Meeting my cousin, John, at his home in Falmouth
July 16, 2010
S. Family Lobster Bake
North Falmouth, MA
Chronicling family history is a hobby of mine. My father enjoyed hearing about my findings, and when he died, I considered giving up the hunt; however, my mother encouraged me to continue. I'm glad she did, because it led me on a happy journey.
Last July, I figured out the identity of my great-grandfather's youngest brother, then I found his son and wrote to him, asking for any information he had about his father. Finding my cousin was a matter of guessing the right name. I have a family picture from the mid-1880s that my father inherited from his paternal grandparents. On the back, family members are listed by name--the youngest son is listed as "J. Warren." Since my great-grandfather's name was James, I decided to try another common "J" name: John. So, I searched for John Warren S. Very quickly, I struck gold. I found an article written about J.W.S., Jr., a developmental biologist. I looked up his address and wrote to him, including copies of the family pictures I had that included his grandparents (my great-great grandparents).
Within a week, I received a reply. Yes, those were his grandparents. Yes, we were cousins. John was elated that I found him because he didn't know much about his father's family. We exchanged a few letters and spoke on the phone. He extended an invitation to his family's annual lobster bake on Upper Cape Cod. John turned 90 last November and I consider myself fortunate to have found him well and with open arms.
On July 15th, I flew to Boston, and after a lovely bus ride past evergreens, I was at the home of my cousin Maggie, John's daughter, and in the presence of several second and third cousins. The next day, my cousin Kitty--another of John's girls--took me to meet her father. It was one of those moments that becomes mounted in that memory frame of "I will never forget."
1 comments:
This is SO AWESOME!
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