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Man reunites with long-lost family in Southern Oregon Colleen Keener holds a photo of herself and Tim Olmedo as children taken more than 54 years ago. [Andy Atkinson Photo] Sunday Jun 25, 2017 at 7:09 PM Jun 26, 2017 at 7:52 AM Nick Morgan Mail Tribune @mtcrimebeat In Mary Rollema's family, "Timmy" was believed to be long gone, but never forgotten. Now he is found after nearly 54 years. Tim Olmedo, of Fort Smith, Arkansas, who has lived largely by himself in the half century apart from his mother and eight siblings, has in the span of weeks gained a new family, new life plans in Southern Oregon and a new name — or rather his given one. "I'm changing it back to Bayer," Olmedo said. Now that his adopted parents are gone from smoking-related illnesses, he said they would agree "it's the right thing to do." At his sister Colleen Keener's Phoenix living room Sunday, in a reunion more sweet than bittersweet, Olmedo recalled one of his earliest memories growing up in Long Beach, California. At the age of 4, Olmedo remembers sitting in the back seat of a Chevrolet and a woman who looked like Annette Funicello despondent behind the wheel. "She was crying and crying," Olmedo said. Aside from Rollema's basic questions about her long-lost son, Olmedo's lighthearted temperaments and similar interests in the Beatles and art made it seem as though no time had passed with the family. Sunday was actually his first time talking to his 94-year-old mother. "Do you play any instruments," Rollema asked. Olmedo said he plays guitar for his church in Arkansas. Keener and sister Judith Rosemary Hamrouni of California said their family grew up with a piano in the home. "We get that from you, Mom," Keener said. Hamrouni said she and her siblings all spent time in foster care while Rollema struggled with issues that included problems with alcohol in the wake of a divorce in 1963. She'd tried to make ends meet working as a nightclub musician, but the work gave her ample access to alcohol, and her fragility led to a nervous breakdown in the wake of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Hamrouni said she doesn't fault her mother for placing them in foster care when she couldn't be the mother they needed. "When she knew better, she did better," Hamrouni said. "She carried all these regrets," Keener said. "She tried to get him back." In time Rollema sobered up, remarried, and tried to put her family back together, but Los Angeles County social workers told her that it would be "psychologically disruptive" to remove Tim from his foster home. "He was not happily placed," Keener said. "He was in seven foster homes." Olmedo too last tried to connect with his birth family four years ago, told by the adoption agency that they didn't want to be contacted. Hamrouni and Keener gasped as he talked about the rejection he felt four years ago. Once he learned through his church pastor that his sisters were looking for him, he waited a few days to reply. In time, he learned to reply to his siblings' texts with "sis" and "brother." "It started sinking in," Olmedo said. "Part of you shields it." They couldn't find him for decades, in part because his adopted parents changed Olmedo's middle name, but his siblings say he has long been a valued part of the family. Their sister JoAnne, who died last year, named her only son Tim in his honor. Keener has opened up her home so Olmedo can relocate to Southern Oregon. He had been considering going back to school toward a career as a paramedic or a career in field of naturopathic medicine anyway, but there is little for him in Arkansas besides a job driving trucks for a peanut factory. Hamrouni said that the story has extra significance because their grandmother, Rollema's mother, also was adopted and didn't connect with her daughter until very late in life. "She was raised as an only child, just like Timmy," Hamrouni said. "This is like a story I've heard before, except I'm living it." — Reach reporter Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MTCrimeBeat.