Tonight I met a relative, my uncle who died before I was born. I met him via the computer, on my grandson's genealogy website.
My dad was the youngest of seven children, orphaned at age seven, bounced from relative to relative. His sisters were all much older than he was, but I remember them well. They spoiled me, possibly because, of the four boys in the family, only two lived long lives.
There were three little boys at the tag-end of the family, and one died shortly after serving in the U.S. Navy during W.W. I. One was adopted by a family in Ohio. The third was older, and he graduated from the Augustana College School of Business in 1902 - a fact I did not know until this evening.
What absolute fun genealogy can be!
And then there was my dad, seven years old, at his mother's funeral where he overheard the relatives asking each other, "Who will have to take Freddie?"
No wonder he cherished my mother, and me. He was 27 when I was born, and I never in my life felt unloved, unwanted. He gave me what he never had as a child. I am so thankful.
