How Does A Oney-Oney Have A Big Sister?

Some of you may have read the comments from Family Dinner and seen the one from Loretta. And you see that she says she is my big sister and I have said I was an only child for five years. Well, it's like this. My father was married to Lori's mother before he was married to mine, and they had Chuck and Lori. When their mother remarried, even though our father was still alive then and indeed hadn't met my mother yet, her new husband adopted them so that he could provide for them equally as he provided for his kids. And, although it broke our father's heart to allow it, that was during the Depression and he was working for his mother, for which he was housed and fed but not paid, and he wanted his children provided for. So, when I came along, it fed a hunger that he had from losing his first two children, although no one could ever fill the place in his heart that belonged to them.

I don't remember Chuck and Lori from childhood, and certainly after our father died we had no contact. But, after I decided to move to Fairbanks in 1969, my mother told me that they were living there. That was very exciting to me, since my mother had told me how when I was born they had declared that when I started school they wouldn't let anyone call me a "Kindergarten Baby" and I had wanted to know them. And for a few years, we knew each other. And then Lori moved to Kotzebue and I moved back to California and we both changed our last names (she married, I returned to my maiden name) and we lost each other. And yes, I knew Chuck's last name, but Chuck and I had not been getting along so well when I had last seen him. And then when Julie was doing the genealogy for me four years ago (see her post on her blog about this at link), she was on a web site and there was a message "For the California family of Roland Charles Hunt, born 1914." And that was my father. So Julie answered and it was from one of Lori's granddaughters who was also doing an ancestor search. And Julie immediately got Lori and me e-mail addresses. She was afraid that it might let the cat out of the bag about my birthday present, but she couldn't stand the thought that if something happened to one of us before my birthday, Lori and I might never get together again. And she may have been motivated partly by the fact that Chuck had already died.

And two years ago, Lori and I were both in California at the same time, and she came to my mother's and she and Forrest got to meet. He was only nine months old when our father died, and he had always wanted to know his older siblings.

And let me tell you, women have a harder time keeping in touch because of this last name thing. The reason Kate and I hadn't been able to find each other was also changing last names. There are some dear female friends I have left behind, because I moved around so much as a kid and a young woman, and I don't know their current last names, and I may never find them.

Another thing about this is that you may notice how many people from my past are back in my present because of Julie.