Brothers and Sisters...

When Miller Moseley, Doug Lord, C.D. Sealy and Norman Strange sat on the stage at the downtown public library in Fort Worth as part of the promotion for the book Twelve Mighty Orphans when it was first published, they still acted like brothers. They referred to each other by nicknames, they had jokes that only they understood and whatever pecking orders had been set, those many many years ago, well... they still mattered, all these years hence and the bonds remain strong. After all, Home Kids always referred to themselves as family.

The audience that day had very few people there. After all, the story (now in the process of moving from book to movie) had been forgotten by most everyone but The Home Kids. Even in the telling of the story to Jim Dent, and those first days of publicity events, the orphans themselves were surprised that everyone else didn't realize how very, very special their experience had been. The Home Kids did, though.

That day, as she signed books, Opal Lord (a Home Kid and one of the characters in the book who married Home Kid Doug Lord) sat at the table signing her autograph to her picture in the book, and she related how she was stunned -- absolutely stunned -- that a person in the audience of the book store the night prior had asked her, with such sadness, how she had overcome her experience of living in an orphanage.

"Why this was heaven," Opal said afterwards. "I'd never seen a toothbrush before I got to The Home. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me," she said. How could people think this wasn't a good thing, she wondered aloud the next day, surprised at the reaction and ideas people seemed to have about the experience of growing up without a nuclear family and in an institution instead.

What these children had lived through, what they had become in the process, and what they still were these year later (which that day at the library were four old men up on the platform who had been equipped, somehow, to live lives that mattered and to know the significance of success) was a story that made them who they were -- in spite of --well, anything and everything.

The magic of that time and those characters involved continues to evolve and gain momentum as others, even the orphans themselves, recognize what a significant experience and story it really was. But only slowly. As with most things in life, only in retrospect and with the experience of years can one see the past in light of the present. This is why the story continues to sell in book form, why has gone through so many printings, and why it continues to unfold, capture hearts and inspire readers.

Dorothy "Dot" Moseley sat in the audience in the library auditorium in downtown Fort Worth watching her brother, and afterwards she, too, was part of the table of main characters who autographed their photos in the book about the true story of the Mighty Orphans. Dot is the little girl in the photo, above at right, with her mother, Mildred Lucille Miller, and her two brothers, Miller, at left, and Cecil, right. Dot recalls that most of the children at The Masonic Home had only lost their fathers. Dot's mother couldn't afford to keep the children and for the rest of her life felt guilty about having to put her kids in The Home.

"It was the best thing that could have happened to us," Dot said when she was interviewed about the story for a television special after the book was published.

The big event for the book publication promotion was an evening function at the Masonic building in downtown Fort Worth held the next day. Masons, Fort Worth citizens, Home Kids and their relatives packed the main hall. The Masonic Drum and Bugle Corps played, people filed in, reporters from all the local media outlets were there, and well known ESPN sports announcer Randy Galloway was host for the evening.

That night the story began to come alive once again in the in the eyes of these men, these boys from that era, as once again the bands played and the people cheered for them as they retold stories of the past.

Dot has recounted how the bonds of family were so close that nicknames endured for life (almost everyone, it seemed, had a nickname) and she could name them all, starting with A. C.D. Sealey, who came to The Home as a six year-old, was known as "Wheatie" because he once ate six bowls of Wheaties in a contest.

In fact, when Sealey was sitting on the stage that day, all these years later with his three other football teammates as part of the Twelve Mighty Orphans book promotion, he was still called Wheatie. It was no surprise because the children and staff at The Home became close. They reconfigured the idea of relations and created their own larger family, always calling themselves brothers and sisters. Forever.