Below is a story the Gainesville Times wrote about my dad. I was so glad that after 55 years my dad was able to reunite with his long lost brothers & sisters.
Jim Flanagan of Gainesville, retired director of maintenance for Warren Featherbone Co., was 6 years old when his mother died in 1949 and his brother Ronnie Boostrom had just been born. Homes had to be found for all the children except the two oldest. Jim and Ronnie were living together in a foster home when their father was killed in a train wreck in 1951 in Salem, Ohio.
Ronnie was adopted when he was 4, and Jim later lived in an orphanage a few years before going to live with his sister and her husband. Another sister and brother lived with an aunt and uncle, one sister went to Rabun Gap Nacoochee School and the two oldest children went out on their own.
As an adult, Jim still missed his younger brother and for years tried to find him, but with no luck.
But Ron also remembered his brother Jim and found him. Ron was able to reunite with his biological family this past weekend, the first time everyone had been together in 55 years.
Ron had been adopted by a Baptist minister and taken to Pelham in South Georgia. Today, he lives in San Antonio, Texas, where he is a computer systems engineer and does contract work with the government after spending 20 years in the U.S. Air Force.
"I was on the Internet and I found a Web site for the Georgia adoption registry. I filled out a form and read where it would be two or three months before I heard from them. I waited three years and heard nothing, so I called. They said, 'Well, we charge for that service now.' I don't know why they couldn't have contacted me and told me they wanted money," he said.
He sent money and later got identification information. The adoption registry site had found Ron's older brother Donald, and with more money from Ron they would call Donald and ask him if he wanted to be contacted. Ron sent the money.
Hours of telephone conversation followed as Ron became reacquainted with his siblings. On Sunday everyone gathered at the home of Jim and Nancy in Mount Airy. "He's a computer whiz and a fine pianist," Jim said. "His adoptive mother taught him how to play the piano."
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