The Good, The Bad and The Wonderful of Omaha, Nebraska

It's Blog Ketchup Time! ;-D

Let's start with The Bad and get it over with, shall we?

Last Friday afternoon (June 27th), Art and I were sitting in the microfilm room on the third floor of the public library in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. We were scanning old newspapers looking for an obituary for my grandfather. Suddenly, we heard sirens blaring. Tornado sirens.

In the microfilm room with us was a woman from the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society who I had been corresponding with regarding my grandfather. She thought it would be a good idea to head to the library's basement. That sounded good to us, too! But as we were leaving the microfilm room, a member of the library staff came and told us that everyone needed to leave the building. I imagine we still could have gone down to the basement, but we were caught up in the crowd of people leaving the library. Once outside, no one seemed particularly concerned. There was a Summer Arts Festival taking place right on the street outside the library and folks were still milling around the various tents and booths. Since nobody was running for shelter and since the skies didn't look all that threatening, we decided that we would just hop in the Jeep and go out to dinner.

Bad decision! As soon as we got on I-80, the biggest, darkest and ugliest cloud we've ever seen blew in and let loose. First with ferocious winds, and then with torrential rain, and finally with hail. Lots and lots of hail. This was the first hailstorm we've encountered while inside the Jeep and it was cover-your-ears loud! The traffic on I-80 (and there was lots of it as it was Friday night rush hour) came to a complete standstill.

The Cloud
(Courtesy of the Omaha World Herald)

But in just several minutes (it seemed much, much longer), everything lightened up and traffic started moving once again. We decided against dinner out (we just weren't very hungry anymore) and drove back to the campground as we were anxious to check on the motorhome. On the way back, the sun came out, as did a beautiful rainbow. It seemed all was once again right with the world.

But just across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa, it wasn't. The very same storm, mere minutes after it hit us, killed two teenagers when a tree fell on their car. Yet another reminder to cherish each moment of the day and the people in it because you never know. You just never know.

Now for The Good.

But first, for readers of this blog who have not yet heard about the somewhat mysterious branch of my family tree, I offer a brief summary. When my father (who died in 2001) was 55 years old, he found out that the people he believed to be his parents were, in fact, his aunt and uncle. My father's real father had died several months before he was born, and his real mother had died eleven months after. He was then taken in and raised as an only child by an aunt and uncle who never legally adopted told him, never told him about his true parentage and never told him he had two older brothers.

I was fifteen years old at the time of this bombshell. I have a vague memory of it, but all that I saw and heard was filtered through the mind of a teenage girl. In other words, I didn't feel that it had anything to do with me, so I was simply not that interested. Not surprisingly, as I grew older, so did my interest in this curious family skeleton. But unfortunately, it didn't reach the point where I felt the need to investigate it until after some of the principal players had died, along with their first-hand knowledge of what really happened.

I am now 55 years old, the same age as my father when he was told about his real parents. I try to imagine how I would feel were someone to give me similar news and my heart breaks for my father. Yes, his aunt and uncle appeared to have loved him as if he actually were their child, but why the deception? Why not tell him about his real parents? And why not tell him about his older brothers?

So along with the bewilderment, there is also enormous curiosity...who were these people, my father's true parents and my grandparents? And why did the family they left behind when they died (two sons, brothers, sisters, parents, nieces, nephews, all of whom were aware of and complicit in this deception) do what they did? So for my sake, for the sake of my two sisters and brother, and for the sake of the memory of our dear ol' Dad, I am now determined to find out all I can.

The search actually began in earnest last summer, with all the research being done on-line. Art was also researching his family tree at the same time and we both reached a point in our family quests where field research was needed. So when we decided to drive to the Maritime Provinces this summer, it was an easy decision to route our path through the Midwest to areas we knew many of our respective ancestors had lived and died.

I should mention at this point that a potential family skeleton popped up during my on-line research when the 1910 Federal census indicated that my grandfather was divorced and living in Nebraska, while my grandmother was widowed or divorced (it's difficult to interpret the smudge on the original census) and living in Kansas. My father was born in 1912. So what was I to make of this? I hoped that our trip to the Midwest would provide me with some answers.

