Page 8A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
SIBLINGS: Henderson lived in ive different foster homes
Continued from 1A
“It was ‘Oh, my God, oh
my God, oh my God,’” she
said.
Westlake learned that her
parents, Verna and Robert,
birthed at least eight children,
but gave them all up, several
of them all at once to an Ohio
orphanage. Two were taken
away by the court in 1956
because the couple had no
known residence. DeGraw
said the family has kept rough
track of ive of the kids, but
didn’t know the fate of the
others. She told Westlake
that Robert died in 1975 and
Verna’s whereabouts are
unknown.
As an aside, Westlake
decided to go through DNA
testing offered by Ancestry.
com to uncover her ethnic
mix, and that’s when she
got another surprise. Unbe-
knownst to her, another of
Verna and Robert’s offspring
was on his own quest to ind
his roots and had already
undergone DNA testing. Ed
Johns, of Mountain Home,
Idaho, got his results a week
before Westlake in early May.
When the two appeared as
matches, Westlake messaged
Johns. Soon, they connected
by phone.
“Are your feet touching
the ground?” Johns asked
Westlake.
“I’d been looking for
years,” Johns said, “and all of
a sudden the door opens. My
DNA matched perfectly with
hers.”
———
To welcome Westlake and
Johns to the clan, DeGraw
and other family members
planned a blowout welcome
for last weekend. The reunion
started Friday in Pilot Rock
at the home of Genevieve
Russell, Westlake’s and
Johns’ aunt and DeGraw’s
mother. They would also
meet another sister, Donna
Henderson, of Prescott
Valley, Arizona, who a few
family members had met as a
small child.
On Friday, Westlake was
the irst to arrive. DeGraw
and Russell drew her in to
their gregarious clan.
“We’ve been up in the
clouds,” Aunt Genevieve
told Westlake. “I was hoping
this would happen before the
good Lord called me home.”
ST. PETERSBURG,
Russia (AP) — President
Vladimir Putin says Russia
will work with whoever
is elected the new U.S.
president.
Putin earlier on Friday
dodged the question of
whether he would prefer
Donald Trump or Hillary
Clinton as the new
commander-in-chief.
Speaking at a meeting
with the leaders of the major
news agencies Putin said
Moscow is unfazed by the
often anti-Russia “campaign
rhetoric” and will judge
the new president “by their
deeds, not by their words.”
Putin said he would “seek
ways” to restore ties that
were dampened by Russia’s
annexation of the Crimean
peninsula in March 2014.
Iraq says most of
Fallujah retaken
from IS militants
BAGHDAD (AP) —
Iraqi special forces swept
into Fallujah on Friday,
recapturing most of the
city as the Islamic State
group’s grip crumbled
after weeks of ighting.
Thousands of trapped
residents took advantage of
the militants’ retreat to lee,
some swimming across the
Euphrates River to safety.
Residents described
harrowing escapes even after
IS ighters abandoned some
checkpoints that had them
bottled up in the city. On
the river, some boats packed
with people overturned in
the water. Others picked
their way down roads laced
with hidden bombs that
killed several. In some cases,
IS allowed people to leave
only if they took the jihadis’
families with them.
After weeks of heavy
battles since the offensive
began in late May, it
appeared that IS defenses
Redmond exploring
whether drone spying
violates nuisance law
By AARON WEST
The Bulletin
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Siblings Donna Henderson, Ed Johns and Anita “Cele” Westlake met each other for
the irst time last weekend at a family gathering in Pilot Rock.
“I’d been looking for years, and all of
a sudden the door opens. My DNA
matched perfectly with hers.”
— Ed Johns, of Mountain Home, Idaho
Soon, Henderson walked
in the front door. Westlake,
tears welling, took her sister
by the shoulders, looked deep
into her eyes and pulled her
close. When Johns arrived
15 minutes later, the trio
of siblings shared another
emotional embrace.
They swapped bios.
Westlake, a mother of two,
had grown up with a paint
salesman father and church
secretary mother in Wash-
ington, California and Ohio.
She owned a print shop for
a while and then worked in
the accounting department of
Orcas Power & Light. Now
retired, she and husband, Bill,
live in the San Juan Islands.
Henderson, 69, had it
rougher. She lived in ive
different foster homes in Ohio
and remembers “a lot of work
and no love.” The Arizona
woman has no memory of
her parents. As an adult,
she worked as a waitress,
reporter for a new business
publication, escrow oficer
and paraprofessional with an
organization that advocates
for at-risk children. She has
two grown sons.
Johns, 64, was adopted as
a baby and raised in John Day
and Burns. The Blue Moun-
BRIEFLY
Putin says Russia
will work with any
U.S. president
Saturday, June 18, 2016
collapsed abruptly.
In the early morning
Friday, Iraqi forces punched
into the city center, meeting
intense ighting. But by
evening, the special forces
commander Brig. Haider
al-Obedi said that his troops
controlled 80 percent of
the city. It was a major
step toward regaining the
Islamic State group’s last
major foothold in Iraq’s
western Anbar province, the
heartland of the country’s
Sunni minority. The
militants overran the city in
early 2014, the irst urban
area to fall into its hands
before it overran much of
northern Iraq.
Kerry’s Arctic
climate change
adventure hits
Greenland
ABOARD THE HDMS
THETIS, Greenland (AP)
— Sailing through ields
of large icebergs aboard a
Danish naval vessel, U.S.
Secretary of State John
Kerry brought his tour of
the Arctic to Greenland on
Friday, visiting the Northern
Hemisphere’s largest glacier
to bring attention to the
dangers of climate change.
