Dear List Members, I do hope that this is not too inappropriate for this list and that if any of you deem it so, please just write and tell me. My great grandmother, Mary Catherine Joyner (Aka Mittie Joyner) of Halifax, North Carolina was born in 1850 and died in December, of 1943 at age ninety- three. It sufficeth to say that I knew her and of course I still remember her, In fact her portrait hangs in my bedroom today. After her death my mother asked my grandmother (her mother) where Mittie's Cameo Ring was. Well it appeared that no one knew what had become ot it. And while my mother often told the story of this ring which was given her gandmother in approximately 1865 no one had any idea of its whereabouts. In September of this year I was asked by my very dear cousin (who is more like a sister) to come back to CAlifornia to assist with the care of her sister who was coming home from a Psychiatric hospital admission because of Major Depression. this has been her constant companion. Well, I agreed to come and made my reservations. First it is important to tell you that Professionally I am a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner and a member of the National Mental Health Counselors Asso and not only worked in the field for more than twenty years but I too have had my bouts with severe depression. I have learned to control them over the years. So naturallly I was ideal. I had been ther both personally and professionally. Well, after I made my reservations I started to resent the cousin I was to take care of because most of her adult life she has denied her African American Roots and lived as white. To the point that her brother, one of the original Tuskeegee Airmen could not visit her home. (his skin was darker than her's) and her sister had to tell people that she was her friend. We.. I had not been around this person for any length of time because my compexion like her borther and sister though fair was off the charts as it were. I decided that she had ignored her family and now the heck with her. I picked up the telephone to call the airline and cancel my flight but was put on hold. My daughter came in my room and asked who I was speaking to. When I told I was calling to cancel my flight that I was not going to California. No sooner had the words come out of my moth then my great grandmother's portrait came crashing to the floor but the hook which held it was still in the wall. Needless to say I hung up the phone and my daughter said, "I don't think Ma Mittie wants you to cancel that flight." I went to California determined that if she said one word out of place I would leave. Those two weeks were amazing. We learned about each other and I found something beautiful in this woman who had denied herself the miracle of having children for fear of their color. On my last evening there she brought out her jewelry box and from it she took a rose gold cameo ring with the initials MJC and a 22 Karat rose gold thimble with the same initials inscribed on them. The shocked look on my face when I said to her These are Mittie's? She told me that our great grandmother had taken the ring off of her finger and put it on hers in 1939 and gave her the thimble it was just about six months before her 18th birthday. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "These are for you. "YOu are the one who deserves these" and she placed the ring on my finger and the thimble in my hand. You have guarded this family's history and Mittie wants you to have them. I must have cried half the evening. When I think of what I could have lost had I not listened to my heart and the voices from the past. I have found a lost sheep a family member who now realizes what she lost by alienating her family. Our family has come yet another step in the quest to be whole and to be one amongst ourselves, God and the universe. So when your brick wall appears and you think you will never surrmount it. Remember me, and the ring which had not been seen for more than 62 years. Listen well, for they are telling you where you need to go to get the information. They want to know you and they want you to know of them and their times. P.S. I return to California on January 5th. This time for 6 weeks. Peace and Love Florence