The Unravelling of Secrets and Lies

1985 found us moving to a new neighbourhood in Winnipeg and the first neighbours we met, Sandra and Dennis, became good friends. Over the years we learned more about their family and background. Dennis’ history is one that some, who are searching for their biological past, might relate to.

Dennis’ story begins in the spring of 1947 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where he was born to Stella Stec. Stella was a 33-year-old single lady who lived in Fort William, Ontario (now known as Thunder Bay). She was pregnant and couldn’t tell anyone, therefore, she arranged to quit work and travel for a six-month holiday to visit her good friend, Lil, who lived in Victoria, British Columbia. Nearing the end of her visit, which was also near the end of her pregnancy, she confessed her situation to Lil. Stella, with Lil accompanying her, travelled to Vancouver to give birth.

Stella wanted this child, but knew she couldn’t raise him at this time. She named him Nestor Stec and had him baptized as Nestor James Stec. Stella contacted the Vancouver Children’s Aid Society to have them help her find a family in Kenora, Ontario who would board Nestor for her until her situation changed. Stella picked Kenora because it was within driving distance from Thunder Bay and she would be able to visit.

25 June 1947 Stella and Nestor arrived in Kenora and Nestor is placed with a foster family, in the adjacent town of Keewatin on June 28th. Stella agreed to pay the monthly costs to foster Nestor. February 1948, Nestor moved to a new foster family in Norman and they started calling him Dennis instead of Nestor. When Dennis was about three he was introduced to the Peloquin family who became his long-term foster family and the only family he would know in his youth.

Dennis talked about the awkward situations he experienced growing up in the small town of Kenora.  One of these was not sharing the same last name as his foster family, Donat and Katie Peloquin and siblings Ron and Maryanne. He was Dennis Stec, not Dennis Peloquin.

Stella would come to visit Dennis and most times she was accompanied by a man named ‘Jack’. Dennis recalls them coming for a visit and taking him out for the day to visit sites and eat in restaurants, which was definitely out of the norm for the Peloquin family. Dennis compares this experience to Stella taking him “down from a shelf, like a toy, and playing with him for the day”. This pattern of life continued as Dennis grew and Dennis adjusted to it, as best he could, all the while feeling disconnected from both his birth mom and his foster family.

As years went by Stella realized her hopes of bringing Dennis to live with her in Thunder Bay could not be realized. She also realized that as Dennis joined the sports teams in Junior High and High School there would be a chance he would play against teams from Thunder Bay. She was fearful her secret would come out so she asked Dennis to change his last name from ‘Stec’ so questions would not be asked. Dennis refused and this was another situation where he would have to lie to keep the secrets hidden.

In 1965, four days after Dennis turned 18, Stella’s friend, Jack, died. Stella relayed the news of his death to Katie, Dennis’ foster mom. Katie, for the first time, asked if Jack was Dennis’ dad and Stella confirmed to her that Jack was Dennis’ father. The story of Stella and Jack was finally told.

In 1932, when Stella was 18 she was crossing the Jackknife Bridge to Mission Island in Fort William when a man, in a car, stopped and offered her a ride. His name was Jack. He was married with children and was 23 years older than Stella. This meeting was the start of a 33-year love affair between Stella and Jack.

Stella was born in 1914 in Fort William to immigrant parents, Nicholas Stec and Mary Baranoska. She was the fifth of six children born to this couple. Stella grew up and lived her life in Fort William.

Jack was born in 1891 in Sioux City, Iowa to Thomas William McDonald and Mary Victoria Ryan. He was named Charles Christopher McDonald and was the eldest of five children. In 1912 Charles moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and worked for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. It was here he met and married Marion Thomson Curror. They moved to Port Arthur, Ontario (now part of Thunder Bay) about 1929. Charles and Marion had three sons: John P, Charles Alexander and Thomas William. Charles remained married to Marion until his death 18 May 1965.

Fast forward to the early 1990’s, we were informed the Stec household was receiving phone calls from a female looking for Dennis. She did not leave a name or contact information for a call back. It took quite a while before she found Dennis at home when she called. Her name was Debbie and we soon found out she was Dennis’ full-blood sister. Debbie was born 15 months after Dennis.  Stella named her Loretta Grace and knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her so she arranged for Debbie to be adopted to a Protestant family in Sarnia, Ontario, a community far from Kenora. Through Debbie’s search for her biological family she connected with family members in Thunder Bay who told her about Dennis. Debbie and Dennis met and embraced each other as siblings. They have many similarities in looks and personalities.

2001 arrived and Dennis asked for my help in tracking down his half-brothers. The only information he had on them was from their father’s obituary. The obituary read, “… three sons: Charles A. of Palos Heights, Ill., John P. of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Thomas W. of Saskatoon, Sask; seven grandchildren; one brother, Thomas, and one sister, Mrs. William Phelan, both of New Westminster, one brother, James, in Detroit”. I started building Dennis’ family tree and within a short period of time it grew to almost 200 people. As much as I was able to build his tree back and down a few branches I could not locate any current information about his three half-brothers. I had found some public trees that contained information on many members of Dennis’ paternal family. I reached out to them but received no response. DNA testing for genealogy was new at this time and this was not an option we explored. My searching for Dennis’ family consisted of the tedious reading of documents and exploring and verifying the connections to suggested relatives. I was writing letters to former employers of Jack (Charles), John P, Charles Alexander and Thomas William requesting information and asking them to forward my letters to the individual or their surviving family. These letters provided no information. I stalled. 

Meanwhile, Dennis’ son, Ryan, took his father on a journey to relive his past and explore the many facets of secrets and lies that created a tangled web. Ryan filmed this difficult and emotional voyage and produced “Bastard”.

In 2012 I asked for Dennis’ permission to share personal information about his life, and possibly the movie, with Robert, the owner of a public tree, who I felt would have information that would lead us to Dennis’ half-brothers. Dennis gave me permission and I sent an email to Robert providing information about Dennis’ story and why the request for information was made. Robert called me and we talked. He was interested, but I felt he was not willing to commit to sending me the information. I told him about the movie and asked if he would like to see it. He said yes and I immediately sent it. Robert called me first thing the next morning and told me he watched the movie shortly after receiving it. He said he found himself crying and immediately after it finished he went up to his attic to look for all the information he had that would lead Dennis to his half-brothers. Robert sent me this information and I forwarded it to Dennis.

08 October 2012, Dennis nervously dialed the number and spoke to Anne, the widow, of his half-brother, Tom McDonald. According to Dennis they “started a rather clumsy conversation about family searches and genealogy which evolved into a very comfortable, fact filled chat”. In correspondence I received from Dennis he noted “that Anne did not appear overly surprised when I identified myself as Charles’ son but she was vague about any details of my existence. She had heard of Stella through a sympathy card to the family when Charles/Jack died. She had very few details of Stella and was unaware that she lived in Fort William let alone Mission Island. When I mentioned that there were 2 of us, referring to Deb, Ann responded ‘We didn’t know about her’. So I am not clear as to who knew what when but the silence was apparently deafening in both the Stec and the McDonald circles!”.

In Dennis’ words, “I’ve put my story on the big Screen which I didn’t think was that interesting and which I hid for a long time. Through stories and their telling we give other folks opportunity to listen and license to tell their story which as you know is incredibly important.”