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Last January, Holbrook resident Shar Gillespie received a message she had spent her whole life waiting for. Gillespie, who had spent years searching for her father, received an email from a man claiming to be him. It was a message that would spawn an ongoing conversation culminating in a face-to-face visit in Florida, with the man who was her dad.
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Born in Gallup, N.M., Gillespie grew up in Holbrook and graduated from Holbrook High School and attended Northland Pioneer College. Today she works for Summit Healthcare as an office manager and also serves as the president of the Holbrook Chamber of Commerce. She is also the proud wife of Frank Gillespie for 24 years and the mother of four children Domonic, Cheyenne, Alexis and Breyanna.
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“I remember as a little kid making up stories about my father when asked who my dad was. I would tell my friends that my dad had died in the Vietnam War,” said Gillespie. “It was hard not having a father and it wasn’t until I was in junior high school that I finally told my friends I didn’t know who my father was.”
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The story that Gillespie’s mom had shared was that her dad was a truck driver hauling a load of oranges to California, when his truck broke down in Holbrook at the truck stop where she worked. Her dad spent a day and a half at the truck stop getting his truck repaired and getting to know Gillespie’s mom. While waiting for a rental truck to complete the delivery, her mom had agreed to take a two-day road trip with him to California to deliver the oranges.
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For Gillespie, the rest was her history.
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In 1995, after Gillespie married Frank, the need to find her dad became a huge passion. “I saw Frank’s mom and dad, and I wanted what he had; a mother and a father. Unfortunately, back then there were no internet searches,” shared Gillespie. “All I had was the name my mom gave me, unlimited access to a phone thanks to my mother-in-law Jeannie and phone books.”
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A search of Church of Jesus of the Latter-day Saint’s database did result in a scare when Gillespie received an email from a girl claiming to be her sister. “It didn’t feel right and it made me give up looking for a while,” she said.
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Fast forward to November of 2018. Gillespie was listening to Vino and Vodka Diaries, a podcast her cousin Cynthia Pierce, also from Holbrook, had created. In one topic Pierce shared her results from Ancestry DNA and the process she went through. When the podcast ended, Gillespie was so impressed with her cousin’s results that she ordered the kit to submit her DNA.
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“I got the kit right before Thanksgiving, sent it back out the same day then forgot about it,” shared Gillespie. “On Christmas day Ancestry sent a message to my phone that results were in. The results listed my cousin Cynthia and a lot of family I had never seen before. There were hundreds of people but not the one I was looking for. No father was listed.” At least not yet.
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On Dec. 28, Gillespie received another message for new results, she checked again and this time the results said there was a high probability due to the DNA match that her father was Douglas Clegg out of Florida.
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“I didn’t think it was true. That wasn’t the name my mom had given me and I figured someone out there was just yanking my chain, so I didn’t tell anyone for several days,” continued Gillespie.
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Then on New Year’s Eve, Gillespie finally told her cousin about the results. “My cousin said you need to message him and get it out there. He can say yes you are my daughter or totally deny you, but the what ifs will haunt you if you never try.”
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Within Ancestry DNA is the ability to message people and maintain anonymity. It took until 1 a.m. on New Year’s Day before Gillespie finally got the courage to write the message that started with, “Hello. My name is Shar and I have been searching for years for my father.”
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Just a few hours later, she received the message that would forever change her life. “My name is Doug and I am interested as I am sure you are. I don’t know where to start.”
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“I honestly didn’t think Doug would respond,” shared Gillespie. “I was ecstatic but also suspicious. I was determined not to give him any detailed information as I wanted to see if he remembered my mom. I wanted to know if she meant anything to him. So, I told him I was living in Arizona, that I was born in 1979 and my mom’s first name.”
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Clegg messaged back that he had met Gillespie’s mom at the Holbrook truck stop. “I grabbed my phone screaming to my husband and kids, ‘Oh my God, it’s my freaking dad’,” said Shar. “I sent him my email address and phone number and then everything was at a standstill as I waited for the phone to ring.”
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And ring it did. Clegg shared the story of the truck breaking down and meeting her mom at the truck stop. “He said my mom was a kind, beautiful woman. They hit it off so he offered her to go on a road trip to deliver his load of oranges and hang out. It was exactly what my mom had told me. That’s when it became real to me.
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“The first week was amazing. I was so happy and couldn’t stop smiling,” Gillespie reminisced. “But the second week reality snuck in and I realized how much I had missed out on, because he didn’t know and that hurt.”
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After talking with her dad for a month, Gillespie told her husband she wanted to go meet him. “Frank and I planned out a road trip,” said Gillespie. “But when my dad found out, he told me he was buying plane tickets for us because he wanted to spend those days with me, not waiting for me to get there.”
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Taking her first ever plane trip, the couple flew down to Florida on March 29. “I think it was good that my dad and I talked a lot before I went to see him because I felt at home with him,” Gillespie said. “I jokingly put pictures up on Facebook of all the things I taught my dad while I was in Florida, since he had missed out on teaching me things as a child. We have a fun relationship.”
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While in Florida, Gillespie got to play in the ocean and meet her dad’s stepdad, who is lovingly called Pappy. She learned she has five more siblings: a brother and sister in New Jersey, a sister in Florida and a brother in Colorado, as well as a brother who died in a car accident at the age of 17.
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“Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of male figures in my life. There were just single mothers raising me and my cousins,” said Gillespie. “I have never felt that special to someone but I feel so special to my dad.”
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During the interview, Gillespie video called her dad so that he could be part of the story.
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Clegg shared that when he got the first message from Gillespie, he knew who she was. “When I saw her face, I knew who she was; I knew everything. You don’t expect to get up and 39 years later have someone call you. It has been on my mind for years, and I have often thought about her mother. But there was no way to go back and try to find her.
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“It’s a special relationship,” continued Clegg. “Shar is just like my oldest daughter. I couldn’t ask for anything better. I have a tribe with Shar’s family, a whole baseball team.”
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A lover of the West, Clegg subscribes to both the “New West” and the “Old West” magazines. He and his late wife, Grace, spent many vacations exploring the western states.
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“When I was growing up my friends and I would play cowboys and Indians. I was always the Indian. Always felt like my life should have been out West,” said Clegg.
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“Shar is here because her mother was very attractive and it was a different time,” concluded Clegg. “It was an experience. Her mom is a good person and if we had had cell phones back then I would have probably been back out there.”
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Clegg is already planning a visit to Holbrook in June to spend time with Gillespie and meet his grandkids in person. Gillespie said her kids were so excited when she found her father. “They cried happy tears for me and have been so accepting of their Papa Doug. They have formed relationships with him that makes all of this worthwhile. My kids have never had the experience of a grandpa and now they do.”
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The phone conversation came to an end as Gillespie took back the phone, looking into her dad’s eyes across the miles, she said, “I love you, dad,” as his words echoed back, “I love you.”
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