“The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” - Potter Stewart

“It's a cozy place and it's sort of personal. Everybody's locked into that same little dark box. Part of what makes it irreplaceable is its history.” - Bryan Kinnelin

“Over the stove, we share personal family history. Where did your grandparents come from? What did your grandparents cook?” - Janice Parks


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I know this sort of stuff shouldn't blow me away anymore, but for some reason it still does. I was again rifling through some old family papers, and came across this gem. I won't include it all, because it's quite lengthy and talks about everything from how many corn stalks grew that year, to the price of beef they got for the slaughtered ones.

I'll also fully understand if you kinda skip over it, because after all, it is my family and carries no interest for you. But if you feel like it, at least check out the one or two paragraphs at the end. I'm related to fame (of some sort!) LOL

But it also includes some more about my heritage and cousins (American ones!) that I never knew I had. To set the stage, it's a letter from my Uncle Don (my Dad's youngest brother, who is now in his 90's) to his and my Dad's oldest sister, my aunt. She passed just a few years ago. The "Aunt Nettie" that he speaks of is their aunt...my great-aunt. Okay, grab a cold one, it's story time!

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"You would remember Uncle Howard. I never knew him except through his letters to mother. I guess he was off to Cuba before I was born. It was about 1928 when Aunt Nettie and the family returned to Canada, never to go back. Through Flora, a couple of years ago, I learned something of the family disruption. She told me Uncle Howard never had a divirce, yet he re-married. She knew nothing of the second wife but thought there was a family.

"Uncle Howard had some contact with John's wife, Marjorie and Uncle Howard sent gifts to some of John's kids when they were babies, anyway Flora thought on retirement he had left Cuba and went to the States where he lived and died. I think he was in his early 70's when he died. He was 25 years older than his second wife whose parents were Spanish and who had been given land grants in Cuba. They had to get out when Castro took over and she lost all her holdings.

Anyway, after she died and a daughter was going through papers, she found a Cuban marriage certificate for her parents. Of course, it was in Spanish and it gave not only the parents names but the grandparents names, so they had the name William Cameron and Catherine Cameron [NOTE: They were in those pics I showed awhile back]
Also, it said Howard Cameron was divirced and his first wife was Nettie Mac.....something. I forget. It listed the name of their four children - Clarence, Elaine, Flora and John - so now Howard's family from the second wife knew that there had been, or were, half-brothers and sisters in Canada and they set out to learn more and through the Internet Howard's youngest son Charles, got more information and eventually met in Washington with a daughter of Norbie's, who is a Mormon. I don't know what she told them, but eventually contact was eststablished with Jean [NOTE: Jean is the daughter of the narrator here, and my first cousin}.

Jean kept it all to herself [she does that a lot .....much to the dismay and anger of the rest of the family sometimes!] as they developed a plan to come and visit.

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[Intervention Time] There are several pages describing how eventually the half-brothers/ssters met, so I'll skip that and get to the nub of what they talked about. Fascinating!!! Be patient and bear with me < smile! >

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"....we learned in the seond marriage Uncle Howard had five children. Catherine is eldest, next Lillian who was here, then William Howard who died from leukemia when he was 15, next Donald and then Charles who was here. When Uncle Howard died, his pension ended so his wife who was a graduate in home economics, dressmaking had to go back to work, and the boys had paper routes and worked as janitors to get money so they could go to University. They have done well --- Lillian says she and her husband are the poor ones. She was a teacher and husband Bob drove a milk delvery wagon and worked up to become district superintendent for one of the big milk companies. Katie trained as a teacher -- she quit after one year --- too much work for no money and started selling real estate and became the owner of the largest real estate business in Louisiana. Lillian said Katie is VERY wealthy --- she has five children, all very bright ones. One is a bio-engineer - she was sent to Scotland to study cloning and has succeeded in dividing an embryo successfully. Lillian and Charlie said Donald is most like his father --- can turn his hand to anything. They said he had made several fortunes and lost all but the last. He is now in Argentina where he master-minded the development of a coutry-wide casino operation for the government under contract.

Charlie is a retired Air Force colonel. He was C.O. of the C.I.A. intelligence station. He was in Germany for three years --- took his first wife and daughter there. Lillian said his wife could never understand why he could not tell her about all his secret missions. She said when he goes to the Pentagon doors are opened for him and people snap to attention. They showed us pictures of work he had done in the Oval Room at the White House.

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[..another edit of insignificant banter....(our family is prone to talk/write a LOT!)

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"Charlie was driving a big cadillac van with everything in it including a satellite mapping system. When crossing the Halifax Bridge going to Dartmouth, he pressed a button and on the screen came up a map of Dartmouth and they could locate Jon's address [ this was in the days before it was as common as it is today]

"We've all been invited down to visit them in their homes in Louisiana and Tennessee. They did say Katie was least interested in family connections. Lillian said when Katie's husband died, she gave the church enough money to build a church hall to carry his name! He was a building contractor. Katie has bought a new smaller home. Her former home is on the market for 2 million [again, in the days before this was as common as today!]
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....and then some more banter about the weather, a highland fling performance and so on.

I hope I keep discovering boxes that I never knew I had! This is neat stuff! (at least for me it is, I fully and totally undestand why you're not doing hand stands with me over it! LOL

PEACE.

Posted by Evydense on Friday, October 13, 2006 at 10:10 a.m. | Permalink