We’re doing it again, my sister, Trish, and I. The call to find family has remained with us like a steady fire, as it has since a certain January night in 1998. That is when we first decided to look for any relatives of our father who may be alive yet, who could tell us about him, or about the man who our grandfather was. Perhaps one of them might even know where our grandfather came to America from.
It was hard to grow up not knowing things. Once in awhile, Dad would talk just a little of his callow days in Lehigh, Oklahoma. Not important things, mind you. We merely heard about him fishing and hunting with his brother, Ed. Also, a few times he spoke softly about lazing on the front porch of the family home, chewing on a piece of sugarcane he’d cut from a field.
But that was pretty much it. Trish and I had our work cut out for ourselves when we decided to give the genealogy endeavor a try. Dad had been dead for over twenty years by then. I didn’t have much hope.
Truthfully, though we did find a huge amount of information, traveled the roadways and flew over an ocean in search of whatever pieces we could claim to fill in the jigsaw that is our history, many parts of the puzzle remain blank. Entire sections have been left unattended and unassigned. So, we will try again. Hopefully this summer will be another one of discovery.