We Are All Connected: Part 2
From Dave Liesse—This one doesn't involve finding a relative, but it does illustrate the "small world" idea quite well!
I started working for a new (to me) company in Chicago in the spring of 1994. My manager was about my age, and his name was Jerry.
After the July 4th weekend we were talking about how we'd spent our time. He told me that he visited his father, just across the state line in Indiana. The conversation went something like this:
D: "Oh, really? Where in Indiana?"
J: "Oh, a small town you've probably never heard of."
D: "Try me!"
J: "Whiting."
D: "Oh, yeah? Where in Whiting?"
J: "Well, not really in Whiting. He's in Hammond, but everybody says Whiting."
D: "Okay, he's in Robertsdale. Go on."
(Note: Robertsdale is a part of Hammond, but physically separated from the rest of the city by a couple of oil refineries. It's served by the Whiting post office, so everybody there says they're from Whiting. The political history of the area is fascinating, but a story for another time.)
Well, it turned out that our families knew each other quite well! He grew up in the 1600 block of Stanton Avenue, and my mother grew up in the 1700 block of Davis Avenue. The two streets are parallel, one block apart, and on 117th St between them there was a branch library. My grandmother was the librarian and his grandfather was the custodian! On top of that, his twin aunts were in my mother's class at Clark High School.
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| Part of Whiting, Indiana ©OpenStreeMap |
But wait, there's more! Jerry's father was a school teacher in the Hammond School District, as was my father's sister. She knew him through the Retired Teachers Association.
No relatives were discovered in the unfolding of this story, but you never know how you're going to be connected to someone! If nothing else, there are some great additions to the "FAN Club"!
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From MaryLynn Strickland:
December, 1962 in a lumber company in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Don and Earl were having a conversation about holiday plans. The men were casual acquaintances even though they had probably worked at the factory for 15 or 20 years.
One of the men mentioned that they had Wyoming relatives coming to visit. The other man said that they also had Wyoming relatives coming.
Don said, "My wife's brother and his family are coming." Earl replied, "My wife's sister and her family are coming."
You guessed it; the brother and sister were married to each other and had been for nearly thirty years! These were my parents and we were the family coming to visit.
While the men's wives knew about each other, the men had never made the connection. The 1962 visit was not our first; we had also come from Wyoming in December 1958 and December 1954!
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