I want this to be interesting to you, because it’s so interesting to me. It’s the last of three blog posts on our trip to Virginia Beach and, I think, the most important: meeting for the first time my three cousins. Here goes:

A distant cousin in Indianapolis (whom I at that time also had not met) was working on an extended family tree, contacted me for some information, and then forwarded the tree to me, allowing me to be an editor. One of the people listed on the tree as a daughter of a now deceased second cousin of mine whom I had not seen since childhood, had a Japanese first name, which, of course, interested me. I followed up and learned that K (I am going to hide names, just in case) was a musicologist living in Copenhagen, who specialized in old Japanese wind instruments, and in particular the shakuhachi, a form of Japanese flute. I friended K on Facebook and have been in continual contact with her ever since.

K told me she was coming to New York to play in a concert at Carnegie Hall this past Saturday, and then going to visit her aunt S, her late father’s sister in Virginia Beach. Also with her would be A, her step-sister who lives in St. Louis, who had also become a Facebook friend. Edie and I said we would drive down to Virginia Beach and meet them.

K’s father was M, a year older than me. His sister whom we met is a year younger than me. I think I had not seen either of them (I actually didn’t remember her) for 70 years. I am going to tell you his story, an extraordinary one, as I heard it. To make things a little more clear, I am going to break down and call him Mickey.

Mickey’s mother was my mother’s first cousin, the daughter of one of my grandfather’s brothers. Everyone lived in St. Louis. Mickey’s mother, whom I do remember, was at least two things – she was a nurse, and she was a Communist. She was enough of a Communist to become a nurse for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. That is where she met her husband, J.

They married, had three children (the third does not matter for this account – I have not met her either; she lives in Denver). In the early 1950s, it was tough to be publicly acknowledged Communists (J was, I am told, called before the McCarthy committee – true? I don’t know), and, perhaps as a result of this, Mickey’s mother committed suicide when she was in her, I think, early 40s.

Perhaps because of his Communist affiliation, their father was not able to care for them, and Mickey and his sister were placed in the Jewish Children’s Orphanage in St. Louis, where they lived for four or five years, until their early teens. My grandfather, their great-uncle, was a pediatrician who was the doctor for the children in the orphanage, so he remained in touch with them.

The story gets a bit fuzzy, but I think Mickey’s sister S left the orphanage and moved first with one, and then with another, of her father’s relatives, but that this was not satisfactory. Mickey I guess was still in the orphanage, but at some point they were all able to go to their father, who now lived (and I think who had remarried) in California. S stayed in California through high school, but Mickey didn’t like California and when he was 15 or 16 hitchhiked back to St. Louis where he lived somewhere and made it through high school, graduating from University City High School in 1959. I graduated the following year from Ladue (pretty much right next door), but don’t remember having any contact with Mickey. The last time I remember seeing him was at my grandfather’s funeral in 1953.

After graduating, I don’t think Mickey directly entered college, but he moved to Chicago where, at some point, he ran into an old high school friend and married her, having one child, my cousin A, whom I met Monday in Virginia Beach. Mickey and his wife separated when A was only about 6 months old. A’s mother remarried and until she was a teenager, A had no idea that her “father” was her stepfather. She was shocked, as you could imagine.

Mickey may or may not have gone to college, but at some point, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. The son of devoted Communists, and a Communist (at least as to his thinking) himself, he was determined not to serve and he left the country, moving to Japan. In Japan, he met and married K’s mother and K was born. The story seems to be, however, that the FBI (CIA? ___?) got wind that Mickey was in Japan and was coming after him (because he was a Communist? A draft dodger?). According to K, Mickey was “smuggled” out of Japan, and he wound up in Sweden where he was granted political asylum. He and K’s mother were also divorced.

(As an aside, K’s mother, who had two older children from a previous marriage, was left a single mother in Japan with three children from two marriages. Presumably because this was not socially comfortable, she left Japan with her children and wound up – I don’t know why – in Denmark.)

K grew up in Denmark knowing (she thought) that her American father was somewhere in America. When she was 15, she finally confronted her mother to see if she knew exactly where he was. Her mother told her that her father was in Sweden, not only in Sweden but in Malmo, which was a short ferry ride from Denmark. K, clearly resourceful, went to the Swedish embassy in Copenhagen, told them she had a father in Malmo, and asked if they could help her locate him. It turned out to be pretty easy. They opened a telephone book and there he was. She called him.

I am not sure what happened on this call, but it was decided that she would go and visit him and, at age 16, she took the ferry to Malmo and met Mickey for the first time. She was clear, I believe, that he did not want to get into too close a relationship, but they kept in touch.

My chronology may be a bit off, but at some point (and it might have been before they met), Mickey decided to travel to China to study, which he did. After he came back to Sweden, he went back to school (I think he already had at least one degree at this point) and got a Ph.D. in Sinology, the study of China and he became quite well known as a scholar of China (certainly from a left wing, Communist perspective).

Then three things happened (my chronology is missing here): (1) A., who hadn’t seen her father since she was six months old, and therefore had no memory of him, called him (her stepbrother found Mickey by first contacting K – I don’t remember how this came about) on the telephone and had a four hour conversation with him that was not exactly satisfactory. He made it clear that he didn’t want to meet her; she had no further contact except by email, (2) Mickey got remarried, had a daughter (F, who lives in Paris, and who I didn’t know existed until this week), and quickly once again got divorced, and (3) when he was in his 40s, Mickey decided to go to Medical School, which he did, and he spent the last 30 plus years of his life as a practicing psychiatrist in Stockholm.

By everyone’s account (including mine from my 70 year old memory), Mickey (who at various points in his life went by Mickey, Michael, Michael Henry, M. Henry, M. Henri, and Henri) had a difficult and volatile personality. As I recall sort of a bully, he was described to me as someone who liked to belittle others (great for a psychiatrist), but could also be warm, and domineering. He was clearly brilliant and – I am told – spoke at least 10 languages (A thought it was 13), kept very intellectual friendships and certainly kept to his left wing , Communist views.

His sister S, who is one year younger than me and whom we met yesterday, is a very different person. She seems quiet, she is not a Communist, I don’t think she ever married – certainly has no children – and has lived in Virginia Beach (as a “loner”, she says) for the past 50 years. I know nothing about the third sister. That’s for another day.

But let it be known that Edie and I had a fantastic time with K, A and S, yesterday, and hope to see more of them somewhere sometime. And – in case you were wondering – before this weekend, K had only met S one other time, and A had never met her. And, although my St. Louis family was very big, S has no recollection of (couldn’t tell you the names of) anyone there except for my grandfather (her doctor) and her own grandparents. Her grandfather, by the way, my great Uncle Louis, died when I was 4, and I have no recollection of him whatsoever, and her grandmother, my great Aunt Annie. died in the 1950s.

I expect A, K and S will read this blog and correct it.