photo by: Contributed

Thelma Simons (far right) is pictured with her three half-sisters from left to right, Susan, Pam and Barb.

After spending years searching for the truth about her biological father, Thelma Simons not only unraveled a long-held family mystery but found three half-sisters she never knew she had.

Simons grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas, with her parents, Polly and Karl Case, and her sister. When she was 7 years old, she discovered she had been adopted — Polly and Karl were actually her aunt and uncle. The woman she had always known as her aunt, Vivian Self, was in fact her biological mother.

Polly and Karl later divorced around the same time Simons found out about her adoption, and Polly remarried and committed suicide when Simons was nine years old. Karl raised her until she moved out of the house when she was 17.

Simons found her way to Lawrence with her two sons after going through a divorce of her own. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kansas, and ended up working at the university for at least 30 years in secretarial and information technology fields.

photo by: Contributed

Vivian Self, left, is pictured holdingThelma Simons alongside Vivian’s sister Mary and her daughter Shirley.

About 30 years ago, Self gave her a letter that revealed the name of the man she believed to be Simons’ biological father, explaining that he had raped her while she was working as a live-in babysitter. Simons said she had believed that to be true, but she always wanted to learn more about him.

Simons had begun building her own family tree around the man she thought was her dad, but after taking a DNA test, she found that not to be true.

Simons said she saw an opportunity to learn more about her family in 2022 while watching KTWU interview someone at the Topeka Public Library, who was looking for candidates for a genealogy reveal session. Simons had submitted her application and ended up being one of six candidates chosen.

She was assigned to genealogist Rosetta Wiley, who ended up spending over 200 hours working on Simons’ genealogy. Wiley later concluded that Simons’ father was between two potential matches in the Hightower family in Pickens County, Georgia.

“I found out my mom had worked there at the Pickens County chicken place, where you pluck chickens and all that back when she was 15,” Simons said, adding that by the time Self had moved back to Kansas and given birth, she was about 16 years old.

photo by: Screenshot

Thelma Simons talks with Identity Quest host Kenyatta Berry on KTWU.

While the interviewers on KTWU told Simons to not get her hopes up because some DNA connections do not work out well, Simons sent several letters out to people in the Hightower family, and one person reached out agreeing to take a DNA test. While they were related, Simons found out that the Hightowers were her second cousins.

A friend who taught genealogy classes at the Watkins Museum of History, Alisa Branham, suggested posting her story on a DNA Detectives Facebook page. When Simons did that, she was connected with Jane Wilkerson Wade, who also grew up in Hutchinson.

Wilkerson Wade did additional research and determined that she was probably from the Brindle family. When Simons reached out to that side of the family, the person who did a DNA test for her turned out to be her half sister – Simons also learned she had two more half-sisters, ultimately leading to her father, whose name was Horace.

photo by: Contributed

The Brendel/Brindle family

Horace died a few years ago, Simons said, but after a few months of talking, the sisters wanted to get together for a meeting. Simons traveled to meet them in Indiana in May of this year.

“It was a long drive,” Simons said. “And at least an hour plus was in absolutely pouring down rain, which was not good, but I got there.”

Simons said, “it just felt comfortable at first.” She met one of the sisters, Pam, on the day she arrived, as she was the sister that lives in Indiana, and met the other two sisters, Barb and Susan, the following day. Both of them are from Michigan.

Simons said Pam is a quilter and makes all sorts of quilts and even sews other creative projects. “She’s an amazing quilter, and she’s made a tote for me. She’s given me two cozy quilts,” Simons said.

Simons also saw them again in September to celebrate two of the sisters’ birthdays, which are just two days but several years apart.

After Simons found out about who her father was, she visited the Hightower family in October 2024 and she met several of her relatives, a lot of them saying she looked like her grandmother.

One of Simons’ uncles said he had always liked to be more like Horace because he would go around her grandmother’s house and fix things up and help around the house. “So there’s that side of him, which is good,” Simons said. ” … He was a hard worker.”

Simons said in the last year, Branham, her friend from KU, passed away. During the search, oftentimes when she would get stuck, Simons would go to Branham for help.

photo by: Contributed

A quilt Thelma Simons’ sister Pam made for her.

“If Alisa had not pointed me to DNA Detective, I might still be lost,” Simons said. ” … By the time she passed away last year, I went down to Georgia and met all those cousins and everybody, and was just like, ‘Oh, this is so great.’ She wasn’t around for me to tell them, and that was so sad.”

Simons said before finding out who her father’s side of the family was, she didn’t have a real sense of family, but all of that changed.

“I have this big family,” Simons said. “It was just like finding where I belonged … Just spending time with my new DNA sisters, it was just like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what I’ve been looking for.’ It’s that connection to the sisters and they were just so much fun and so generous. And I’m not used to that.”

“I’m just so glad I took this journey, and that it had such an amazing ending,” Simons said.