Labor Day weekend is a popular time for family reunions, but for one Carthage woman, this Labor Day will feature an extra special reunion with family separated by time and distance.
On Saturday in Schifferdecker Park in Joplin, Jan Brown, Carthage, will see two grandsons she last saw almost 30 years ago, and meet three new great grandchildren and two granddaughters-in-law she's never met.
"I'm just really thrilled about the whole thing," Brown said. "I have 23 grandchildren and 23 great grandchildren, and 18 yet to get married. I had 21 grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren, but James and Daniel came up with three more great grandchildren, so now I have 23 of each."
For the grandchildren, James Hardin, 33, and his brother, Daniel Hardin, 30, both of Houston, Tex., this weekend will be the culmination of 15 years of searching for their father, Brown's son, David Hardin, Bristow, Okla., and their grandmother.
"I've been searching for my dad and grandma for probably 15 years of my adult life," James Hardin said. "I'm excited, that's my blood. That old saying blood is thicker than water, well we're fixing to prove it."
A long separation
Jan Brown said the long separation started in 1989, when David Hardin and his wife divorced and the children went with their mother.
Brown and her son assumed another man in the ex-wife's life had adopted them and that their last names had been changed.
It turned out their names had not been changed, but that hampered the search by Brown and her son. Brown said she even tried to get on one of those afternoon television talk shows to try to find her grandchildren.
"I've been looking for them about 25 years," Brown said. "They started more than 10 years ago looking for me and their daddy.
"I even wrote to Dr. Phil, but never did get anywhere there. We checked around and just asked people back in Texas and thereabouts, but nobody knew because nobody knew their last name."
The separation was tough on their father David Hardin, a cowboy in Oklahoma, Brown said.
"Whenever my husband passed away and I moved, I never did change my phone number because of I might hear from my grandchildren or something might happen to David," Brown said. "I thought that one day my grandchildren might call. Sure enough, they found me."
Grandson's search
James Hardin said his search began 15 years ago, but he had very little luck until a new source of information had matured into the resource it has become.
"If there was anybody out there that wants to meet their parents, the Internet is a great source of information," James Hardin. "I sent an email back in 2001, it was on the Fourth of July, I believe, and my wife was trying to find my grandmother, so I decided to drop an email on this ancestry Web site. So I dropped an email that said 'I'm James Wesley Hardin, I'm looking for David Chester Hardin, he's my father.' I gave them my father's name and then my great grandfather's name. That was in 2001, last weekend, somebody replied to that email, it turned out to be my dad's ex-girlfriend and she let us know that she used to look for my brother and me back in 1990 and 1991. From that email, we just ended up finding them."
James Hardin said he tried to find his father and grandmother to fill a tiny void in his life.
"It's what you're used to," James Hardin said. "We were raised without our father so it didn't bother me not having one because I was used to it. But there was always this little link missing in my life.
"My grandmother, I can't recollect much of anything about her. My dad, I remember a few things about him. He used to sing to us on the guitar and he had, I've forgotten what it's called, but something like a mouth harp.
"He always wore cowboy boots and I remember he loved us. He spent a lot of time with us."
Breakthrough
Hardin said that tip from his father's ex-girlfriend led to his wife's phone call to Carthage last week.
"We've found so many people with the name Jan Hardin and I've called so many, that this was just another one to mark off the list," James Hardin said. "Then once my wife was talking to her, my wife told me she acted like she was fixing to start crying. I was like all right, then she mentioned my mom's name, my grandma did and I knew instantly that that was it.
"I had found my grandma and I knew pretty quick that I was going to find my dad."
Jan Brown described it from her perspective.
"It was in the morning and I think I was eating," Brown said. "When she called, she said 'Mrs. Brown?' and I said 'Yes, who is this.' She said 'Are you Jan Brown?' and I said 'Yes I am,' and she screamed.
"I said 'Well, who is this?' and she said 'This is Kimmy Hardin, I married James Wesley,' and when she said James Wesley, I knew who she was then I went to pieces. We were just a-jumping and a-shouting and a-carrying on there for a while.
"Then she called her husband at work and I called him later when he got home from work. Then he called Daniel and then a day or two after, I got a hold of Daniel. I was just so excited I just could hardly sit still. I'm still excited about it. I just got back from the grocery store getting a bunch of stuff for the reunion."
Jan Brown gave her grandchildren a phone number for their father and that led to another tearful reunion call.
"The first time I talked to him, he said 'Son, I don't want you to say another word because I got something I've been waiting 28 or 29 years to tell you,'" James Hardin said. "I said alright, go ahead, and he said 'Son, I love you, I always have.' After he told me that I knew it was going to be a emotional reunion."
The reunion is scheduled for Saturday afternoon at a shelter house in Schifferdecker Park in Joplin. The brothers say they and their families will stop in Oklahoma and pickup their father, and then come on into Joplin to meet the rest of their newfound family.
"It's been amazing," Daniel Hardin said. "And I hope everything goes well when we get there."
Fast Facts:
Jan Brown said her children and grandchildren are distant relatives from her late husband's side of the famous Old West outlaw John Wesley Hardin.
In addition to David Hardin, 51, Jan Brown has two daughters, Rhonda Taylor, 48, Mount Vernon and Jane Holden, 42, who lives in rural Newton County north of Seneca.
