Illuminating the Future with the Light of the Past

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The need to discover my family roots rushed upon me suddenly last month. My only sibling, Carol Lynne, passed suddenly in Tulsa. She and I as children spent many a week end exploring what we now call the "Historic Triangle," Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown. It is as if the beginnings of our exceptional republic is in my DNA. I am, to my dismay, the last one left living in my immediate contemporary family. Both sets of grandparents are gone, Dad and Mom are gone and now, so is Carol. My father was an only child and my sister never had children. I have one uncle & aunt on my Mom's side still living,along with 3 cousins and one remaining aunt by marriage with one more cousin. One other cousin died of leukemia at 3 years old and one other cousin perished in a car wreck during the early 1980's. The vacuum of aloneness is driving me to discover my family and relay that history to our children, a history they, like me, have never heard. Come along with us so the light of the past can help shine and blaze a path to the future!

In my search for real heros, real places and real events surrounding our War for Independence, I never thought that these discoveries would be in my own family...but find them I did! It is all so very surreal. My parents grew up in Tulsa, OK and moved to Hampton, Virginia in 1949 as my father had found employment with what was then called The Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. Both sets of our grandparents lived in Tulsa. That was the extent of what I knew about our family until this month. After living in Oklahaoma City twice, Memphis, TN and Durham, NC, I brought my family to Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina in 1991 where we have remained since. I want to share with you what I have discovered about my family this month for the history that has been uncovered is beyond belief!