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Julius Roscoe Frailey
Jacksonville, Florida, Sunday, January 9, 1994
Reunion gives family a chance to say goodbye
Dying man spent years locating relatives
For more than 40 years, Julius Frailey had been looking for his family. Yesterday they came looking for him.
To say goodbye.
Frailey, 67, is dying of esophageal cancer. When doctors told him and his wife, Gayle, that he might have only days or weeks left, she began calling relatives to come visit.
There were alot of calls to make. Frailey has 19 siblings and seven children, and a family history that would seem unbelievable even on a daytime soap opera.
His parents gave him to another couple when he was 2 1/2 years old, and he didn't discover his real name and history until he needed a birth certificate to enter the Navy at age 17. Eventually, he found out about his biological parents and brothers and sisters, and set out to reunite his family.
"Over the course of his life, he's found all the members of his family slowly, one by one," said Gayle. "Many of the children were adopted and had their names changed, so it's been difficult. But Julius knew he had to find everyone."
About 40 family members - including five of Frailey's children and four of his brothers - got together yesterday. Others are expected to arrive today.
"It's so great for all of us to be here, but I hate that it took Julius being so sick to get us together," said Larry Goza, a half brother who lives in Valrico. "But you can tell right away me and Julius are brothers, by our looks and our ways and the way we cared for our families." Unlike Frailey, Goza was legally adopted by the couple who took him in. He was among the first siblings to arrive at the reunion yesterday.
Frailey, who lives with his wife in Cormorant Cove in Mandarin, was one of four children born in Bloomington Ind. He also had 16 half brothers and sisters, sired by his father with different women over the years.
His sisters Hepsie and Mary Mae were raised by his biological mother, while his brother, James, was also given away as a toddler. James was killed in a car accident in 1969.
The German couple who took in Frailey are now deceased, he said. He grew up on a farm, without electricity or running water but with the love and stability of a real family, he said. Because he was never legally adopted, the Navy could find no birth certificate bearing what Frailey thought was his name, Julius Winer.
Frailey appealed to the Red Cross for help in piecing together his background, and gradually discovered, along with his immediate family, a host of half brothers and sisters. He found his brother James first, then Hepsie and Mary Kae. Over the span of 40 years, he found all his half brothers and sisters, the last being Sam Diller, who he saw for the first time six months ago in Tampa.
Frailey's biological mother and father are deceased now, but while Frailey was in the Navy, his biological father once paid him a surprise visit. "It was kind of funny seeing him, just quite unexpected," said Frailey, sitting in the warm sun of his outdoor deck. "I've come to see that his giving me away as a small child was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. I grew up with different morals and a different outlook than he had."
Frailey's life has been filled with joy and tragedy. His first wife, Christine, whom he met and married in Jacksonville in 1951, died of cancer in 1971. After a career in the Navy, Frailey retired as a lieutenant in 1970 to stay with Christine.
Frailey had three sons with Christine, who had a daughter by another marriage. One of his sons, Duane, died of stomach cancer at the age of 29.
Soon after his first wife died, Frailey met Gayle. They married six months later, and Frailey still can't believe he was able to find such love twice. "I never, ever thought I'd find Gayle. I really didn't," said Frailey. She is equally enthralled. "We've been on our honeymoon 22 1/2 years," she said. "I just love him so much."
Frailey adopted Gayle's three children from a previous marriage, and he swore his adopted son, James, into the Navy. In April, he swore in his oldest grandson, Michael.
In the 2 1/2 years since Frailey's cancer was diagnosed, he's undergone radiation and chemotherapy treatments and had part of his stomach and esophagus removed. He began hemorrhaging and spitting up blood recently, which kept him in the hospital through Christmas and New Year's Day.
Doctors aren't sure what's causing the hemorrhaging, which can be demoralizing, Frailey said. "Here's these doctors you have all the confidence in the world in, and they can't help," he said. "They're frustrated by it too. I've seen tears in my doctor's eyes, and that's unusual."
Just a few weeks ago, Frailey was in so much pain he asked his doctors to let him die. He returned home, and since then the pain has lessened. But Frailey still feels overwhelmed by the enormity of his illness. I Don't know if I can beat it," he said. "I just got out of the hospital and I'm still weak moving from room to room. But the doctors said I could go home, and that was the best Christmas present ever."
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