(Jamaica Star) When 69-year old Danny Ellis migrated to the US in 1971, little did he know he had left a child behind.
Two years ago, he found out about his daughter Melonie, who was 46. They immediately started to build a relationship, but their link was later severed.
“Me never see her before, but we use to link over the phone. But me phone go drop in a water and me lose everything. Me couldn’t get back her number and me end up have to change my number too, so I don’t know if she is reaching out,” he told THE WEEKEND STAR.
He has been trying to locate her since 2018, but all attempts have failed.
“I really feel a way because she and I were touching base and I just lose the link; and all me ask people to find her, nobody can’t locate her,” he said. “A friend a mine even go Jamaica and over to the house where the mother use to live back in the days, but they turned it into a garage now.”
Ellis became aware of Melonie, his third child, after his niece saw her at a bus stop and thought she resembled the Ellis family.
“She (my niece) say there is no way somebody could look like our family so much. By talking, one story lead to the next, she start tell her about her mother’s life,” Ellis said.
“My niece told me about her and then we start converse, and she just open up and start tell me everything that her mother tell her before she died, that she got the wrong father and a man name Danny is her real father.”
I MET HER MOTHER
Ellis reasoned that Melonie’s mother was Sonia Smikle, a woman he had a relationship with when he was living in Kingston.
“I remember I met her mother in the South Camp Road area. Me a did young bwoy, up and down a Jamaica, and we did have a little thing a gwan. Things break off and thing. Me never know anything about the baby,” he said. “Me feel a way because me never have a relationship with her, but it is not my fault, because I never knew about her.”
Ellis said even though he has missed out on so many years of Melonie’s life, he is very much interested to rekindle what they started.
“Me wah find her because me nuh want she feel like after she find her father, me just neglect her, because it is not like that; me just lose her contact [number],” said Ellis. “Me have me niece and some friends out there a try find her, but them can’t locate her. The last place time I know she [lived] was in Harbour View.” Ellis said that his other children want to meet her as well.
“I want to help her in any way I can because I missed out so much,” he said. “I’m hoping somebody will see this story that knows her, or she will see it, and I find her.”
Ellis is asking Melonie or anyone who knows her whereabouts to contact him at (804) 704-9272.
