No one thought it would be easy.

Richard Nary has moved in with his daughter and her family in a small town in Wisconsin, 35 years after leaving his wife and children, sinking into alcoholism and living on the streets of Sacramento.

But the unlikely reunion has had its awkward moments, Nary's daughter Krista Szymborksi said Tuesday.

"It was absolutely the right decision to bring him home," said Szymborski, who reunited with her father in Sacramento last week and flew with him back to Wild Rose, near Madison, on Monday. "But I still have some trust issues with my dad, and I still have some anger issues. We're trying to get through those."

Szymborski said she worries that her father will have trouble adjusting to his new life in rural Wisconsin. She is concerned that he still drinks alcohol, although he insists he consumes no more than a couple of beers a day.

While he reconnected with three of his five children who flew to Sacramento last week, Szymborski said she is saddened that two siblings want nothing to do with the man they accuse of abandoning them.

She occasionally gets frustrated when Nary talks about "raising our family," she said. "I remind him, gently, that he didn't do that."

Overall, though, "I feel really good about everything," Szymborski said.

Nary, 68, a military veteran who has worked as a trucker, welder and horseman, blames alcohol for the splintering of his family in upstate New York more than three decades ago. In recent years, he had been living behind a gas station in Sacramento.

This summer a stranger, Todd Reiners, a computer specialist who works for The Bee, discovered him, took him in and worked to find the homeless man's relatives.

Szymborski and Nary spoke on the phone at Christmas, and talked almost every day until their reunion.

Last week in Sacramento, Nary saw Szymborski for the first time since she was a toddler. He also reunited with his daughter Robin and son Richard, who is a carbon copy of his dad, right down to the "hand gestures and the walk," said Szymborski.

The family had dinner at Buca di Beppo, where staffers befriended Nary when he was homeless. They also toured some of Nary's other haunts, including the gas station lot where he slept in a cardboard box for more than two years.

"He talked so naturally about things like sleeping under a bridge and living on the streets," Szymborski said. "I just lost it when he said those things. It was so sad to me that he lived that way."

Nary was unsure at first whether he wanted to go back with Szymborski and her husband Craig to Wisconsin, but ultimately decided that he did. They bought him winter clothes, and bundled him up for the trip.

He already has met several of his grandchildren, as well as a great grandson, and quickly bonded with them, Szymborski said.

A family reunion is in the works in Wyoming in July. There, Nary will get to see some of his long-lost siblings.

"I hope he stays with us. I hope he doesn't run scared," Szymborski said.

If Nary does decide to retreat back to the West Coast, "I will respect that and help him get settled," she said. "But I'm assuming he's here for good."

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