‘Is Your Name Gary?’ You Might Have a Daughter

“IS YOUR NAME GARY? WHERE [sic] YOU IN REGINA, SK ON BUSINESS IN 1969?” reads an ad seeking the unknowing father that 45-year-old daughter Bonnie Edlund had never met.

Eklund’s sister, 39-year-old Toni Rempel, placed the ad in a Calgary newspaper in search of Eklund’s father at her sister’s permission. Eklund now lives in California.

The ad included the extent of information that the women’s mother, Vernette, could remember about the man she had a brief affair with. The Daily Mail reported that Vernette and Eklund’s father met at a nightclub called the Westward Inn in Regina, Canada. Edlund’s father didn’t know that Vernette was pregnant when the two parted ways.

Vernette told her daughter that her father Gary had been in the city on business and remembered that his night might end in “ski.” During the time of their romance, Gary would fly from his home in Calgary, Alberta to Regina for business.

Standing at least six feet tall with blonde hair, Gary may have been a pharmaceutical representative. He was a slender caucasian man back in 1969 and was in his 20s at the time. Vernette was working as a nurse at Regina General Hospital. She was a slender blonde as well.

The ad placed in the Calgary Sun included this information and went on to say:

Vernette dated Gary for several months and as a result my half-sister was born on April 24, 1970 in Tisdale, Saskatchewan. It is likely that Gary did not know that he was going to be a father. If you have any information about Gary or suspect that you know who he is or how we can locate him, please contact Toni Rempel at trempel@yahoo.ca or…

Rempel said her sister was too scared to place the ad herself, according to the DailyMail. Rempel didn’t even know Eklund was her sister until Rempel was 12 years old. Their grandparents had adopted Eklund and Rempel had been told up until that age that Eklund was her aunt. “I was so happy because it was like all my dreams had come true, because I always felt she was more than my aunt,” Rempel told People magazine.

‘I’d just want five minutes with him in a room,’ Eklund told People regarding finding her father. ‘I had the best family and upbringing but I’m just curious. There is this missing piece. I just want to complete the puzzle.’

Eklund expressed that she just wants some information and doesn’t want to “disrupt someone’s life,” but she said, “I think it would be nice for him to know.”

Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana