Great Genealogy Stories...

Great Genealogy Stories

Previously published by Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, Missing Links


MY LITTLE TREASURE by David Kemlo [email protected]

There is that one moment in every genealogist's life when s/he makes that unique discovery. The one that sends "chills down your spine." It makes your blood run cold or gives you an eerie feeling like someone is watching, helping you make the discovery. Those who have experienced it know what I am talking about. For those who haven't -- just wait -- it will happen.

My dad died in 1957, long before I was interested in genealogy, and my mother died a few years later. When I did become interested in tracking my family, I could find very few family stories to complement the standard marriage and birth certificates. I knew nothing of their courting days, their wedding day, or my mother's relationship with her about-to-be- in-laws.

Over the last 45 years or so I have kept in close touch with Chris, an old school chum. When Chris's father died, there was a large trunk containing many items from his father's past. There were 12 brothers and sisters, so the trunk was passed from family member to family member with the last one being a daughter and when she died it ended up in the home of an adopted daughter. Chris was sure it had passed out of the immediate family only to be eventually lost. Much to his surprise, the adopted daughter and her husband dropped by on their way to visit friends in Ottawa. She had the trunk. It was taking up too much room in her house. Besides, she felt it belonged to a family member. Chris found that it contained a treasure of information on his father's life in the British and Canadian navy, his life as an ordained minister and his retirement -- diaries, shipping orders, etc. Tucked away in the corner was something with my mother's maiden name on it. How strange. Chris called and I immediately rushed over to his house.

He presented me with "The Aqua-Tone View Letter Card," a set of postcards that folded into a package which clipped at the back and on the front you could enter a name and address. With the proper postage it could be sent almost anywhere in the world. This one had been sent from my father's home town of Montrose, Scotland to a little sleepy town in Ontario and addressed to my mother in her maiden name. The postmark was 30 June 1934 and stamped by the receiving post office as having arrived on 13 July 1934. My mother had married my father on 7 July 1934. This set of postcards had been mailed when she was single and arrived six days after the wedding. A short note was scribbled in handwriting that was hard to decipher. "Dear Lillian, Jim will tell you about these photos. I thought you would like to see some of our places, love Mother L.K." These two lines told me that dad had written (or sent a telegram) to his mother (trans-Atlantic telephones calls were not possible at that time) and told her of his intention to marry and that Grandmother KEMLO had made some small gesture to welcome my mother into the family. It was a small piece of worthless paper but worth a million dollars to me, and raised a million questions. How had it gotten into the trunk? Why did Chris's father keep it? Why hadn't one of the previous family members thrown it away as they knew it was not part of their family history? Where had it traveled over the last 66 years? The chain of events that resulted in this package of postcards being placed in my hands was overwhelming. I cried like a baby. Tears of joy streamed down my face as I wondered if someone above was looking over me. To this day I can picture a couple of newlyweds sitting at the kitchen table and dad talking about each photo in the set of five postcards, telling my mother about childhood memories "back home."

We can only speculate, but it would appear the answer to one of the question as to how they came to be in Chris's father's hands was that at one time my older sister was his father's secretary. In the 1950s, a relation in Montrose, Scotland died and left land holdings to Chris's father which resulted in his having to visit that village to deal with the estate. My father or mother either met with or through my sister, provided information, books etc. about Montrose that would make his journey to the "Old Country" more interesting. The set of postcards most likely was part of that package. Why had he treasured them so much and had the postcards made a second journey across the big pond, or did he leave them at home? More questions without answer. Like so many other things related to genealogy, when you find a solution to your problem it often opens the door to even more questions.


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