This is a Father's Day story with a twist. "I'm the twist," said David Quine, smiling at the tale of wartime romance that brought him 3,000 miles from his home near Liverpool, England, to discover his American cousins, aunts and uncles in Lexington and Newberry counties.
Quine, 64, grew up with his mother's story that his father was killed in World War II, and was an airman in the Royal Air Force. Only when he tried to get a birth certificate in 2001 - and found discrepancies in her story - did he begin to ask questions.
He ordered the military records of the man whose name he carries, and to whom his mother had been married and divorced. Those records revealed that Walter Quine had been in North Africa when David was conceived.
When he confronted his mother, Doonie Quine, the truth came pouring out, a long-held secret of an unhappy marriage and a love affair with Rupert Koon of Pomaria, S.C.
Koon, an American soldier, was killed when the tank-landing ship carrying his unit and tons of ammunition blew apart on June 9, 1944, off Omaha Beach - one month and three days after his son was born to Doonie Quine.
This weekend, David Quine, a retired accountant who lives near Liverpool, is wrapping up a visit to his American cousins - his fourth such trip to the United States. He was staying at his cousin Jerry Koon's Lake Murray house when Koon read The State's D-Day anniversary story that mentioned the death of Rupert Koon.
After seeing Koon and Quine side-by-side, Sheelagh Quine said there was no need for a DNA test to prove her husband was related to the Koon family.
"It's a book and a movie waiting to be written," she said.
"It explains so many things," said David Quine, comparing his character and personality traits - even career choices - with those of his American cousins.
Sheelagh Quine's enthusiasm for the wartime love story contrasts sharply with the reaction in 1944, when Doonie Quine wrote to her dead lover's parents to let them know they had a grandson.
It was a different time with different values, and the Koons refused to acknowledge either that their son Rupert was dead or that he had a son in England.
"Until they died, they continued to insist that Rupert would come home one day - and there was no baby," Jerry Koon said. "When a letter arrived from England, they would throw it in the fireplace."
Ruby Koon, the wife of Rupert Koon's brother Lolan, maintained a correspondence with Doonie Quine for more than a decade. She gave the letters from his mother to David when he finally found his American family.
Sheelagh Quine said the reaction of Colin and Anna, her children with David Quine, reflected the generational difference in attitudes toward love and parenthood.
"They thought it was a wonderful story," she said.
"After they stopped laughing," added David Quine.
They said their children "always knew something was not quite right about their grandmother's story."
Because she was married, her meetings with Rupert Koon had to be kept secret, Sheelagh Quine said.
"She was very attractive and he was very handsome," she said. "I'm sure it was a great love story."
David Quine added, "I'm sure they intended to be together after the war."
The discovery of their English cousin has brought the Koon family closer together, Jerry Koon said. He hosts a reunion now each time David and Sheelagh Quine visit, and this year more than 40 people attended.
Several of the older generation have died since Quine first met the family, including Doonie Quine and Lolan Koon.
"The second time we came, Lolan was hanging on to see us," Quine said. "He died the day after we saw him. They asked me to be a pallbearer at his funeral."
Sheelagh Quine said she has been "enriched" by her husband's experience. "At first, we didn't know how we would be received. We keep reading similar stories, and some don't turn out this well."
David Quine has not only met his living relatives, but learned that the Koons who first settled in South Carolina were German-speaking Swiss who probably spelled their name "Kuhn."
Jerry Koon, principal of Batesburg-Leesville primary school and a teacher at Newberry College before he retired, believes Rupert would be "happy and proud" that his son has found his American family.
"No one in the family was surprised when he surfaced," Koon said. "There had always been this undercurrent about Uncle Rupert."
