Congratulations. Remember Calvin Coolidge's speech on Persistence? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bower, Barbara" <bowerb@eustis.army.mil> To: <BOWER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 11:26 PM Subject: RE: [BOWER] Never give up! > Wonderful story, Gina, and I'm so glad that you had success. You said it > all - be imaginative and persistant! It does pay off! > > Barbara Bower > Yorktown > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ginamarina [mailto:ginamarina@usa.net] > Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 11:11 AM > To: BOWER-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [BOWER] Never give up! > > > I have been here on this Bower list for years, I believe since early 1999, > and unfortunately have found not one thing on my mysterious Martin Bower > from Pennsylvania. I still have a theory that he is a son from a family who > became orphaned, but so far I have no clues....... > > However, I had been on some German websites and usenet groups posting about > my mom's family... with no real luck, only finding out that maybe the > mysterious "Vera, Germany" in my great aunt's handwriting MAY have been > "Gera". But I have no way to verify it because I have no idea where Great > Aunt Esther got her information..... and as I was mowing the grass on > tuesday I was thinking about my Grandpa Thieme, who passed away on > 31-Dec-1998. Missing him and thinking about the reunions there use to be.... > and then thinking about genealogy...... coming in and looking at my group > sheets.... wondering why on earth I have no information about his aunts and > uncles..... > > I spent most of Tuesday evening on AIM with my Mom, picking her memory, and > scouring the SSDI for relatives only to find out that most of grandpa's > cousins lived right here in Wisconsin, and the others lived in Kansas. Mom > remembered some great aunts and uncles, and some people she had met, and > some stories about Grandpa packing up in his 20's with his cousin John from > KS during the depression and travelling the midwest picking crops for > people.... I got her into the social security index, and I went for the > Kansas Genweb site.... and stumbled across a high school alumni page from > the county where Grandpa's uncle had passed away. Sure enough, I found two > Thiemes.... I went out on a limb and sent off two emails that night. The > next day I was ecstatic. I had emailed two sisters, both daughters of > Grandpa's cousin John, so they are my mom's second cousins. One had spoken > to their dad - who is ALIVE and 87 - and he remembered my grandpa vividly > and began to talk about the family..... This has opened an entirely new > door. First for my Mom, who misses her father terribly, and now gets to hear > more about their adventures as young men, and possibly even go to Kansas and > meet these relatives; and second, I now have more people interested in my > search and an entirely new branch of the family has been opened up to scour > for the "old bible" or that box of photos in someone's closet. > > What's sad is that I never thought of this 5 or 10 years ago... or while my > Grandpa was alive ... why did the notion come to me this week? no idea. But > I guess I wanted to share my small victory, and say keep thinking > creatively, you never know what you may have overlooked the first time > through. I tend to forget how living relatives may have the keys to > answering the questions about my distant ancestors, and shame on me!! > > Good luck to all, > > Gina Bower > > > > > ==== BOWER Mailing List ==== > Please do not send messages with attachments, HTML, MIME, or any other > enhanced text to the list. RootsWeb does not allow messages with those > settings through their servers and will only return them to you. > > > ==== BOWER Mailing List ==== > Bower Cottage, sister site to the Bower Family Homestead, homesites of > the Bower research group -- http://bowercommunity.com/cottage > >