Finding Family

Anthony Meyer moved to Franklin, Wisconsin, when he was 12 years old. He faced an expected sort of curiosity and fascination from his peers at Forest Park Middle School, a predominantly White, suburban setting. Kids wanted to know where he was from (Milwaukee), what he liked to do (play basketball and football), who his parents were (Paul and Jenny). It was often at this point that the interview came to a grinding halt.

“They look at my adopted parents, they look at me, like, ‘Your parents are White.’ I’m like, ‘Yup. Yeah they are.’ So it was different,” says Anthony, now 24.

Anthony is unique in many ways, not least that he, a Black, inner-city child, was adopted by a White suburban couple. His story is different because he wasn’t adopted until he was almost a teenager, a statistical minority in Wisconsin adoptions. His story is different because the same couple that adopted him also adopted his biological brother, Tony. And he is different because the family who welcomed him includes a biological son of their own and two other little girls, sisters who were also adopted into this growing, mixed family.

Anthony grew up in a house on 9th and Burleigh in Milwaukee. The house bustled with siblings, an uncle and a grandma. Grandma took charge of raising Anthony and his three brothers. Their mother often wasn’t home.

Problems began when the boys’ grandmother moved out of the house. First, the electricity went out, leaving the brothers sitting in a dark house, waiting for the sun to come up so they could play again. Soon they stopped going to school. Toward the end, the refrigerator was more often empty than not. Anthony, the eldest, stretched powdered milk as far as it could go for himself and his brothers. He asked neighbors for spare meals and went to the corner store to buy bread and bologna. Their grandmother moved back into the house, but by this time, it was too late. The social worker came anyway. A few days later, the sheriffs came, too.

“[They] just tell us to pack up our bags. And then, that was it. And they just took us. Me and Tony went to a different car, and then my other two brothers went to a different car and just drove off into the foster homes, basically that night. The same day,” Anthony says.

“Everyone was watching, the whole block’s watching. And everyone, my friends and everyone we played with, they asking questions like, ‘Where you guys going? What’s going on?’ like, I don’t know, man, I can’t — I don’t have any answers.”

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Anthony and his brother, Tony, were driven to the home of Chris and Percy. They were an older couple who lived with their adult son, who helped around the house. Anthony and Tony roomed with two other foster boys in Chris and Percy’s home. They woke up early every Sunday to go to church and followed other household rules.

After a while in the foster home, Anthony and Tony’s social worker reported surprising news: a place might be able to take them in for good. A couple had invited the boys over for the holidays to see if they’d like to try living there for a while.

On Christmas Eve, the boys drove to Franklin, a place Anthony had never heard of, to see people he’d never met before. He saw huge, spaced-out houses, sidewalks, snowdrifts, and in the home of Paul and Jenny Meyer, the largest Christmas tree he’d ever seen in his life.

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Paul and Jenny Meyer always knew they were going to adopt children. Paul, himself adopted, made sure to inform his future wife of his desire to adopt after only a week of dating.

The Meyers first ventured into parenting 13 years ago, when Jenny gave birth to their first and only biological child, Nick. Soon after, they knew they wanted to expand their family through adoption. Two years later, with the help of a social worker, they took Alexandra, only 5 days old, home from the hospital. When Paul and Jenny were asked if they wanted to close their adoption license after bringing Alex home, they said no — they might be interested in returning to adoption later.

Jenny received a call about teenage boys in need of a permanent home while Alex was still a baby, and at first, she felt overwhelmed at the prospect of such an abrupt expansion to her family, already juggling two small children. Things changed when Paul and Jenny saw pictures of the boys. They decided to invite them to spend Christmas in their home.

After about a year and a half of a trial period living together, the Meyers invited Anthony and Tony to legally become a part of their family. The boys consulted with their mother in Milwaukee, who said the Meyers were good people — people who would take care of them.

Paul and Jenny were unable to adopt Anthony and Tony’s younger brothers, Zach and Michael. Zach still lives in Milwaukee. Michael passed away in 2015. Ultimately, Anthony and Tony decided to join the Meyer family.

Jenny matched all her boys to go to the courthouse. Paul, Anthony, Tony and Nick sported blue shirts and yellow ties to make the family union official. One of the best moments for Paul and Jenny was learning that Anthony and Tony had decided to take the name Meyer.

“That was really feeling like a family coming together…We felt like a family. It didn’t feel weird or anything,” Paul says.

Anthony and Tony got involved with football and basketball right away, easing their transition into Franklin.

“There were times in their games where they’d have great plays or great games and it just made you feel really proud, not just because they were having a great game, but just proud because wow, we’re here watching them, playing on a team or doing an activity, and it gave you a sense of pride that any parent would have,” Paul says.

“Franklin overall has been fantastic. I mean, our church, the school, the teams, the coaches. I mean, they totally just welcomed our family. It wasn’t even sort of a big deal.”

David Garcia, a member of the Meyers’ church, first met the family around 10 years ago. He has since watched the family grow, first with Alex, later with the adoption of Anthony and Tony and finally with the addition of Alex’s biological sister Jasmine, who was adopted by the Meyers as well.

“They’ve raised these children as their own. They were not treated any differently by them as parents, by the community that surrounded them, by the school system. They are kids that thrived,” Garcia says. “And the kids have become good young men and women.”

Anthony excelled at sports and found himself well-liked, even if he stood out a little. Other kids had never heard of someone being adopted at 12 years old, so he got a lot of questions. He confronted being one of the few Black children at his middle school, but this was never an obstacle at home.

“We’ve certainly had people comment, like, ‘It’s great that you’ve done that for these kids,’ and we always turn it around, that they’re a blessing to us just as much as we are to them,” Paul says.

“Because we didn’t do it for that reason,” Jenny says. “We did it because we wanted kids.”

 

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Anthony spent one year at the College of DuPage playing football before tearing a ligament in his knee. He transferred to the UW-Milwaukee, where he studied marketing for two years before beginning culinary school. He works as a chef now, something he loves, but he’s thinking about going back to get his marketing degree someday. He’s not sure yet. He has a lot of options.

“The best.”

This is the answer Anthony gives me, short, unblinking, without hesitation, when I ask him to describe Paul and Jenny.

“I wish a lot more kids would experience the kind of love that Paul and Jenny have…The world would be a lot better place, a way better place than it is now,” Anthony says. “If there were more people like Jenny and Paul? Oh yeah.”