Family Ties

I'd hoped to write a really detailed journal entry tonight about all those photos on our mantel, but it's late and I have to get up at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, as I'm heading to Austin to visit my sister, who turned 60 earlier this month -- definitely a birthday to celebrate! (I probably won't be blipping much...)

The thumbnail shows my father at about age 20, and his mother, whom you've seen before. The trio to the left of my father are his Uncle David --his mother's brother, for whom he was named -- and David's wife Lena -- and my father at about age 15. He spent some time with his uncle and aunt in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, where his Uncle David was one of three founders of the University of Puerto Rico's College of Agriculture on that campus, and director of the Federal Experiment Station there for many years.

One of my father's cousins, 13 years older than him, had been there earlier -- the young woman on the right, Helen, next to her father, George, my paternal grandmother's oldest son. George was a bank president and his daughter, an only child, went to Wellesley College.

I put a head shot of Uncle David, cropped from the larger trio photo, next to Helen and her father, and adjacent to the only photo I have of their other brother, Benjamin, standing in a garden. He was a druggist, and owned a drug store. Neither Benjamin and his wife, nor David and his wife, had children.

So where am I going with all this? I wouldn't have known many of these interesting details about my father's side of the family nor had half of these photos six weeks ago. In early February, I received an email from a woman whose DNA results on Ancestry.com were a good match with mine. (I'll call her E. here.) We've sent many emails and jpgs back and forth since then, and I feel so blessed to have connected with someone on my father's side with whom I have a great deal in common!

E. is the granddaughter of that young woman on the right, Helen -- my father's first cousin. And Helen married into a large Welsh-American family, so there's a strong Welsh connection I hadn't known about! 

That will have to do for now -- I must finish packing! Many thanks for your generous hearts and stars for the Green Heron, who has enjoyed being on the "Popular" stream -- page 1 today! I may not blip much from Austin, but I'll enjoy your journals as time allows! 

(Given the large font that PolarBlip uses for journals, it's just as well I don't have more time to write more here... this is a lot to read.)