I've known John George Dryden for about 18 months. He called me after I first blogged about him based on a newspaper story. He asked about my curiosity of the case. I told him that I grew up in a small Saskatchewan town where John Diefenbaker had his first law practice and Dief was therefore a part of my childhood memories.

Of course the other part of the story that interested me was the same thing that interested everybody. “Man raised in wealthy prominent Liberal family believes great Conservative Prime Minister to be his father, a man who died with no known children.”

PROOF

Over this last year and a half I know George has been through hell. He claimed the parents who raised him, Gordon Dryden and Mary Lou Dryden nee Lonergan, had signed a false birth certificate. He sued for his rightful share of substantial Dryden monies and then dropped the case when the Drydens threatened to drag this through the courts for eternity.  He lost touch with his elderly ill mother as Gordon and the family had her put in a cheap nursing home, barring him from visitations.

He managed to prove through DNA that Gordon was not his biological father, but no surviving members of the Diefenbaker family would co-operate to prove who was. He fought the Diefenbaker Centre along the way and their largely obstinate involvement in providing suitable artifacts. He hired genealogists, private detectives, lawyers and then hired new ones again.

Finally he has done it. His latest team have managed to obtain a discreet sample from a known Diefenbaker that proves through DNA that George Dryden is a Diefenbaker. And since there is no other Diefenbaker his mother was associated with, well....our 13th Prime Minister had a son.

Congratulations. It's a boy. LEAVE COMMENTS.

For other Larry Fedoruk blogs and features, click here.

Click here, to hear my latest interview with George.