Here's a newspaper article about a woman, Sandel DeMastus who contacted me by e-mail (not in a chat room like the article says) looking for her father. She thought her father might have been in the Akron, OH area. I had met Bill Demastus in Memphis, who just happens to have been a vice-president at Roadway Express (home office is in Akron) which is the company I drive for. His wife, Alice and I had corresponded by mail about genealogy. I mailed her a copy of Sandel's e-mail (didn't phone her as the article said) just on the off chance there was a connection. It turns out that Bill Demastus was her father's (Jack Corbett Demastus) brother. Here is the result: WOMAN FINDS DYING FATHER AFTER A LIFE-LONG SEPARATION - Dec. 3, 1998 - RENTON REPORTER - (Renton, Washington) By Elizabeth Parker, News Editor Sandi Demastus believes it was divine intervention that brought her to the bedside of her dying father in September. Demastus had been searching for her father, Jack Demastus, for more than 30 years. Demastus didn't remember her father, because her parents divorced just after World War II, when she was still very young. When she became an adult, Demastus began searching for her father, but hit many frustrating roadblocks. All she had was her father's name, and the general area of the country he came from - Ohio and West Virginia. She had no Social Security number or any other commonly used form of identification. The only thing she had was a photo of her father and mother, both dressed in their U.S. Marine Corps uniforms on the day of their marriage. I've always felt like half my life was missing," she said. In late August, she plugged her last name into an internet chat room for lost relatives and found a person with the same last name. The two began talking, and she found a branch of her family that lives on the East Coast in North Carolina. The man told her he had been in contact with those relatives because he was creating a family tree. He called Demastus' aunt, who called her and told her that her father was very ill, and that there wasn't much time left. He was in a hospital in Clarksburg, West Virginia, dying of brain cancer. Demastus grabbed the first flight she could, but because of an airlines strike, the closest she could get to Clarksburg was Pittsburgh, Penn. She had to rent a car and drive eight hours to Clarksburg. She arrived on a Thursday, and immediately went to see her father. He was deteriorating quickly, but Demastus was able to talk to him, and she told him she loved him. She knew he understood, because he put his hand over his heart. The next day, his condition worsened, and his lungs filled with fluid, so he was unable to communicate at all. He died early the next morning. "No one could believe it. Everyone thought it was a miracle and that he held on until I got there," she said. The search and reunion all took place in a week's time, and it was none too soon. And, while Demastus lost the father she had just found, she got a big surprise at her dad's memorial service - a half-brother she didn't know she had. The two were introduced at the service, and have been getting closer and closer with each passing day. Ironically, her brother was also a Marine. "I lost Dad, but we gained each other," Demastus said of finding her brother. "We had an instant bond. All he could do was to keep hugging me," she said. Demastus also learned that she has two other siblings as well, a pair of fraternal twins that she and her brother are trying to track down. She also has dozens of aunts, uncles and cousins that are all sending her letters and pictures. For those still searching for lost relatives, Demastus has one piece of advice: "I tell people, don't give up hope."