This Marshall resident went on a 'roller coaster journey' to find mother's birth family

Marshall resident Christopher Overly-McDowell remembers many family trips with his sister and parents to St. Louis when he was a child.

While the journeys from his childhood home in Monroe City sometimes included visits to children's museums, the zoo and other diversions for someone young, there were many times he was just having fun in the hotel pool while his mom, Linda (Deaver) Overly, watched.

Meanwhile, his dad, a police officer, would be looking through court and recorder records and making inquiries at the St. Louis Christian Home, now known as ECHO, the Emergency Children's Home, trying to find his wife's siblings and parents. This project also was undertaken by Linda Overly.

"It was constant in my life, my mom talking about wanting to find her family and reconnect and wanting to find what happened to them," Overly-McDowell said.

Overly-McDowell himself has a great interest in his family history and genealogy and took on the task of finding his mother's family in earnest roughly two years ago. The search has gone on for at least 40 years.

His parents "would advance and then hit a wall, even with my dad being a police officer, he couldn't find all the information to close this. Now that things are digitized and records are online, I have been able to help search and help close this stuff up," he said.

The pieces of the puzzle finally started to slot into place in November, and as a Christmas gift to his mother, Overly-McDowell presented all the information he had acquired. One big surprise was that he had found his mother's long-lost sister Deborah "Dusty" Ila DeBandi, living in Jefferson City, who was born Debra Marie Deaver. He also had found her brothers, but they had died.

"When I would hit walls, something would tell me to go check something else out," Overly-McDowell said, which is what led to him reviewing his father's work, finding a typo, correcting it and finally making the connection with DeBandi. He had to build trust with her.

The sisters talked on the phone at Christmas for the first time in at least 60 years and have talked on the phone every few days since then. A family reunification is planned Feb. 25 in Jefferson City as long as there are no other hiccups.

"It has just been the craziest roller coaster of putting this all together," Overly-McDowell said.

The burlesque dancer and the Stardust Club employee

Edra Louise (Ackermann) Deaver, known on the burlesque circuit as Jinx DeVore, was performing at the then-Stardust Club in St. Louis. At the time she was married and had one child, Daniel Richard Robertson, born in 1951. She would meet Roy Lee Deaver Jr., a comedian at the club, who likely did other odd jobs there.

The pair had an affair that resulted in the births of Roy Charles Deaver, born 1953; Overly-McDowell's mother, Linda, born in 1954; and, sometime later, DeBandi, who was born in 1957. Overly-McMcDowell is still searching for other half-siblings of his mother.

Edra became a Deaver after she had divorced her first son's father, Herbert Robertson, and married Deaver Jr. after DeBandi's birth.

Edra Deaver died in August 1987 in Miami, Florida. By this time she was known as Edra McWilliams, while Deaver Jr. died in October 1986 in St. Louis.

The push, pull of foster care and adoption

The home lives of Overly-McDowell's mother, and his uncle and aunt, were rather unstable. The same could be said for his half-uncle, Robertson.

The siblings would end up with Deaver Jr.'s stepmother, who at an already older age, could not cope with caring for four children ranging in ages from pre-teen to toddler. All the children ended up in care at ECHO. Linda Overly was about 4 or 5 years old when she was placed in care.

DeBandi and Roy Charles Deaver were adopted by Charles James Strayhall Sr. and Wilda Lea (Wall) Strayhall, who were living in Lebanon and eventually would move to Columbia. Roy Charles Deaver became Charles James Strayhall Jr., while Debra became Deborah Lea Strayhall after adoption.

Linda Overly was never adopted, which affected her mental health, and by age 9 she ended up in foster care in a home in Hannibal, where she faced emotional, physical and sexual abuse. She married John Thomas Overly soon after turning 18, and he brought stability to her life, Overly-McDowell said.

Had she not married so young, her life may have taken similar paths to her siblings, he added. Robertson also was never adopted, and Linda Overly kept in contact with him until the early 2000s.

The push and pull and trauma associated with foster care and adoption meant there were behavior issues among the children, who had eventual run-ins with law enforcement. For Roy Charles Deaver and DeBandi, that meant facing petty theft charges. Roy Chales Deaver would end up at the Missouri Military Academy, eventually serving in Vietnam. He died in October 2016, likely in Evansville, Indiana, but a memorial service was held in Jacksonville, Missouri. DeBandi attended Rock Bridge High School.

Robertson's crimes were severe, including separate murder and rape convictions in Oregon. Robertson died in 2015 in Port Huron, Michigan, after a battle with liver cancer. He married just days before his death.

Birth certificates make connections

Overly-McDowell was able to make a majority of the connections to his extended family via birth records. The dots lined up with Edra Deaver because of a promotional image she had signed to Louise, the mother of Bucky Conrad, a burlesque emcee. The handwriting matched the handwritten birth certificate she had filled out for Linda Overly.

Other birth certificates that made the family connections were provided by DeBandi, which had Edra and Roy Lee Deaver Jr.'s names.

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This confirmation came in just the few days before Christmas. After a family vacation in Texas, Overly-McDowell went to work making the presentation for his mom.

"I started tidying it up and putting into a PowerPoint form between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve. I presented it later that day to my mom," he said.

"When it finally started falling into place it was overwhelming," Overly-McDowell said, adding he is pleased he was able to finally close what was an open-ended chapter in his mother's life.

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CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct Christopher Overly-McDowell's last name. It originally had published as Christopher Overly-McDaniel. Other minor details were corrected as well. The Tribune regrets the errors.

Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Marshall resident tracks down mother's family through birth records