Hazarding a brief June
snow and hail lurry in Disko
Bay off Greenland, some
220 miles north of the Arctic
Circle, Kerry was meeting
with scientists researching
the dramatic erosion of the
Sermeq Kujalleq Glacier that
is contributing to global sea
rise. The icecap has receded
12.4 miles since 2001.
A number of factors,
including increasing air
temperatures, the rise of
black carbon emissions that
discolor the ice and make
it absorb more heat, and
the introduction of warm
sub-surface water from the
Gulf Stream which erodes
the ice sheet from below,
have all contributed to the
retreat of the glacier, which
is the most active outside
Antarctica.
tain Community College
graduate now drives bus for
a transportation company
and coaches high school
baseball in Mountain Home,
Idaho. After connecting
with Westlake, he learned
from the family that another
brother, Ron Frye, lives in the
same town as Johns. Johns
contacted his brother by
phone.
“He told me his parents
drove them up to an
orphanage in Sandusky,
Ohio, and dropped them off
when he was seven,” Johns
said.
In Pilot Rock, the trio
braced themselves as a stream
of new relations introduced
themselves and marveled
at the family resemblance.
Tissues came out regularly to
wipe tears.
“Oh, my goodness, you
really look like us,” said Faith
Pullen, a cousin to the three.
“Welcome to the family.”
———
Dozens
of
family
members illed in the blanks
and shared what little they
knew about Westlake, Johns
and Henderson’s mother,
Verna, who would be about
90 now. At a barbecue at
Pendleton’s Community Park
on Saturday, Verna’s younger
brother, LeRoy Russell, of
Sandy, said the family was
dirt poor during his boyhood
in Ontario. Verna had much
of the responsibility for taking
care of her eight brothers and
sisters. She drifted away at
about 19.
There were stories of Verna
falling from her grandfather’s
hayloft, knocking herself out
and staying unconscious for
three days. Maybe the head
injury explained her lack of
maternal instinct and lighty
ways. Others remembered
rumors of Verna and Robert
working in a circus for a time.
No one knew why they had so
many children and gave them
all up or why they eventually
divorced.
When DeGraw, the family
historian, heard that Verna
had died in an Arizona prison,
she investigated and found no
record.
It’s a mystery that may
never be solved.
This weekend, the newly
acquainted siblings concen-
trated instead on gaining
their equilibrium as they
were pulled into the bosom
of a large and loving family,
soaking in the stories and
photos and the hugs.
Westlake looked happy.
“It’s been goosebumps
and tears,” she said.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
REDMOND — A
Redmond
woman’s
concerns
about
her
neighbor spying on her
with his camera-equipped
drone was met with uncer-
tainty at a City Council
meeting Tuesday as to what
could be done about it. But
others familiar with drone
rules say that low-lying
drone-harassment poten-
tially violates nuisance and
trespassing laws.
Fawn
Curry
told
Redmond councilors this
week that since May her
neighbor has been using his
drone to spy on her and her
family in their home, but
after contacting local police
she’d been told nothing can
be done about it.
“I recently have had a
situation with a neighbor
who lives a block away and
is lying his drone over my
home day and night,” Curry
said. “I’ve asked him to
stop but he continues to do
so. It sounds like a simple
situation but it truly is not.”
Curry,
who
spoke
during the meeting’s public
comment period, said she’s
called the Redmond Police
Department about the
drone twice but was told
both times that drone usage
above a house is outside
local law enforcement’s
jurisdiction.
“Unfortunately there is
no teeth in the law for us to
be able to take any action
against him,” Redmond
Police Chief Dave Tarbet
said on Tuesday, noting
that he’s taking Curry’s
complaint seriously. “The
FAA mandates that the
airspace above the highest
object on private property
is public airspace, unfortu-
nately.”
So Curry, who told The
Bulletin she’s concerned for
her family’s safety, turned
to local government for
help.
“Please, at the very
least, consider putting a
city ordinance in place to
stop the usage of drones in
residential areas,” she said
at the meeting.
Council
members
promised Curry they’d look
into it, asking City Attorney
Steve Bryant to investigate
the matter. At the meeting,
Bryant said that trespassing
or nuisance laws could
possibly come into play,
and that he’d explore those
options. Meanwhile, an
oficial ordinance would at
least make it obvious where
the city stood on such
matters, he said.
“Certainly passing an
ordinance that says no
drone lights in residential
areas makes it clear that you
can’t do that,” Bryant told
councilors, who seemed
receptive to the idea but
also hesitant to target a
speciic situation with a
blanket rule.
“I wouldn’t want to shut
down someone from lying
a drone in their backyard,”
Councilor Jay Patrick said.
“If we want to look
at creating an ordinance,
frankly I’d be for it,” Tarbet
said.
But local ordinances
restricting
drone
use
are an unknown to the
Oregon League of Cities,
according to Kevin Toon,
communication director for
the League, who said that
such ordinances probably
wouldn’t be enforceable
because of state and federal
preemption.
“There
aren’t
any
(ordinances) that we know
of,” Toon said. “A lot of it’s
the newness of the subject
itself, it takes a while for
it to become something we
look into. Drones haven’t
risen to that level where a
lot of cities are calling us.”
Gary Firestone, Bend’s
assistant city attorney, said
no local rules exist in Bend
about the use of drones in
residential areas or other-
wise.
“The answer is very
simple: We don’t have any
regulations,” Firestone said
when asked on Thursday
about local drone rules.