A photo of the mysterious Vicky who was in Auckland in 1944. Photo / Supplied, Thibodeau family
A photo of the mysterious Vicky who was in Auckland in 1944. Photo / Supplied, Thibodeau family
An American man is looking for his father's Kiwi love and her child, who may have been conceived during a romantic liaison in World War II.
Paul Thibodeau, 62, was just 18 when rifling through photos of his father's years serving for the US Army in the South Pacific hestumbled across a photo of a woman he'd never seen before.
The image showed her smiling at the camera; dressed in a coat; hat on head and bag tucked under her arm - on the back a short note; "Love from Vicky. Auckland, New Zealand. 1944."
This note is the only clue Paul Thibodeau has about the mysterious Vicky. Photo / Supplied, Thibodeau family
There was once another photo too - this one of a baby that his father, Leopold Thibodeau, swore was a spitting image of himself.
But Paul Thibodeau believed his father may have thrown the baby's photo away so his mother wouldn't find it.
"I think he said it was a boy."
Today, 44 years on from when Thibodeau first learned his Canadian father had another love, he's none the wiser as to who the mystery woman and child is.
"To think there might be a half-sibling of mine somewhere, when my father's been gone for so many years? It might be interesting to meet this person.
"I should have picked his brain more; I should have talked to him more about it, especially when he was passing, but I didn't want to open a can of worms."
His father passed away from emphysema in 1988. His mother, Teresa Thibodeau (born Moore), died four years ago, aged 94.
Thibodeau did ask his father, who'd fought during the battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, about the woman in the picture when he first came across it.
"I'm sure I said: Dad, who is this?'
A photo of the mysterious Vicky who was in Auckland in 1944. Photo / Supplied, Thibodeau family
Leopold Thibodeau served in the South Pacific during World War II. Photo / Supplied, Paul Thibodeau
His father told him it was a woman he'd dated while on a scheduled break, in Auckland, New Zealand.
"She was a very pretty woman, as pretty as my mother was. I can see her and my father together."
It when he asked about the woman's photo that Thibodeau's father, who was of French-Canadian descent, told him about the photo of the baby who might be his sibling.
He was told, "Don't tell your mother."
So he didn't, and nor did he push his father for more information in the years that followed.
"My mother knew Vicky existed, but she didn't know my father had an affair with her," Thibodeau said. "My mother would not have approved of that."
