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Isle father Reunited after more than 35 years, Eileen and Jeff Filler can't keep their eyes, or their hands, off their father.
reunited with
long-lost children
After being apart for more
than 35 years, Joe Filler's
children find him through
an Internet searchBy Treena Shapiro
Star-BulletinJoe Filler, 77, had disappeared from their lives when they were 7 and 9 years old, when the children moved from Los Angeles to Oregon with their mother and her new husband. Their father, still in L.A., sent them a microcassette player and a tape-recorded letter after they moved, but after a few more moves on both sides, the family lost contact.
"We got separated and I couldn't find them," Joe said. "It kind of hurt."
But three weeks ago, Joe received a phone call from his long-lost son.
"He said, 'Hi, Dad,'" Joe said, smiling at the memory.
Yesterday morning, the culmination of a two-decade-long search, the Filler children, both Portland, Ore., residents, were able to meet with their father in person.
A few months ago, they hadn't even been sure he was still alive, but confirmation from the Social Security Administration and a lucky hit on a newspaper article on the Google Internet search engine put the family back in contact.
Another Filler, who turned out not to be related, recommended the search engine for locating relatives. Jeff's wife, Brenda, remembers Jeff taking this bit of advice. "He was so nervous, he asked me three times how to spell Google," she said.Usually, search-engine results turned up anything with "filler" in it, including meat filler products. But this time, the fourth link turned out to be a feature story on starbulletin.com, complete with photographs of Jeff's father.
The story was about an intergenerational program with seniors and preschoolers at the Seagull School Adult Day Care Center in Kapolei, which Joe participates in twice a week.
"Jeff just started bawling, shaking," Brenda said. "I have never seen this guy cry in 12 years."
Jeff was able to contact his father through the center, and the family picked it as the site for their reunion.
"You look for so long, then all of a sudden, the information pops up on the screen," Jeff said. "I can't believe it's so easy."
But it hadn't been so easy, and the search took more than 20 years to complete. Eileen had even gone so far as to hire a private detective, and Brenda would sometimes spend up to 10 hours a day searching on the Internet.
Both Eileen and Jeff had checked phone books for Fillers in every city they visited, hoping to find their father or distant relatives who may have been able to help locate him.
Eileen had actually been traveling to Oahu at least once a year for the past five years, and made a trip to Waikele every time. But her father, living nearby at a care home in Waipahu, didn't have a phone number or available address.
"All this time, we came so close," she said.
Now the family agrees they're going to stay close. "It's been a long time," Joe said to his children. "We're not going to let that happen again, are we?"
Joe, who is partially paralyzed and has diabetes, is wheelchair bound. But he's looking forward to taking his children on a tour around the island, attending a Christmas party in Waikiki and perhaps flying an airplane over the island.
Joe spent 13 years as a pilot for TWA, and Jeff followed in his footsteps. One of Jeff's earliest memories is of visiting his father in the cockpit of an airplane, and Eileen remembers her brother and father playing with balsa wood and remote control airplanes when they visited their father on weekends.
"Jeff would smash the remote controls, and Dad would spend all week fixing them for the next weekend," she said.
But Jeff said he's since learned not to smash planes and hopes to fulfill a dream of flying with his father. "I want to rent an airplane while I'm here and let my dad fly a little bit," he said.
Otherwise the family has no plans other than to catch up.
"Basically, we just plan on spending time together," Jeff said.