DOPPELGANGER by Sandra Ellis, [email protected]

In the mid-1980s, I worked at Cayce Mill Supply in Hopkinsville. We often had training classes "after hours" to hear about new product lines. During one of these classes, I found it very difficult to concentrate on a new line of appliances because the man giving the talk looked too much like my step-mom's dad. "Pa" had died about 10 years earlier but I knew I was looking at his "twin." He had the same white hair; the head, the stature, the facial features -- even his voice was the same!

At the end of his talk, the man asked if we had any questions. By that time, I'd taken a photo of "Pa" out of my purse and had shown it to one of my co-workers along with a note, "Who's that man? This is a photo of my Grandpa!" My photo and note had made its round among my co-workers and all of them were about as curious as I was. I couldn't help myself -- we all wanted to know who this man was, so I was the only person with a question.

I told the man that I didn't know who he was but I knew he was related to my step-mom through the HUNTER family. He smiled and I saw that familiar twinkle in his eyes. He said that he was, in fact, a HUNTER but that was all he would be able to tell me since his dad had died when he was a child. As I passed the photo to the front of the room for him to see, I told him who his dad was, that he had died in an automobile wreck in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and that he was a brother to my grandpa whose photo I was passing to him. When he looked at the photo, he was as astounded as we had been -- even his suit and tie resembled what "Pa" was wearing in the photo.

I would often spend my lunch hour at the local library. I happened to have my notes on this man's family in my car that night. The general manager of the company actually took the notes into his office and copied them for the man. That meeting was to be one of the last the man gave before his retirement, but we corresponded for several months.

The man's family had moved from Overton County, Tennessee to Rutherford County, Tennessee, where the father died in an auto wreck when the man was a young child. He grew up in Rutherford County but worked for a company in Nashville. I grew up in Montgomery County, Tennessee, but was working for a company in Christian County, Kentucky. I have no doubt that night was "meant to be" and I was supposed to have those notes in my car. Within a year of that night, the man (and the general manager) had died. I like to think that when this man was "reunited" with his dad, he knew so much more about his family because someone was interested in genealogy and was willing to share his family history with him.

Sometimes I run into people who just can't understand why a person would want to "dig up bones." They say that we are just being "nosey" and that we should let people "rest in peace." That is when I tell this story.