The brothers have dubbed themselves the Nebbs brothers from the first letter of each of their last names and had these t-shirts made for their 40th reunion.

ANDERSON, Ind. — Five brothers sit around, sip beers, rib one another and recall the good times and the bad times. All in their 60s now, they share a fraternal bond common among brothers.

But their bond is different. Their childhood together was lost when they were abused and abandoned naked at ages 1 to 6 by their biological parents in an Indiana chicken coop, taken to an orphanage and adopted by five different families in 1953.

Through curiosity and happenstance, they found each other 20 years later despite different surnames and, with one exception, new first names.

Gary Bute, Ron Etchison, Tom Shelton and twins Travis and Tyler Bott celebrated the 40^th anniversary of their reunion recently, catching up on the present but also reminiscing publicly about their lost youth years together. They also gathered to remember their deceased brother, Kent Nelson, who died in 1993 at age 45. 

Gary and Ron remember fragments of their short childhood with their younger siblings and biological parents, George and Betty Scott, in Madison County, Ind. They remember being poor. They remember their parents’ use of alcohol. They remember abuse.

They recall a time when, in a drunken stupor, George told his sons they were going to Florida and shuffled them into the car. They drove a while down the country roads of Madison County before he passed out and drove into a ditch. The boys walked back home.

Gary has a vivid recollection of life with their biological parents. He describes it simply as a tough existence. “I’m glad the young ones didn’t know (because of their ages),” he said.

Ron doesn’t easily relive those painful years, recalling only that the family moved a lot, living in a garage at one point.

 “I have a tendency to block stuff out,” Ron said. “I always have since then. I don’t know why.”

The brothers don’t remember how they ended up naked and abandoned in a chicken shed on a farm outside of Elwood, Ind., in 1953. Gary recalls the dirt floor and how, as the oldest at 6, he was in charge of keeping his five siblings alive, even after Kent accidentally ate rat poison.

“I remember trying to find food, and these guys would not stop crying,” Gary said. “I think I went to the corner and stuck my hands in my ears.”

The boys were eventually found and taken to Bronnenberg Orphans Home in Anderson, where they received regular, hearty meals for the first time. All six were adopted by five families – the twins remaining together.

“One day, I’d see a brother; the next day, he’s gone,” Gary recalls. “Nobody would tell you. It got spooky when all of a sudden you were the last one. And, at my age, I was very fortunate to be adopted.”

Parallel lives

The boys were adopted by middle-class, Christian parents, an adoption requirement for the orphanage. Only Ron retained his original first name.

Gary, Kent, Ron and Tom lived within 20 miles of one another in Madison County for two decades and didn’t know it. The twins eventually moved to Arizona with their adoptive parents.

Gary and Kent went to the same high school, Madison Heights, and played on the same football team, not realizing they were siblings. They played football against Ron, who attended Highland High School. Ron ran track against Tom at Lapel High School.

Each of the brothers adjusted to their new families, but felt something was missing from their past.

Gary thought often of his younger brothers. Ron remembered that he had older siblings. Tom and the twins wondered about their biological families.

Tom knew he was adopted. With youthful naiveté, he simply assumed his parents had died in a car wreck and he had been an only child. Yet he couldn’t help wondering if there wasn’t more to know.

“You can never put your finger on it,” Tom explains. “One neat thing I thought of was, hey, at least they (his adoptive parents) picked me out. They went out and looked and said, ‘OK, this is the one we want.’ I always felt special. Not many kids can say that.”

Gary and Kent, the two oldest, didn’t hang out much in high school, but they each knew the other was adopted.

Upon graduation and before he was deployed to Vietnam, Gary went to the local welfare office to seek information about his biological family. He had begun to suspect he and Kent were brothers. So he asked a woman working in the office whether Kent was listed on county records as his sibling.

“The girl got all excited and said, ‘How did you find out?’ and I said, ‘I didn’t; you just told me,’” Gary recalled.

In 1975, Tom decided to dig into his past. He found a paper with his birth name, Sherman Lee Scott.  Knowing this enabled him to track down his biological grandmother in Indiana.

When he first phoned her, she hung up. But after a second phone conversation, she agreed to meet him. She opened a family Bible during the visit, revealing his five siblings’ birth names written in it.

“That was the first time I knew I had anybody,” Tom says. “I grew up 25 years thinking I’m an only child.”

He said he first called Gary, who knew Kent, and then they found Ron. Ron’s minister led them to the twins, whose adoptive grandfather was still a minister in Indiana.

Tyler and Travis grew up knowing they had siblings somewhere in Indiana. They had only started the search process when they got the call that their four brothers had found each other and wanted to meet them.

The brothers, then ages 23 to 29, immediately planned a reunion in Indiana, during which they discovered they were incredibly similar — they played sports, loved the outdoors, enjoyed auto racing and had similar upbringings. None of them had adoptive siblings and five of them were in the military.

 “I don’t know how to explain having brothers instantly,” Gary says. “But there’s a feeling that goes inside your stomach; there’s a care or love or bond. It’s just hard to explain this sensation that goes over you. And you get that rush every time we get together.”

Facing the past

Some of the brothers looked up their biological parents, Betty and George, who were divorced. They said the encounter was void of the emotional and instant connection they felt with their siblings. But their mother cried when reintroduced to her long-lost sons. The father was too ill to interact with them. Both died the following year of cancer.

“It wasn’t like meeting your mom or your dad,” Gary recalls. “It was like a distant relative.”

Nearly two decades after the brothers found each other, Kent died in 1993 at age 45.

“It was sad. I remember him as a 4-year-old, and I’ve known him longer than I’ve known the rest,” Gary says. “It’s just a special bond

Every time the five surviving brothers get together in Anderson, there is an empty chair. They also visit Kent’s grave, toasting his memory with a shot of Crown Royal whisky.

 “I often think what it would be like if Kent was still here,” Ron says. “But we figure he’s up there looking down on us, laughing at us.”

Unbreakable bonds

Reuniting after two decades of separation is an extraordinary story. But life together has also been remarkable.

Shortly after finding one another, they appeared on the national TV game show “To Tell the Truth,” where Tom sat with two other contestants as a panel tried to guess which contestant really had found his long-lost brothers. Tom stumped the panel and won $500, sharing it with his brothers and the other contestants.

In 1999, Ron needed a kidney, and the twins wasted no time in discovering they were both a match. Tyler donated one of his; Travis is sometimes referred to as “the backup kidney.”

Tyler’s kidney has had a strange effect on Ron. Before the transplant, Miller Lite had been Ron’s beer of choice. Now he favors Bud Light — Tyler’s favorite brew.

“Tyler said, ‘You’re going to drink Bud Light after this. That’s the only beer that kidney likes.’ And he was right,” Ron said.

For all the fun the brothers now enjoy, there remains a lingering sadness over the loss of their childhood together, especially for Gary, the oldest. He felt alone for years with the memories of early childhood abuse and abandonment. He said the love of his brothers has helped him overcome those negative feelings.

 “It helps me get it off my chest when it’s been so bottled in all these years,” said Gary.

The younger brothers, too young to remember their earliest years,  feel that knowing their siblings had filled a void in the most amazing way.

“It’s like everything is complete now,” Travis says. “And we’re like kids when we get together. It’s so unbelievable.

“We haven’t grown up.”

Kelly Dickey is a reporter for the Anderson, Ind., Herald Bulletin.