A family reunited in a special way
Published: February 20, 2006
THE HOMELESS father stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of Broad Street, and yelled for all his friends to hear: “That’s my daughter! I ain’t seen her in years.”
Then, he walked over to the petite woman, now a mother of four, and gave her a big kiss, as his pals looked on while waiting to enter the Grace Cafe, a homeless shelter at Arch Street Methodist Church, on Broad Street near Arch.
It had been nearly three years since father and daughter last saw each other, and about 18 years since he dropped out of her life.
But Lakisha Wallace, 28, of 66th Street near Malvern Avenue, never gave up hope of reuniting with her father. A week ago, she was reading the Daily News after getting the kids to bed, and saw a photo of a homeless man sleeping in Suburban Station.
“Oh, my God! That’s my father!” she said, recognizing Alonzo “Lonnie” Williams, 54.
She roused her sleeping husband, Steven Bogan, 38, whose own father had died 10 days earlier. For years, Lakisha talked about her father, and how much she wanted him to be in her life and see his four grandchildren.
The next day was Valentine’s Day, and Bogan said, “I just wanted to do something for Lakisha to make her happy.”
So he tried to find her father by calling city officials, the homeless-outreach office and then the Daily News.
The Daily News learned that Williams was to show up at 9:30 that night at the Grace Cafe, and helped to reunite the family.
“I don’t want to see in the paper that this homeless man died in the snow,” said Lakisha referring to the storm that dumped a foot of snow on the city a week ago.
Williams, a loud, jovial man who appears to be on a first-name basis with people he meets, has been living on the street off and on for 20 years.
Lakisha’s mother, Claudette Wallace, 43, said she fell in love with Williams, who was the head meat-cutter for the school district’s lunch program. He was shocked to learn she was only 17 - and pregnant.
For years, the couple lived on Ridge Avenue near 17th Street in Francisville.
In the early 1980s, tragedy struck Williams’ family. In quick succession, he lost his older brother, Joseph, his beloved mother and his father, recalled Wallace, now living in South Carolina.
“When my mother died, I lost interest in a lot of things. My mother was everything to me,” said Williams.
His pain became unbearable; he sought relief in alcohol, then drugs. He was laid off from the school district. He became a welfare case manager. He tried carpentry, but injured his hand. He worked in a warehouse at 10th Street and Washington Avenue, Williams and Wallace said.
As the couple’s life became more unstable, recalled Lakisha, her mom left her father and took her, then 10, to a more stable environment in West Philadelphia. Claudette Wallace said she kept an eye on him through mutual friends, and let her daughter know how he was doing.
About five years ago, Lakisha took her 2-year-old daughter to a coin laundry where he was working. She asked him to come to Christmas dinner. He turned her down.
Williams, a solid, 5-foot-10, neatly dressed man in a watch cap, warm gray jacket and pants, is a proud man with a streak of independence. He said he won’t take welfare and is not on Medicaid.
To earn money for food, he works odd jobs, including a part-time job of 11 years, stocking a Center City bar, taking inventory and other chores.
When Williams met his daughter and her husband outside Arch Street Methodist Church, the three decided to talk inside a nearby McDonald’s restaurant.
She showed him family photos of when he was young, and of his wife, his mother and him playing with Lakisha. He began reminiscing.
She and her husband told him about their work and their blended family. Each has three children, plus one child together; two of his children visit on weekends. Last October, they lost their premature newborn, Steven Bogan Jr.
The couple had prepared for this moment, taking parenting classes at the Sunnycrest Family Support Center, on Spring Garden Street near 38th.
Not only did they want to become better parents, but also to understand the impact “about not having our fathers in our lives,” said Bogan, a cook at Sunnycrest.
Lakisha broached the question first: Would her father want to live with them?
Williams said he was “overwhelmed” and that everything was going “too fast.” But he said he was at the top of the list for the city’s “key program,” which puts chronically homeless men into apartments.
“I would rather live in a sewer than have the daughter I raised take care of me,” Williams quietly told the Daily News after the one-hour meeting.
He promised to meet his four grandchildren the next day, but called to cancel. He said Project H.O.M.E had sent him to see a doctor at Hall-Mercer, a community mental-health facility on 8th Street near Spruce. He said he believed it was a step toward obtaining an apartment.
Lakisha feared he’d disappear again.
Over the weekend, the couple stopped at the bar and was relieved to find Williams working. They ate lunch together and talked and talked.
He promised he’d meet his grandkids tomorrow after Lakisha gets off work.
Lakisha “was always a great kid, just like I remembered her. She’s sweet, and hardworking. You know, she has a job at University of Pennsylvania Hospital,” Williams said proudly last night. “She used to work in a nursing home.”
“If we stay in contact, I don’t want him to feel it’s a charity type of thing,” Lakisha said. “It’s family. I’ll be waiting for him.”
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