JACKSONVILLE – Wayne Gueltzow always believed the family’s Thanksgiving table was missing a brother or sister they’d never known. He had bits and pieces of incomplete information he’d gleaned for nearly 60 years that wouldn’t escape his mind. He was driven by a power greater than doubt and curiosity that wouldn’t let him give up.

Petra Heckendorn grew up not knowing why she never knew her father. She didn’t know about brothers and sisters. She felt abandoned, yet hopeful. There were good times she wanted to share and so much grief when she needed the consolement only a family could provide.

You don’t turn your back on blood.

“I always wondered what I’d say if I ever met my sibling,” Wayne said.

“There’s so many things I’ve thought about,” Petra said. “I don’t know what I’d say.”

The answer came at Jacksonville International Airport late Sunday afternoon when Petra walked through arrivals security. Wayne was waiting with a bouquet of roses. Both realized words weren’t necessary: the moment spoke for itself. They embraced to make up for more than 66 lost years. As brother and sister, they will never let go.

Petra will visit her brother’s family – there’s no “half” when you’ve waited more than 66 years to be united – at their Green Cove Springs home for a week.

Be sure, both said the visits will be more frequent in the future.

There are still so many questions and missing pieces to their stories, but for now, all that matters is what’s ahead.

A ‘non-recognized’ marriage between two kids

Wayne Gueltzow Sr. was still a teenager when the U.S. Army sent him to Germany. He was young, maybe 17 or 18 or 19, his son said when he met a young girl, Helga Marie, who was probably 16 or 17.

“Now this is where he gets a little vague,” Wayne Jr. said. “We don’t know exactly for sure, but they realized she was pregnant at some point. According to Petra, they got married on the base. She said she heard that from her (mother’s) sister, because everything was vague. There are no living relatives anymore, so we’re trying to piece everything together.”

His father got his orders to return to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1958, but he either couldn’t or didn’t take his young bride.

“I don’t know what my dad did to leave her there, and I don’t even know if my dad knew she was pregnant,” Wayne Jr. said. “We just don’t know. There are gaps that we can’t fill in.”

Wayne Jr. said the father still tried to find her, but he couldn’t get any answers. The aunt said Helga Marie was shunned by her family because the German government wouldn’t recognize the marriage. After all, it happened on a military base, and she wasn’t married in a church, so the mother had it annulled. Wayne Sr.’s name wasn’t listed on the birth certificate, and she refused to tell Petra how to spell the father’s last name. There are no records of their wedding.

Even after he re-married in the United States, Wayne Sr. kept searching. Petra’s mother understandably became bitter. Not only did her husband leave her behind, but she was also an outcast by her family.

Even worse, a child desperately wants to know of the love of their parents … both parents.

“She’s been always curious where her dad was, but her mom was so reluctant to give her the information for whatever reason.” Wayne Jr. said. “There’s kind of been some bad blood between them somewhere. Her mom was very, let me say this, very gingerly, her mom was resentful of the fact that she was pregnant with Petra. She had to feel abandoned.”

They didn’t know that Wayne Sr. told his wife about the first marriage. He also said he believed he had a child from that marriage. In 1963, they went to Europe to search church and military records to find his child. He had no name and no address.

“She said, ‘Daddy will do the right thing. If she has a child, we’ll do what we have to do, whatever it takes,’” Wayne Jr. said.

By then, Helga Marie had married another soldier, and all three had moved to Texas.

Wayne Sr., however, never stopped searching. Petra never stopped wondering. And hurting.

Solving out a puzzle with missing pieces

Helga Marie died in 2004. Wayne Jr.’s father died in 2011. Together, they took so many missing pieces of their life stories of their child with them to their graves.

Wayne Sr. left Germany in 1958. Petra was born later that year. He re-married in 1959, and Wayne Jr. was born in 1960.

“She wouldn’t even tell me how to spell his name so that I couldn’t look it up, and it kind of upset me,” Petra said. “Then she passed away in 2004, so then I really could start digging in without digging in without offending her. I always had questions about what my life would have been like with a brother or sister.”

Petra said she thought about having possible siblings 20 years ago when she faced a string of family tragedies without support.

“My mom and my stepdad adopted a baby, which was his grandson, when I was a sophomore in high school,” she said. “Well, that’s not really a sibling to me, but he passed away in 2013. My husband passed away in 2011; my best friend passed away in 2012; and then my son passed away in 2014; and my mother passed away in 2014. So, for three years there, I did nothing to plan funerals and take care of estates.

“The hardest part was not having any brothers or sisters to lean on or talk to.”

Wayne Jr. said he was frustrated because he couldn’t hire a private investigator if his father didn’t know a name, town, or other information.

Hard work, modern technology paid off

Petra signed up with 23andMe a few years ago to find her father. Wayne’s daughter, Ashley, also turned to 23andMe, hoping to find her “roots, her family and where she came from, and boom, it popped up.”

“Barbara and I went on my retirement cruise when our daughter called and said, ‘I found your sister.’ At first, I didn’t know as a sister. I thought I had a brother because my dad had five boys. I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ She said, ‘This girl in Texas came up.’ That’s not possible. ‘Daddy’s, it’s right here: DNA.’”

Wayne and Petra eventually talked by phone. They instantly connected because she knew a few details nobody else could know.

Some of the details, “she just blurted out,” Wayne said.

She knew her father grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. She didn’t know his last name, but she knew it was spelled uniquely. Other subtle clues prompted Wayne to ask for each to submit to a DNA test.

Wayne was indeed her half-brother. Petra was indeed her half-sister. Moreover, Petra has four other brothers, although one of Wayne’s brothers passed.

Petra had a family missing from her life for 66 years. The same goes for the four remaining Gueltzow brothers.

“I’m looking forward to bringing her into the family and making her part of the family,” Wayne said.

Filling the missing seat at the Thanksgiving table

Petra’s flight on Nov. 24 from Texas was delayed by more than two hours on Sunday for mechanical reasons. Although Wayne had waited for more than 66 years, the extra two hours seemed torturous.

“I tried to stay busy so I wouldn’t think about it,” he said.

When Petra approached, they seemed to have known each other for decades. Petra turned her rolling suitcase loose and grabbed her brother tightly. Both wept. There was an undeniable bond between siblings that time couldn’t erase.

On Tuesday, Petra and Wayne faced a significant portion of their shared past after they drove to Lamont and visited their father’s grave. Although she was told to revile him, she always hoped there was a reasonable explanation she never knew him. Knowing the facts and meeting her family, she was finally able to move forward.

Once she learned how hard Wayne Sr. and Wayne Jr. tried to find her, she finally felt a sense of belonging.

There were 40 family members and friends at the Gueltzow house for Thanksgiving, including Petra and three of her brothers – Wayne, Michael and James.

“She wants to put an ending to it, to see it and to know it,” Wayne said. “I’m more than happy to do that and welcome her to the family. She has a family. She has somebody. She’s not alone. She’ll never be alone.”