Love Letter : Missive Forwarded by VA Leads to Reunion of Daughter and Father

Johnny Voss hadn’t seen his daughter in 42 years, ever since he left home in 1949 for the world of show business and didn’t look back. Then one recent day he received a thin envelope from the Veterans Administration. His daughter, officials said, wanted to see him.

Sheila Simmons had spent 15 years searching for her father, writing letters to the Salvation Army and various worldwide search organizations, all to no avail.

Until last week. Finally, after all the years of hunting for a father she never really knew, it paid off. The Veterans Administration told Simmons, who was an 18-month-old infant when her father left, that it would forward a letter to Voss. He received the note from the VA at his post office box in Reno, where he works, and wasted no time getting down to his daughter’s home in Cypress for the reunion.

On Tuesday, the pair sat back in his daughter’s crowded two-bedroom apartment to reflect on the emotional meeting less than 24 hours earlier. There were hugs. There were tears. But there was no bitterness after four decades of separation.

Simmons couldn’t say anything when she first heard her father’s voice on the phone a week ago. They “were crying so hard” during their first conversation on the phone that they had to hang up and try again later, said Simmons’ 27-year-old daughter, Vikki.

“I called her and got here as soon as I could,” Voss said, relaxing after an all-night party with the family. “I feel overwhelmed and so grateful that we were allowed to find each other.”

Even so, there were a few wrong turns along the way. Voss, 67, got lost on the way to his daughter’s home and stopped to call her Monday morning for directions. Simmons told him to stay put, she’d drive over and get him.

They had exchanged pictures so he had some idea what Simmons, 44, would look like.

Then a tall, blond woman pulled up beside him.

“She got out of this truck and I looked at her kind of funny and said, ‘Oh God,’ ” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “We hugged and then started crying.”

The entire family took him to the Queen Mary, where Simmons works part time, and discovered that Simmons’ boss had given the family a night in the ship’s Winston Churchill suite with champagne to celebrate the occasion.

It was an evening of discoveries. Voss found out he had three granddaughters, two grandsons-in-law and four great-grandchildren. Simmons learned that she had seven other half brothers and sisters and lots of nieces and nephews from Voss’ later marriages.

The entire family plans to get together in July at the birthday party of Simmons’ 4-year-old daughter, Tracee.

Simmons said her mother, who went to work as a telephone operator for Farmers Insurance after Voss left them, always supported her efforts to find him.

“Mom said: ‘If you can, I want you to meet your dad,’ ” she said.

“She’s always looked for him,” said Simmons’ 26-year-old daughter, Deanna, as she gazed affectionately at her grandfather. “I’ve just kept staring at him, trying to find my mom in him. I looked at his earlobes and said: ‘Hey, your earlobes match.’ ”

“I expected a really old person and he doesn’t seem really old,” she said. “We’re a really fun family and he’s that way too.”

As the children and grandchildren played in the living room, Voss and his daughter agreed that no one was angry about the past.

“If anything, I’m angry at myself,” Voss said. He said he tried to find her “a couple times” without success.

“We moved around so much,” Simmons explained.

Simmons knew the Veterans Administration must have records on her father because Voss had served in the Marine Corps, including time he spent in a hospital recovering from injuries inflicted in Guadalcanal.

The VA refused to help her in 1987, citing federal privacy laws. In 1990, however, the rules were relaxed, and the VA was willing to act as a liaison between Simmons and her father, still protecting Voss’ right to privacy if he didn’t want to see her.

A longtime lounge singer now working at a Reno casino, Voss called the regional VA office and told them he wanted his daughter’s address “right now.”

“There’s so much to talk about,” he said. “There’s a love affair here. I’m so overwhelmed and grateful.”