Long, lost sister Susan Kendall McClure Etengoff!!

It was about the year 1980 or 1981 when my father Fred William Kendall came out to California with his then wife, Rita. My first husband and I lived with our 1 year old daughter, on Palo Verde Ave. in Lakewood, CA.

I think this picture was around the time that he came to visit and we started looking for my younger sister, Susan.


During one of our conversations, the topic of Susan came up. She was the daughter of my fathers' 2nd wife. To see how this came about visit ( How many siblings do I have???) We talked about when the last time he saw her was, what had happened, and where she was at this point. He hadn't seen or heard anything about her since about 1964?

She is the little blonde in the front. Susan Kendall was her name then. This was in Jan 1963 and was right around the time that I last saw her.

After my father cheated on Carol (Susan's mother, the first lady on the left), she divorced him and moved away. Her last known address was in Cypress CA, living with her mother. My father knew the address but wasn't allowed to see Susan. Soon, the house was sold and the whole family moved away to AZ. No forwarding address, no information and all letters that my father wrote, were returned undeliverable. He did know that her new last name had been changed to McClure.

So as we talked more about her, the more we wanted to find her. We had always wanted to find her, but were at a loss and didn't know how to go about it. We decided to take a drive to the old house, that was her last known address in Cypress, just to take a look. He wasn't even sure which house it was but knew the general area, on the street.

As we drove slowly down the street, trying to figure out which house it was, there was a man out in his front yard, watering his lawn. We approached him and asked if he had lived there long and that we were looking for someone that had lived there some 20 years or so, ago. He had lived there since the track was new!! We asked him if he remembered a family that lived on that street, that had a daughter and a little girl that moved in with them. Surprisingly, he remembered Carol and Susan and remembered that they moved to Scottsdale, AZ? I don't remember now, if that was the correct town, as that was 34 years ago.

So, we returned home with a little more information than we had when we left. I called information in Scottsdale, AZ and asked for McClure's phone number. I was told there were 5 or 6 of them. So I explained our situation and what we wanted to accomplish. She surprisingly gave them all to me. I began to call the numbers, one by one, but they were the wrong number, until........the last number.

I asked for Carol. The lady that answered the phone said that she wasn't there at that moment. WHAT?!?!?!  Oh my goodness! I don't remember the conversation that took place but found out that Susan had married and moved to Vancouver WA. I was given her number. We were all in shock! Did we finally find her after all these years?

There we sat, all nervous and anxious, what would we say to her when we called? Well, I called and we were all in shock that it was really her. We talked a bit about our lives and where we lived and what professions we were in. She told me that all the pictures she had of our dad were taken from her and destroyed by her mother, Carol. She remembered that he was tall and had dark hair and that he was handsome. She had faint memories of him. Then she asked me, "Do you know where dad is?" I gulped and said, "yes Susan, he's sitting right here next to me!" We all started crying, everyone in the house, including my mom!! He got on the phone and they talked, for what seemed like forever.

It was a happy ending that we found her before our dad passed away. They exchanged pictures and he got to see his grandchildren from her. It was bitter sweet because although they found each other, they never did get to see each other in person.

I was able to meet her in person, years later. This is me on the left and Susan on the right.


As for my other two younger sisters, we have yet to find them and he hadn't seen them since they were little kids. He passed away in May 1992. I am still on the hunt for them, Theresa Kendall and Tammy Kendall were their last known names. Maybe Teresa Kendall and Tamara Kendall and their last known address was somewhere in the state of Indiana. I hope to find them someday also.

How many siblings do I have???

I know for a fact that I have 6 sisters, 3 older and 3 younger. Only 1 has the same mother and father as me. Her name is Diana June and she is 2.5 yrs older than me, born Aug. 24, 1955. I was then born Jan. 12, 1958. Diana is on the left, my mom Kazuko (83 yrs old) in the middle and me on the right. (Mother's Day 2012)

I'd love to post a picture of my two oldest sisters but I don't have any, nor do I know them or have I ever met them. My mom didn't even know there were any other children by my father until after they divorced and she stumbled upon the pictures. That is when my aunt Betty and uncle Jim Cooper (my dad's half brother) told her who they were. Evidently, my dad fathered them with the same female when he was 13 and 14 years old. It was when her parents threatened him, to either marry their daughter or get out of town, that he joined the Army. This was in 1951-1952-ish, when he was 17 or 18. When he joined the Army, his past life just disappeared! (Another post, another time!)

While my dad was married to my mother and living here in the States, and after Diana and I were born, he impregnated a 16 year old child. That was in 1959 and she was born in 1960. Her name is Susan, we called her Suzie.

The lady on the left is Carol Kendall, formerly known as Carol Johnson, the 16 year old child that my dad got pregnant. I am next to her with my babysitter Jane and then my younger half sister Susan. This was my 5th birthday party, so it was 1963 and my sister Susan was 2 1/2 years old. The grey haired man on the far left was known to us as Uncle John and the boy on the far right was a neighbor kid, that lived behind us named Steven.

