Circumstances beyond their control separated two young brothers almost 55 years ago. Just this month, "coincidences" almost beyond comprehension reunited them. Sometime in 1947, to the best of their knowledge, Clifford Dale Clouse (who goes by Dale) and his brother Richard, along with a younger sister, were removed from their parents' home in Hartford City, Indiana, and placed in foster care. Dale was just over two years old, Richard was 14 months old, and their sister Marlene was just an infant. That was the last time the three siblings were together. As the oldest, Dale knew he had a brother and sister, but through the years of foster care and at least one adoption, the three were separated. Dale, who lives in Terre Haute and is 56 years old now, grew up in an orphan home. He has been looking for his family for the better part of three decades, but was never able to find more than just their birth certificates. He never knew what happened to his brother and sister. Richard was adopted and his name was changed to Thomas Alan Webb. He lived briefly in Fort Wayne as a child (where his adoption was finalized), then moved to Huntington where he lived for 49 years. For the past three years, Thomas has lived in Geneva. Thomas says that he has always known he was adopted, and that was all he knew. In the past, when he tried to get a copy of his birth certificate, the only one available to him was the one issued under his adopted name. As for family, the only one he knew of were his adopted parents, Harley and Gretchen Webb (both are now deceased). Just before Christmas, Thomas was at one of the Allen County Library branches doing some genealogical research on his adopted family. He'd been there for some time when an announcement came over the PA system about a talk being given in one of the library's meeting rooms. The talk was about helping adoptees find information about their birth families. Thomas says he was tired of "looking at all those papers" in his research, so he thought he'd go hear what the speaker had to say. During the meeting, Webb learned that he could obtain a copy of his adoption decree by requesting one from the County Courthouse where his adoption took place. Heading immediately to the Allen County Courthouse, Webb did indeed obtain a copy of the decree - promptly learning that his real name was Richard Eugene Clouse. That information spurred an Internet search for other Clouses from Indiana, in hopes of finding more information about his birth parents. He logged on to www.ancestry.com and looked up the surname Clouse, sending out an inquiry to everyone listed under the Clouse name. The email was received by a woman in Tennessee, Lianne Clouse Longmire, who, though no relation to Webb, did have much information for him about his family - including the fact that he had a brother also living in Indiana. Longmire is active in genealogy herself, and had previous contact with Dale Clouse. "On June 16, 1982," Longmire says, "I received a phone call from Clifford Dale Clouse asking if I knew his Clouse family lines. He was calling from the home of his half-sister, Mildred Crist, in Fort Wayne. This was all before the advent of computer genie searches. I did not know his line at that time, but told him I would work on it with him. He very much wanted to find his brother, Richard Eugene, who had been adopted as a baby. He had no further knowledge of him. I tried and tried without success to find Richard, but could not access the adoption records since I was not one of the parties involved. My last correspondence with Mildred and Dale was in July 1987. I kept the file and never forgot about them through the years, always being on the alert for any info(rmation)." When Longmire received Thomas Webb's email with the subject line "Richard Clouse", she immediately recognized the name and sent him a reply. She told him she had information on his family and to please contact her directly for more personal family information. When Webb contacted Longmire, he was surprised to learn that he had a brother. He had just found out his real name, and to find out that he had family alive somewhere was more than he could have hoped for. His adoptive parents never adopted any more children, so brothers and sisters were just dreams to him. As an only child, Webb laughs that he had "more dogs than anyone in the county". "It was unbelievable.so thrilling for me to know I have somebody," Webb says. After phone calls and emails to Webb, Longmire started contacting members of his suddenly extended family (which includes a number of half-brothers and half-sisters from each biological parent), attempting to relocate Dale. She left her phone number and Webb's with each person she spoke to. Mildred's husband Carl Crist helped spread the word and before long, Carl's son called Webb to tell him Dale's phone number. On January 7, less than a week after discovering the existence of his brother, and almost 20 years after Dale and Longmire first made contact, Webb and Clouse talked on the phone for the first time. Three days after that, Clouse traveled to Geneva and met his "little brother". The two men, who have talked extensively on the phone since January 7, already have inside jokes and tease each other like brothers who have grown up together. While there is some of the "getting to know you" phase still going on, it is obvious that Webb and Clouse are delighted to have finally found each other after more than fifty years. The two men have discovered some common traits (neither likes chicken or turkey, both are bald - though Webb is bald in front and Clouse is bald in back, and neither one can whistle). While Dale is the oldest, he is thrilled that his dark hair makes people who see the two brothers think that Thomas is the oldest. In their first days together, the brothers spent a lot of time laughing together and catching each other up on what they know of the family. Clouse, who first started looking in earnest for his brother after finding their father's obituary in a paper years ago, says he was surprised to finally not just find out about his brother, but to meet him, well. "All those years out looking for him." he said, before his voice trailed off, looking at his brother. In their more than fifty years apart, the two were never too far apart geographically. Both have lived in Fort Wayne at some point in their lives. Clouse worked in Decatur at Decatur Industries and Wayne Novelty and Webb has been a security guard at Berne Tube and Key Fasteners in Berne. This past weekend, the brothers spent time together at Webb's home in Geneva before heading to Terre Haute to Clouse's home. Webb was to meet some of the members of the extended family while there (Dale has met all of the surviving half-brothers and half-sisters). They plan, of course, to stay in touch, though their plans for the coming year are not yet firmed up. Both Webb and Clouse would like to find more out more about their youngest full sister, Marlene Kay, who was born in Hartford City in 1947. But for now, they have enough to learn about each other - and lots to catch up on - that will keep them busy for a while