The Jower Family of St. Johns, Oregon - Serendipity At Its Best

Yesterday I paused to decide what to do next with my Saturday. The Genealogical Forum of Oregon would be open one more hour and if I left shortly I could go there and pick up some books I need to review. Then the phone rang and that plan was quickly cast aside. Tony King, someone I never met, had been directed to call me by a friend of mine he met in the BYU Family Search Center in Provo, Utah. That is one of my favorite places to research in and I can easily picture him walking into the Lee Library on BYU campus, a large spacious library, going downstairs, through the heavy doors, down the long hallway and through more heavy doors, into the spacious FSC. As he entered he was met by one of many missionary volunteers who assist patrons in their research. Tony meets Gerald Kammerman a good friend of mine who moved to Utah several years ago. We often connect when I go to Utah for the BYU Family History Conference in the summer.

Genealogy - My Son's Story About Grandma Helen

In the collection found within the tub of Grandma Helen was a story written by my son Daniel for his high school history class December 7, 1998 entitled, "My Great Grandmother's Life During the Depression, Helen Haynes." In preparing to write the story he conferred with me for information and then interviewed Grandma Helen. Today I am retyping the story, as it is no longer found in my computer files. Somewhere in the change over of one of our early computers some things mysteriously disappeared. Just as mysteriously they sometimes show up, as I freely shared copies at the time of the things that were written.

Genealogy Serendipity Moments - Grandma Helen's Personal Papers

I was blessed to have two wonderful grandmothers. They were two very different people who highly influenced my life in many ways. Helen Eloise Anderson Cole Haynes lived to age 95 and Zella Alice Straw Olsen lived to age 92. For this post I will focus on Grandma Helen as I have been sorting through a large plastic tub of her paper files. She passed away on 6 December 2005. My mother was her caretaker for the last years of her life, after her second husband died. I was her tax preparer, listed second on her power of attorney and second in her will as an administrator. Not long ago in writing a post for this blog I realized I did not have a copy of her death certificate. So, I asked my mother if she had an extra copy, realizing she probably ordered several at the time of her death.

Genealogy Serendipity Moment - The Cole Family Violin

In 2005 my husband and I went on an east coast history trip. We had a stop over in Kansas City, Missouri and I have some Cole family relatives who live in South Sioux City, Nebraska, about a five-hour drive away. One of these relatives is a cousin to my mother and he had some family artifacts he wanted to share. My husband agreed to make this side trip to pick up the item we had been offered. We even stopped at the halfway point in Omaha to visit another relative. For some reason the drive always seems longer than one anticipates. We finally made it to South Sioux City and checked into a motel for the night. After calling the relatives to let them know we had arrived safely, we made plans to meet early the next morning.