Brothers 6/4/22

My 5/18/22 post focused on our sisters. This entry includes photos is our brothers – my brothers Joel and Charles, who were twins, and Sue's brother Leroy. It also includes a brother not revealed until many years later.

Joel was a computer engineer, Charlie a banker and later a beautician, Leroy a farmer and real estate agent, and I was a university professor and administrator. Charlie and Leroy are no longer with us having passed in 1991 and 2019, respectively:

But there was another brother. Dorian also was a twin to a brother, Ken Harvey. Dorian and Ken were separated while toddlers in a divorce via a scheme apparently developed by my mother's mother (my maternal grandmother) and an aunt (my maternal grandfather's sister) and forced on her. Ken went with his father and Dorian stayed with her mother. I do not remember Ken being spoken of as Dorian, Joel, Charles and I grew up. I was 24 when I first learned of Ken. After the funeral service for that aunt, my mother - actually our mother - told me the pallbearers who was across from me was my half-brother. Even more shocking is imagining your mother giving up a child, especially when her parents had the financial means to help support her and both twins, but apparently not the will.

Ken, who was a printer, passed in 2020. Joel and I remain....