The resources available to genealogists these days are simply amazing (Art blogged earlier about the incredible LDS Family History Center), and within the first three weeks of our trip, I had found my grandparents' marriage license, the announcement of my grandmother's death (unfortunately, no obituary), her unmarked grave (this with the help of the Olathe (Kansas) Memorial Cemetery), and finally, her death certificate.

Next, it was my grandfather's turn. I had found the location of what I believed to be his grave on findagrave.com, so I was reasonably certain that he was buried in a cemetery in Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Missouri River from Omaha. And before we had been so rudely interrupted by the tornado sirens on Friday, we had discovered (with the help of Karen from the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society) exactly where in the cemetery his grave was located. So Saturday morning, on a remarkably cool day for late June in the Midwest, we headed over the river to the cemetery. We felt like treasure hunters getting ever closer to the proverbial X on the map.

We had little trouble finding my grandfather's grave and the feeling was, indeed, immensely satisfying and quite emotional. But wait! Who were all these people buried around him? Including my grandfather, there were seven graves, all in a row, in chronological order of death. All single burials (no couples, no families), all markers identical in size and design, and all similarly inscribed with only initials and last names. This was no coincidence. There had to be a connection.

Which all goes to perfectly illustrate Genealogical Research Law #1: When you answer one question, at least two more questions appear.

The Seven Graves

My Grandfather's Grave

I was certain the answer to this new mystery could be found in his obituary, but after months of searching, I had not been able to find an obituary for him anywhere. And here is where I learned Genealogical Research Law #2: Never assume anything!

I had been assuming that since my grandfather was listed in the Omaha city directory of 1911 (as a physician), that he also lived in Omaha, had died in Omaha, and that being a physician in Omaha, he would surely have had an obituary in the main Omaha newspaper. Ha! Wrong on two out of three! My amateur genealogist status is showing here, because I really should have taken as a clue the fact that he was buried in Council Bluffs. But I was stuck on the Omaha angle and I wouldn't consider anything else.

To make a long day and a longer story shorter, I finally found my grandfather's obituary, thanks to Barb at the Pottawatamie County Genealogical Society. It was in the Council Bluffs newspaper, which I had never, ever considered. Lesson learned!

As Art and I were scanning the Council Bluffs newspaper on microfilm, the anticipation was almost unbearable. The answers were finally about to be revealed.

Upon reading the obituary, we learned that my grandfather did, indeed, die in Omaha. But he lived in Council Bluffs and belonged to a fraternal organization (the Knights of Pythias) there. This organization buried my grandfather and the men in the six graves around his. There was no mention of my grandmother in the obituary (which might not be surprising because they do not appear to have been living together at the time of his death). But there was also no mention of their two sons, or my great grandmother, or my grandfather's brother and sister, all of whom were still alive at this point in time.

Remember Genealogical Research Law #1? When you answer one question, at least two more questions appear.

Why no mention of his survivors, of whom there were a fair number? Why did the Knights of Pythias bury him, rather than his family? Why was he all alone at the end of his life? And - most importantly to me right now - was this man really my grandfather? Until I find evidence to the contrary, I choose to believe that he is. Because if he isn't, finding my "new" real grandfather seems an almost impossible quest.

So The Good is now also The Bittersweet. I found what I was looking for, but what I found was a man who seemingly was estranged from his family. So now I wonder - is this all just a very sad story? Or is there more to this chapter of my family history?

The questions are piling up. And so the search will continue for the answers and for more pieces of the puzzle that is my paternal grandparents.

And finally, The Wonderful.

Wonderful is being able to instantly reconnect with a very dear friend and seamlessly pick up where we left off nine years ago (the last time we saw each other).

Mary Lou and I spent a very special day this past Monday reminiscing about when we met in the 3rd grade in Omaha and became best friends. We drove by the houses we had lived in and the schools we had attended. We poured over photo albums and talked about old friends. We visited her wonderful mother who was my second mom for those seven years my parents and I lived in Omaha.

At The Ol' Swimming Pool
(All we found was part of the old pool deck)

We talked about the lives we have now and our beloved families. We talked about our personal passions...Mary Lou's spinning and knitting and quilting and my writing. We reconnected and rediscovered what brought us together in the first place.

Art, Anne, Paul, Adam and Bucky - many thanks for indulging a couple of not-nearly-ready-for-middle-age women who could have talked for days!

And Mary Lou - many thanks for a special day and a very special friendship.

--- Barbara
Day 20
Total miles: 2,461