What makes a father? This one named his daughter `Bunny’ — and disappeared

Do you remember that old Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue”? The story of a father who names his son Sue, then disappears? The boy grows up hating a man he’s never known and battling his way through life because of the weird name he bears.

Well, that’s sort of the story behind my name. Bunny is my real name. And the drama behind that unusual name is like the story of the boy named Sue.

When I was born, my father insisted that my given name be Bunny. For him, it was a love name he had used with his much-younger sister when they were growing up.

He was overjoyed to welcome a daughter, born at Robertson Hospital (12th and J streets) in Modesto, on Dec. 28, 1941. Me. He wanted that love name to be my name. My real name.

My mother had other ideas. “Absolutely not. We’re going to name her Bernice and you can call her Bunny if you want to.” Somehow, Bunny is on my birth certificate. Thank goodness. I could never be a Bernice.

Who names a child Bunny?

I have no idea how my dad won that argument. My mother did not lose often. I’m glad he chose this time to stand his ground. Thank you, Daddy, for giving me the gift of a name that reminded me always that I was loved by someone who, at least once, for a little while, thought I was special.

But, as in the song, Daddy disappeared. I didn’t meet him until I was 27 years old. Unlike the boy in the song, I did not want to bust a chair across his teeth. I have always loved my name. It suited me. And I believe I suited it. I’m a little unusual and full of surprises.

I was the young mother of a toddler and pregnant with my second child when the phone rang. It was a Sunday morning and I was dressing the baby; we were going to church. A raspy man’s voice said, “Is this Bunny? This is your old man. I’m at the Greyhound bus depot. I lost my job. I’m broke. And I have nowhere else to go. Can you come and get me?”

I went and picked up the man who named me Bunny. And he lived with us until just before my second son was born. One morning, we got up and he was gone. Just gone. No goodbyes. No “I love you.” Vanished without a trace. It was as though he had never been there. I never heard from him again.

Twelve years later. Again, the phone rang. “Hello,” said a man’s voice, “Is this Bunny Stevens?” I replied that it was. He went on to say, “I am calling from the sheriff’s office in Stockton. Do you know a man named Kenneth Umbaugh?”

“Well,” I said, “that is my father’s name, but I can’t say I ever really knew him, and I haven’t seen or heard from him in years.”

“We have a decedent. We’re not sure of his identification, but he had a scrap of paper in his pocket. Your name and phone number were on it.”

Proper goodbye for a father

I was told there was no legal requirement that I take responsibility for my father’s remains. I talked to my brother. We decided to bring Daddy home.

We put a brief obituary in The Stockton Record. We arranged for a short graveside ceremony. A preacher said a few words. My boys fidgeted. As we were going through the motions of a “proper burial,” a car drove up nearby. A couple got out. The preacher paused as they walked up. “We live in Stockton,” they said. “We wanted to be here for Kenny. Kenny was our drinking buddy.”

Perhaps a fitting eulogy for the man who named me Bunny and disappeared. Twice. He was, after all, someone’s drinking buddy.

He was never meant to be a family man. Didn’t have it in him. But, in his own way, he was my father. He was the man who named me Bunny.