Through the years, Linda McCloskey’s daughter would stand by her side handing her dimes, one by one, to feed into payphones across South Carolina. Each clink of the coin echoed the worn hope one of the Barwicks in the phone book would be McCloskey’s brother, Robert Loyal Barwick.
Phone call after phone call and door after door, every answer on the other side was never the right one, never the little boy with blonde curls torn from her more than half a century ago.
Last week, McCloskey picked up the phone to get the answer she’d spent most of her life searching for:
“It’s him.”
After 60 years, McCloskey, 71, found her brother Robert Barwick, 60, in West Palm Beach, thanks to a viral photo on Facebook, a forensic historian and city police.
“I have shed many happy tears and thankful prayers, and I’m waiting to hug him once again,” said McCloskey, who now lives in Pennsylvania.
The family plans to have an in-person reunion this week in West Palm Beach.
Click here to continue reading this story.
About the Author
