Friday, October 28, 2005

Talk about Coincidence!

Yesterday I was feeling a little bit nostalgic.

After writing the post about the baby blue bobcat and remembering Jennie and Sariah I had started wondering about how they were doing. Even though we lived in the same town, Kennewick, and were in the same ward, we went to different high schools. They graduated in 1995 and I graduated in 1997.

I set out into the big wide world web in search for them. First they both had odd spellings for their last names, so I had to find something about them or their family that I recognized as being them so I could at least start my search with the right spellings.

I stumbled across a Kennewick high school alumni website. (I went to River View high school, too small to create our own alumni site, nor anyone care enough to do it). As I was looking at the roster's of the different years I had friends graduate I decided to check out the guestbook. On there someone had posted a message asking about the Class of 1977. I thought, thats the year my dad graduated. He went to Kennewick High School. So I copied down the email address of the person that posted the message.

After I rested the search for my friends, I wrote to this person. I said "I noticed you had posted a message on the kennewick high website guestbook. You were asking about others that graduated in 1977. My dad graduated that year. Do you remember ______? Anyway, just thought I would let you know."

Well this woman wrote me back today. Not only did she know my dad, my dad was her foster brother. I had always heard about the two foster children (native americans) that my grandparents had taken in for awhile but I had never met them, seen pictures of them or even known their names. She was an Alaskan native and the L.D.S. church had a placement program for Indian children. She had lived with my dad's family for awhile. She even walked with my dad at graduation. She asked me to say Hi to my dad and pass along her email address to him.

I wrote her back. I asked her if she knew my other aunts and uncle. I told her my uncle lives in New Mexico and I live about 3 hrs away from him. She wrote back saying she did know my aunts and uncle. One of my aunts had married a man named Carl, her sister had married Carl's brother but have since divorced. She said the younger brother was a good friend with my dad and they all used to cruise around in this friends dune buggy. She shared with me a memory of a dress my grandma had made for her and that my other aunt had an identical dress. She said she remembered my aunt and uncle being younger than her but being quite the teases. (They still are!) She then thanked me for answering her post on the guestbook and how great it was to have all those memories flooding back.

She told me a little bit about her life in Alaska. The small community she lives in. Its a native american village on the waterfront. She has two daughters (both quite younger than me) and that she and her 3rd husband of 11 years have just built a house.

Who would have ever thought that a simple reply to someones plea for information about her graduating class would have blossomed into finding the equivalent of a long lost aunt. I forwarded the messages from her on to my dad. I'll have to call him later and find out if he got them.
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 10/28/2005 02:56:00 PM :: 4 Comments:

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