Separated before birth, Utica woman now reunited with brother

Deb Myers got a call one day with surprise news. Her sister Kerri had submitted a DNA sample to Ancestry.com, and the resulting paperwork revealed a missing branch of their family tree.

Deb knew she could find him if she wanted to.

Deb Myers, a Utica resident and principal at Trinity Catholic Academy in La Salle, had to think hard before deciding what to do next. Her birth mother had disappeared when Myers was a baby, leaving behind a million questions, such as whether her mom had had other children. Myers had learned later – much later – that she had a sibling out there. Somewhere.

She was curious but also hesitant. Taking the DNA results and probing the newly found branch raised some scary possibilities.

“The whole thing was turmoil,” Myers said. “The whole rejection thing was huge for me. I always had a hard time with, ‘Why did my mother never come back? Why did she never try to contact me, somehow, some way?’

“I didn’t know exactly how to handle it. I was apprehensive because deep down inside I was afraid of rejection – again.”

After much prayer and reflection, she decided she wanted – needed – answers. By fall 2023, Myers had acquired a name and some contact information. On Dec. 12, 2023, she placed not a voice call – she needed to ease into this – but a Facebook message to Keith Brannan in West Virginia:

“Hello, Keith. I am not sure where to start. Best to start with me. I am your oldest sister.”

‘I knew I had a brother’

Barbara Hoge, by all accounts, was a knockout. One of the heads she turned was that of Richard “Sully” Sullivan, a 19-year-old Navy veteran who eventually would settle in Utica. Sparks flew, and Barbara was pregnant at age 16.

In 1954, an unwed mother had two options: Get married or be ostracized. Barbara and Sully did what they believed was the right thing, but the marriage was a catastrophe. Not long after the baby was christened Deborah Sullivan, Barbara walked out.

“She ended up leaving me with my grandmother, said she was going to go shopping and didn’t come back,” Deb said.

Actually, Barbara did return once, ready to give marriage and motherhood another try. During the separation, however, Barbara caught another man’s eye. Bill Brannan was finishing a law degree in Bloomington and planned to return to his native Maryland to start a law career. He wanted a family, too – with Barbara.

It was a tempting offer. Bill’s prospects were better than Sully’s. After the reconciliation with Sully flamed out, Barbara decided her future lay with Bill Brannan and split for good. Deb was just a year old and has no recollection of her mother.

Barbara didn’t go alone. She was pregnant with Sully’s second child. It would be a boy.

“I don’t think she told anybody, initially, that she was pregnant with Keith,” Deb said. “She didn’t tell my dad initially. I don’t think she told my grandparents. And I don’t think she told Bill Brannan.”

Sully remarried and fathered two more daughters. He rarely spoke of his first wife, less again about the son he eventually learned of but never knew. Sully had a baby picture of Keith that he carried the rest of his life. Sully died at age 63.

“I think when my mom left it was devastating for him,” Deb said. “I don’t think he ever really rebounded from that.”

For Deb, Barbara left not only feelings of abandonment but also a cold trail. She’d have no contact with any of Barbara’s family until last year, when Deb’s newly discovered relations told her that Barbara was long dead. That was a gut-punch. Nobody had much information about Deb’s brother, either.

“I knew I had a brother, but all I knew was his name was Keith and my mom had married an attorney from Baltimore. That’s all I knew.”

‘I think I found your sister’

Keith Brannan is 67 years old, works in the aviation industry and just moved to Florida from West Virginia. For years, Keith had known nothing of any “Sully,” let alone that Richard Sullivan was his biological father.

As far as Keith knew, Bill Brannan was his dad, and the two sons Barbara later bore were Keith’s full brothers. Bill and Barbara were able to tamp down the secret during Keith’s formative years, which were pretty stable. Bill’s law practice took off, and he became a prosecutor and judge in Maryland. The Brannans were rather well off.

Tragedy struck Dec. 10, 1971, when Barbara died of breast cancer. She was 33.

Bill Brannan remarried. He was mounting a bid for Maryland governor when he unexpectedly died of a heart attack in 1978. The Brannan boys now were orphaned, save for a stepmother who was less than supportive after their father’s death.

“I didn’t like her,” Keith said of his stepmother. “Me and my two brothers just thought she’d taken our dad for his money.”

Later, his stepmom dropped a bombshell. In the mid-1980s, she mailed Keith a letter stating, “I want you to be aware of some things your dad should have told you. Your father William is not your biological father.”

It later would be proved true. Keith dug out his birth certificate and zeroed in on a few words he’d missed on previous readings: “Adopted at birth” and, just as startling, “Other live siblings: one.”

His stepmother’s letter had arrived at a bad time. Keith still was reeling from the loss of his parents and his brother Doug, who died in 1980 under especially tragic circumstances. Learning that he had an elder sibling was too much to bear.

“I had been through a lot in my life – a lot of tragedies – and I didn’t have a whole lot of motivation to look into it,” Keith said. “I just kind of let it go.”

Years would pass before a key member of Barbara’s extended family reentered Keith’s life. His uncle, Ronald Hoge, resurfaced in 2000 to resolve a probate issue. Ron had fallen out with Bill Brannan after Barbara’s death but now was ready to renew contact with his nephews.

It was good to see uncle Ron again, but Ron confirmed that Barbara had left behind an infant daughter in Illinois. Keith did indeed have an elder sister.

“I still wasn’t ready,” Keith said.

It was one of Keith’s daughters who brought him around. Rylee Brannan asked for a DNA kit at Christmas 2022. When the results were in, Reilly showed them to her father.

“Hey, I think I found your family,” Rylee said. “I think I found your sister.”

By this time, Keith was in his mid-60s and had undergone a gradual change of heart. The time had come to seek out his sister, he decided, and to face the surely tangled story of how they were separated before his birth.

“Life is so short and brittle,” Keith said. “I started to think it was important that I follow through with this, as emotionally powerful as it was likely to be.”

‘It’s been beautiful watching this family grow’

After the Facebook message, Deb and Keith spoke on the phone right before Christmas 2023. It was a brief call, but Deb felt an immediate and undeniable connection.

“As soon as I heard his voice, I knew this was my little brother,” she said. “I knew then this was finally, finally happening.”

Their next call lasted three hours and was more natural. A connection was emerging.

“We spent a lot of time over the next couple of months sending long messages through Facebook,” Deb said. “Finally, we made the decision I was going to fly out there.”

In February, Deb flew to the East Coast. Keith’s fiancée Sandy agreed to pick up Deb from the airport. At the last minute, Keith decided to go with her.

They made eye contact in an airport hallway. Barbara had been gone more than 40 years, but Keith saw a resemblance between Deb and their late mother.

“It was an incredible moment: Brother and sister united for the first time in 67 years,” Keith said. “I thought I was going to faint.”

Deb also felt weak in the knees. She was taken aback by the resemblance between Keith and their father. Keith had Sully’s eyes and the same athletic build.

“When we saw each other for the first time, we cried and we hugged and we cried and hugged,” she said. “And we stared at each other, and then we cried and we hugged.”

There have been many subsequent calls, and there was a follow-up visit in April, this time with some of their children in attendance.

“It’s been beautiful watching this family grow,” Deb said.