Dear Group, I just had to share with you what I wrote this evening. It goes like this. vee In this morning's "Niagara Gazette" I saw Uncle Harold's obituary in it. It read, "Harold C. Hausman, 97, of Hess Road, died Saturday (August 5, 2000) in Inter-Community Memorial Hospital, Newfane, [Niagara Co., NY] after a brief illness. Oh my goodness, Uncle Harold had died! However, I have to admit to you that he wasn't really my uncle, I'm not even related to him and, frankly, I had met him only once. However, I'll never forget the time when Uncle Harold and Aunt Edna kind of adopted my sister and me into their family. It was back around 1987 a few years after my sister and I had returned from our trip to Germany loaded with an armload of our own personal HAUSSMANN family history. My sister Norma and I had visited the southwestern part of Germany in the vicinity of Stuttgart and that's where we found the records that showed where our personal family was from and found that they had been living there since the 1400s. After our return, I continued to put the pieces of our family together and then I became quite curious about the local Hausman family who were living around here in Niagara County where Norma and I were living. Because we came back with a copy of the family coat of arms of our family, I thought the local Hausman family might be interested in seeing it. As a result, I got on the phone, talked with "Uncle Harold" and "Aunt Edna" and I learned the history of their family. Their Hausman family came to Niagara County from Germany and, from what I can recall, they came as one whole family; mother, father, two sons and four daughters. The year that they immigrated is unclear but I know that the two sons, John and William married the Dobbertean sisters, and from Uncle Harold's obituary, his father was William who married Ida Dobbertean. And from my scribbled notes that I still have, William's father was August. It was a wonderful conversation that we had, but trying as hard as we could, we couldn't come anywhere near to finding a family connection. You see, their family came from Mecklenburg, Germany, in the far north of the country, whereas our family came from far away southwest. Nonetheless, by that time we had the feeling that we had the same roots. And so it was that when they had their next Hausman family reunion they invited Norma and me to it and by unanimous vote of the entire assembled family, they adopted us into their family. After all, at that time, my sister and I were the only family we had up here in New York. We felt that we were like orphans separated from our Pennsylvania family, and you know how families take in "kin" when they become orphans. They just adopt them. And that's what Uncle Harold and Aunt Edna did. They adopted us! Uncle Harold died yesterday but his obituary tells us that he was a lifetime member of the Newfane Historical Society and it goes on to say that the society erected and donated the Hausman House which he helped to build in 1989, complete with personal items and memorabilia. He was the oldest member of Immanuel Lutheran Church, where he built the altar rail. Uncle Harold, Norma and I eventually lost touch with you and Aunt Edna, but under the circumstances, I guess it just might be time for me to visit the Hausman House in Newfane. It's a bit of a distance from Youngstown to Newfane, but then Stuttgart is more than just a bit of a distance to Mecklenburg. But, hey, when you're family, distance doesn't mean all that much, does it? Frankly, I'm curious to know what sort of personal items and memorabilia there is in the Hausman house. When you share the same family name, you just can't dismiss being a member of the same mutual family.