Born black into a white Corner Brook family, woman finally solves mystery of her father decades later
A big clue was hiding in plain sight, just minutes from where she was born
Kimberley Hunt has spent her professional career as a private investigator, but the biggest search of her life centred on herself.
Hunt was born black into an all-white family in Corner Brook, and the mystery of who her biological father loomed large and unsolved, both for her and her siblings.
And amid all the speculation throughout the decades, they never thought to look in the Newfoundland and Labrador Hockey Hall of Fame for the answer.
Rumours and gossip
Hunt was born in Corner Brook in 1966 to Bernadette Power, a widow who already had six children.
"About two years [after] her husband died, I guess, she was out and met [my biological father] and got pregnant," said Hunt from her home in Toronto.
"He left, not knowing she was pregnant."
In a small town like Corner Brook in the '60s, people would whisper about children born out of wedlock. But Hunt imagines a half-black baby born into a white family really got the gossip mill churning.
"Being black, I'm sure there was lots of talk," Hunt reflected.
Four years after Hunt's birth, her mother died, and with her, the sure answer to her parentage. Hunt said when Bernadette's sisters — Hunt's aunts — asked Bernadette what to eventually tell Hunt, the answer was "just tell her he was black."
"Well, no shit, Sherlock! That's obvious, Mom, hello!" laughed Hunt.
"But that's all we knew "
Hunt was sent to Toronto to be raised by one of her sisters. When Hunt pressed her aunts back in Corner Brook for the truth over the years, she never got anywhere, although she suspected a couple of them knew the secret and had been sworn to confidence. But besides that suspicion, and a rumour that he had been an American stationed at the army base in Newfoundland, real leads were thin — until advancements in technology gave Hunt the key.
'It's crazy'
The big break came this past Christmas, when her sister, Catherine Hunt, who raised Kimberley, gave her a home DNA test kit. Catherine knew Kimberley had spent her whole life trying to find this mystery man, and thought this might help her crack the case.
"She said, 'Come on, just try it, just try it,'" Hunt said.
"And I did the spit test, and six weeks later I was talking to my sister. It's crazy."
Thanks to the family matches revealed by the DNA test kit, Hunt tracked down cousins on her father's side. And those cousins called Cheryl Collins.
"My cousin told me to sit down, she's got something to send me. She sent me pictures of Kim and me, around the same age, as teenagers," said Collins, from her home in Montreal.
"And I looked at the picture and I said, 'That's my sister.' She looked just like my father. She looked more like my father than my other siblings."
The long-lost half-sisters spoke on the phone, and two days later, Cheryl Collins and two of her brothers met up with Kimberley in Toronto.
"I was apprehensive, I was afraid: will they like me? What will it be like to put my hands on their faces?" said Hunt, whose fears soon evaporated.
"We had a big hugfest.… I was hoping she'd be tall like me, so I could finally have a sister to share clothes with."
Part of their DNA-assisted family reunion involved answering Hunt's all-consuming question of who her father was. And as it turned out, a photo of him had been hanging in Corner Brook the whole time, just a few minutes' drive from Hunt's first home.
Hockey heritage
That picture hangs in the Newfoundland and Labrador Hockey Hall of Fame, and Kimberley's father was actually 1960s hockey star Clobie Collins.
Collins, from Truro, N.S., played in the Newfoundland Senior Hockey League in the 1950s and '60s, including with the Corner Brook Royals at the time Hunt was born. The speedy forward earned the nickname "Jet," six Herder Memorial Championships and a spot in Nova Scotia's Hockey Hall of Fame as well.
But Collins died in 1985, without a chance for the father and daughter to meet.
Still, Hunt is glad to have the missing part of her life restored.She's the first to say she has had a happy life, and that she was raised very well by her half-sister. But finding out about her father has answered questions Hunt didn't even know she had, such as why her own 16-year-old-son, Lucas, loved hockey and showed promising talent on ice.
Hunt said at one of the recent Collins family gatherings, she found Lucas crying by himself in her bedroom. He told her, "I'm just so happy for you and me" to learn about their connection to his famous grandfather.
And as Hunt and her son settle in to a larger family than they ever imagined, the experience is a little bittersweet.
"I'm sad I missed having them throughout my life, but thankful that I have them now."
