Family tree

I have been researching my family tree for a while now and with the help of some distant cousins I've found on line I'm a lot further along that I thought I'd ever be. It can be quite surprising what you find doing this though. I always knew we didn't talk about my dad's family. It was just something you didn't talk about. Whyever not? After all they were family, right? I loved all the relatives I knew. They were all on my mom's side. We had wonderful times growing up and I always knew they loved me. I loved getting together with my cousins at the holidays and having Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma & Granddad's house. Weren't all families like this? When you're a kid you think the whole world lives just like you do. Life wasn't a complete bed of roses, my dad was an alcoholic and things could get pretty tense at home. But...my extended family was always there for me. They taught me about God, showed me what a happy home life looked like and how happily married people treated each other. They were always my safe place to go. I know I wouldn't have survived the teen age years without them. When I told my mom I was searching daddy's family she said I wouldn't get farther that his dad Fred. Well, I did. Lots farther. Fred was a character, without a doubt. I've learned to find birth records, death records, marriage records, and military records. The last one is the start of a new dilemma. I got my dad's army enlistment record. He enlisted June 10, 1942 in Sacramento, CA. Here's the problem ....on it it states he is a widower! He married my mom in 1943, 6 weeks after they met. I am now on the hunt for a marriage record and a death record. My dad's father Fred had a sister Millie that he kept in touch with over the years so I have friends out there helping me with this search, and we will find it! The real search here is for the daughter it is rumored my father had with his first wife. The story goes that my dad and his wife had a bad automobile accident that killed his wife and almost killed him. They had left the baby with her parents that day and after the accident her parents kept the baby and raised her. None of this was EVER mentioned in my house. I might have a sister out there that I don't know? She would have been raised to think she was an only child. We've missed an entire lifetime of knowing each other. How sad :(