The man is my father, Ellis Theodore Vercher
and the little girl is my half sister, born
Melinda Ann Vercher in
Los Angeles, California on November 12, 1955.

The last time that my father and I saw Melinda was in the summer of 1966.
Since then she has been hidden from my dad and not seen or heard of by
anyone we know of and if you will bear with me, I will try and give a brief
explination.

Anyway ...

Ellis and my mom, Louise divorced shortly after I was born and I was raised by her and my
adopted father, Nathan Troy Nall who never hid from me that Ellis was my natural father.
Nathan was a carreer Navy man and scheduled to be transfered from Hawaii to northern
California in the late summer of 66 and I was allowed to visit Ellis in southern California
for the summer, after which I would join my mom, Nathan and half sister, Lisa.

During that visit, Melinda's mother took my dad to court for reasons which I am not
aware of and is of no importance here.

What I rember is this;

Ellis sat me down in the gallery of the court room and told me to wait for him. I didn't
know why we were there and patiently waited for him to collect me after he was done.
While waiting, I noticed a little blonde girl a couple of years older than me sitting accross
the isle and looking at me. While we both waited for who-knew-what, we made goo-goo
eyes at each other, trying to pass the time. After a time, my dad came and we were off.
After we were outside the court room, Ellis told me that the girl I had noticed in court was
my half sister, Melinda.

That was the only time I ever saw her and the last time my dad saw her.

Delores, from what I've heard from other sources, went to great lengths to hide Melinda
from my dad and despite thousands of dollars spent on private investigators, he has never
been able to locate her. Delores told Melinda a great many lies and/or exaggerations
regarding her father in an attempt to get Melinda to hate her father as much as she did,
and it worked.

And now I have taken up the search. My dad is not online and not aware of the power of
the internet. I have plugged in Melinda's name into various serach engines without luck.
But I feel it is safe to assume that she no longer goes by the name Vercher, either by
marriage or choice. But I'd also like to think that after 30 years, Melinda may have overcome
her anger and have some desire to locate her father, only she doesn't know how.

And this is where I come in. I asked my dad in a recent letter if he would provide any
information regarding Melinda and what I intended to do with it and he came through with his blessings.

This is by far not the only way in which I will try to find Melinda, but I figured that it would
get the widest audience and be a good place to start.

So now I ask your help. If you know Melinda or if this story sounds like someone you know, I ask you to help in whatever way you can. Tell her about this site, about Ellis' attempts to
find her, that regardless of what she has been lead to believe, her father loves her and very
much wants to contact her.

Tell her to contact Steven Vercher and I will put her in touch
with the father and brother she has not seen in over 30 years.