost their home in DeLeon in a struggle with the insurance company over hail damage and a roof that needed replacing and at the same time there was a message that Roy's mother in Belton was very ill. This all came on the heels of Dori's hysterectomy and a long list of medical bills.
The Goode's packed up their belongings and drove to Belton. "We just left," Roy says. "We picked up everything we had, Dori and me and we drove to Belton. We didn't have any place to unload when we got there. We just went."
Dori took up the story. "We had our family and we were together so we just trusted in the Lord that we'd make it. Some folks that knew Roy's mother let us live in their Winnebago at first and later we moved into Roy's mother's house."
Roy got a job as a meat cutter at Piggly Wiggly and Dori filed for unemployment. Dori's father lives in California and she had not seen him in twenty years so as a birthday present, her sister sent her the money for airline tickets to make a visit to see him. Roy and Dori left on March 13th and landed back at the Austin airport on March 20. At 6:00 the next morning, a fire that started from the wiring in that old house, destroyed the building and everything that they owned.
Happily the family escaped without serious injury.
They still had their old station wagon so they drove to Stephenville looking for jobs. Dori has two daughters, Jennifer who is married to John Cooper, and Andrea who is sixteen and a student at SHS. Roy, Dori, Jennifer, and John all got jobs at Wal-Mart and they found a place to live in a small trailer park. Once settled, they began to search again for Roy's daughters, but there was something they didn't know. Roy's oldest daughter, Sandra Lynn, was searching for him.
Sandra Lynn searched the internet phone listings for Roy Lynn Goode and found ten addresses. She wrote letters to all ten, getting responses from nine.
The letter meant for Roy came to his old address, that of his ex-wife in Comanche. Roy's son is named Roy Lynn also and the mother, thinking the letter was for her son, forwarded it to him in Georgia. When he opened the letter and read it, he called his dad and read the letter over the phone. Imagine the joy in that house as Roy and Dori hugged each other and rushed to call Sandra to say that the search was over. That was when the real tears of happiness began.
Dori sold her Wal-Mart stock to finance the trip to Phoenix where Sandra lives with her husband. After a happy visit in their house, the couple will be in Stephenville to make this Father's Day a very, very special one for everybody.
Roy showed us a letter from his other daughter who still lives in California. They are looking forward to a reunion as soon as possible.
Roy Goode stood up and wrapped his arms around his wife. Looking down at her, she who had always had confidence that he would be reunited with his children and had done everything she could to help him in his search, Roy turned to grin at me. "You know, I must be the richest poor man in the world."
Well, who can argue with that!