This is around the time that my father was impregnating, yet another young female. She was a 19 year old named Coreen. Soon after, he and Carol divorced, Carol took Susan and moved away. No one knew where they went and all contact was lost. We missed her and wanted to know her but there was no chance of finding her. All letters went unanswered and were returned to sender. My dad fathered two more daughters with Coreen. I knew them also, Theresa and Tammy. They all moved to Indiana as a family but shortly after their relocation, and after years of alcoholism and abuse, they divorced. We lost contact with them and never saw them again. I don't have any pictures of them and have tried unsuccessfully, over the years, to find them.

These are the siblings that I am aware of. There may, very well be more, but I will never know as any relatives that may have known, are no longer with us. So there you have it, six of us girls that I am aware of and only two that I know and four that I don't.

Here is my half sister Susan in about 1995, me being around 37 and her about 35. She had two children, Gabriel and Hannah, at this point and lived in Vancouver, WA with her husband.

After not knowing our father all of her life, they did reconnect in about 1981. She did get to speak with him, on many occasions before he passed away, although they never did get to meet in person.  This is another story for another time. I am very thrilled to have reconnected with her after a lifetime of wondering about her and missing her. I love you Susan!!!

Poor choices

How far do loved ones go in hurting others, in their journey to find happiness? Where is the line drawn? Does it matter?

Our mother crossed the line (in my opinion) to find her happiness or what she thought was her happiness. She chose what she was used to, rather than what was best for her and her children. People make poor choices all the time, but common sense is common sense, no matter what you are used to. Make a mistake the first time, okay it's a mistake. Make the same mistake again, that's not a mistake, that's a choice. Does it matter? Hell yes it does. It's the difference between your children having a happy, successful life OR a life of hate, distrust, pain and misery.

I understand her first choice to marry a young, handsome man serving in the Army. He was stationed in Japan, during the Korean war and immediately swept her off her feet. They met while she worked at the PX. Against my grandparents wishes, she married Fred William Kendall. He left to come back home to the US, while she got things in order to come here to live a happy American life with my dad. So she thought!

She had to take the 2 week boat trip to the US by herself. When she arrived, he was no where to be found. Here she is, in a foreign country, left her family and all of her loved ones, to come here to be with the man of her dreams!! So much for that, this was the first sign that she should have listened to her parents. He didn't have a house, a good paying job, (in fact he had no job at all) or anything that he told her, he had. This was the beginning of a 5 year hell for her and me and my older sister, Diana.

He was a party animal, loved his alcohol and cigarettes!! He was a very popular man, nice looking, knew many Hollywood figures and was a womanizer. He took her to Hollywood parties where they danced the evenings away. They were quite the lookers and she enjoyed all the fun and attention!!

The abuse started shortly after arriving here in the U.S. in 1953. It always revolved around money or the lack of. My sister was born in Aug. 1955 and I, in Jan. 1958. My mother was offered a job as a waitress from a Chinese lady. She had seen her pushing us in a stroller and started asking her questions. Soon, my mother was earning some much needed money for food and rent. As she worked, my father was watching us. When my mother would come home from work, expecting to find him watching us, she would find us with a babysitter. The babysitter would need to be paid, so she paid with her tip money. My father would come home late, drunk and very abusive. He would riffle through the clothes, hanging in the closet to find her tip money. She had hidden this money from him to buy groceries and milk for my sister and I. She would go out to his car and would find empty, used McDonald's wrappers thrown behind the seat. The straw had lipstick on it and she then knew that he was secretly dating someone.

After time had passed, she found out who this "other" woman was. She walked and walked with my sister and myself in the stroller. She stood on a corner and could see the house of his mistress. There was our car, parked out front!! On the corner, there was a phone booth. She called her house and her mother answered. Mrs. Johnson was her name. My mother asked for my father and she calmly said that he wasn't there! My mother could see his car parked out in the front of her house and then she soon saw my father running out of her house to jump in his car to go home.

The mistress........Carol Johnson, now known as Carol McClure was her name, she was 16 and she was pregnant by my father. Is this why Mrs. Johnson was lying for my father? To protect the man of her future grandchild? Yes, my dad was going to father a child with a 16 year old child, although we had no food or money or anything!! My mother shared a Chef Boyardee boxed pizza with her best friend, Pat Guthrie and her two kids. There were 2 adults and 4 children sharing one box of Chef Boyardee pizza. What a piece of shit!! The little tip money that my mother made went to taking Carol to the movies and to McDonald's. Yes he was a womanizer alright! What kind of mother would let her 16 year old daughter sleep with a married man? Better yet, if she didn't know, why would she let her "minor" child date a married man? Trash, I tell you!

Soon after "the" incident, my mother and father divorced. He then married Carol and had to have her mothers consent! You wonder why my mother hadn't divorced him sooner? Japanese did not believe in divorce, it meant you failed in life. That in addition to, her parents trying to dissuade her from marrying him, she couldn't admit her failures. Also, she had no means to support herself and two kids. He had no job and therefore no money to give her for child support. Where to go, what to do, how to survive?

To be continued..........

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Fathers Day to my dad! 

Feb. 4, 1933 - May 22, 1992

RIP

You weren't the best, but you did your best!