Father’s Day will never be the same for 63-year-old Cherise Irving, who on March 14 while tracing her family’s lineage using Ancestry.com, discovered her biological dad was not the father she’s known since birth.
Irving is still adjusting to discovering that her biological father is 89-year-old Reverend William “Chico” Higgins, Jr., son of Ora Higgins, the first personnel director for retailer Spiegel, and a teacher for 33 years at Dunbar High School.
The discovery was a shock for Irving, a Chicagoan living on the north Side, but she soon realized why her three siblings treated her so differently.
She recalled that when she was 15, she and her sister got into a fight and her sister blurted out that their dad was not Irving’s real father.
Stunned and confused, she asked her parents to explain, but her mother remained silent, so she asked her dad who told her, “You know I’m your father.”
Irving said she always felt she was the “black sheep of the family,” but she couldn’t figure out why she was treated differently by her siblings.
Irving said her parents had been separated since she was conceived, and divorced when she was 13. However, her father kept in touch. Irving is the youngest of her mother’s three children. She raised them as a single mother.
Both her mother and her stepfather have passed. Irving and her siblings are now estranged.
Irving read an article written by this reporter in the February 21, 2025, edition of the Chicago Crusader about the death of Dr. Murrell Jean Higgins Duster, the sister to her newfound father, who died at the age of 91. Irving decided to attend her funeral.
It was there on March 29, that she saw her real father for the first time but didn’t approach him at the memorial service. Instead, she waited and called him with the shocking news that she was his biological daughter. The first thing he said, Irving reports, was “God is in the plan.”
When contacted, Higgins admitted he was shocked but after paying for a paternity test, which proved beyond a doubt that he was her father, both have remained excited and have been talking to each other every day, several times twice a day.
“This was a Father’s Day surprise and one I will never forget,” Higgins said, explaining that he is stepping up and embracing his daughter like a man should.
“I just want to make a difference with my sons and young men,” he said.
“It’s not an honor to go out and have babies by different women. It’s not honorable, but I made that mistake and I plan to make good of my mistake.
“I had two great uncles who denied their daughters. I want to break the spell over the Higgins family to let the young ones know what I did was not right.
CHERISE IRVING
“I’m going to make it right by accepting her and her kids as my daughter and grandkids. I love them, and I can’t wait to come into O’Hare for the family reunion to meet them for the first time and they will meet their whole family for the first time,” Higgins said.
Having met his daughter’s mother in Cassopolis, Michigan while on leave from the National Guard when he was much younger, Higgins said he realizes what happened during that youthful period of partying was wrong.
While he didn’t know about Irving’s mother’s pregnancy at the time, Higgins said it was irresponsible. “I want young men to know that it’s not an honor to just get a girl pregnant and move on. It’s an honor to raise your kids the right way.”
Irving, who said she is changing her last name to Higgins, will meet her biological father in person at the 49th Higgins family reunion July 25-July 27th at the Sheraton Suites Chicago Hotel, 121 Northwest Point Blvd., in Elk Grove Village, IL.
Both Irving and Higgins said they can’t wait to meet each other in person, but in the interim, they continue to call, sometimes twice a day just to get to know one another.
Higgins wants to be an example to younger men so they won’t go down that same road of being an absentee father. “I hope what I’m saying will make sense. I was wrong, but I’m going to make it right. What is done in the dark sometimes it comes to the light and in my case it did.”
And Irving is so glad that the truth has finally come out.
“I feel good about everything because I know where I come from and the truth has been exposed. I always had a dysfunctional relationship with my family. I love them so much, but I was aways the black sheep. I never did anything wrong, and I always wondered why I was treated this way.
“I was distraught, but now I am extremely happy, bubbly. My children are happy. We have looked at the pictures of the Higgins family and we look alike. My children became very emotional.”
A week before Father’s Day, Irving met with Higgins’ son, Ira, and said the encounter went well. He told her, “Welcome to the family.”
Irving said she is excited about seeing her father at the upcoming reunion.