And now I’m 6!

Photo by Jessie Pearl

Wow, where has the time gone?  I’ve been blogging for 6 years!  How is that even possible?  I’ve come across some amazing discoveries during these last six years – ‘finding’ cousins, discovering my 3x great grandfather in an unmarked grave, documenting my grandmother’s scrapbook from 100 years ago, and learning so many details about my ancestors’ (and my own) lives.  It has been such a rewarding journey.

Over those six years, here are my top 5 blog posts.

• On June 16, 2013, I wrote about a Bittersweet Day, another Father’s Day without my dad.  I’ve probably looked at the post so many times over the years that it pushed it to the top of my posts but if I had to pick one to push to the top, this would be the one.
• On March 8, 2013, I followed a Fearless Females blog prompt and wrote Is there a Diary?  Interestingly, I did later find a ‘real’ diary and wrote about that HERE.  
• On February 16, 2016, I asked for some translation help for words on the back of a photo in What does this say?  I received lots of good suggestions – the power of blogging!
• On August 17, 2013, as part of documenting my grandmother’s scrapbook, I wrote Grandma was a Party Animal.  While she really wasn’t a party animal, she did like to dance!
• On April 27, 2014, I asked readers to Raise your Hand if you’d seen your mother, grandmother, or great grandmother pregnant.  I think I can say I’ve seen my great grandmother (at least a photo) pregnant!

Within the last few weeks, I’ve had another blogging success story which seems appropriate to share here.  I know we’ve all seen on the news a story of someone finding another person in order to share a family heirloom, photo, letters or the like and we are always a bit envious and wonder why that never happens to us.  Well, it DID happen to me!

A few weeks ago I received messages in several different locations (Facebook, WikiTree, and even my main office phone) saying:

I recently purchased a WW2 hat, case and pins from a Goodwill near me with the name Robert S. Levy lieutenant in it. My family and I think that this is a special and personal treasure that a family member should have. If I've done my research correctly, this would make you his niece. Is that correct? I would love to get this special treasure to the right person. Not sure if your uncle has any children or grandchildren that may want it? In any case if you would contact me I'd greatly appreciated it!

That’s right – Robert S. Levy was my uncle and my dad’s only sibling.  And this woman had his WW2 hat and wanted to return it to the family!

So contact her I did!  And it turns out that she did, in fact, have my uncle’s hat!  I asked her to send me a photo…..



And the inside….



And then I compared it to a photo I had of Rob in his hat…….



SAME HAT! 

Next step was to contact my cousin, Rob’s daughter, to ask her if she wanted the hat.  Turns out she had been sorting things into boxes – one to donate and one to keep – and the hat ended up in the wrong box!  And off it went to Goodwill by mistake.  My new ‘friend’ was a hero – she had saved the hat!  I connected the two of them and the hat is now back with my cousin who, coincidentally, lives fairly close to my new friend.

I’ve since asked our hero how it was she came upon the hat, to which she responded:

I found the hat in the box at a Goodwill in Buckhead.   I like going there to find special treasures and I've found quite a few in the past.  I love finding artwork or vintage decor and doing research on it, so when I opened the hat box and pulled out the hat I knew it was old and that my kids would love to see a real army hat.  But after I looked at it closer I saw the card with Robert S Levy's name on it.  I knew that once I got home I would research.  I first found the article from the Fresno Bee in 1944 that had Robert’s name and Sigmund Levy’s name.  So I googled Sigmund Levy and found the wiki tree .  Your name was connected to that.  We were hoping to find a wife, children or grandchildren.  The pins were in the box too and we just felt that someone in his family should have this special treasure.  I have 4 kids and they all showed the hat to their friends.  They tried it on and saluted each other :)).  All of the kids kept saying wow, this is so cool!  So we were on a mission to get in touch with you!  We found you on LinkedIn and Facebook and then found your blogs about your family and read about them with Robert’s name hidden amongst some of your blogs.  We were like wow, that's him!!!  So yes, when you sent the pictures with the hat on him that was a full circle moment.  I felt like I knew your family history after all that!  I hope your uncle’s hat and pins stay safe and his grandchildren find a spot for this special piece of history.

And that’s where blogging has provided me with another success story and proves that just when you think it can’t happen to you, it does!  Thank you again to my new friend – I can’t thank you enough! So that’s what I’ve been up to for the last six years.  Just when I think I’m losing interest and have said just about everything there is to say (even though I have about 20 more scrapbooks left to go through), I get re-energized.

And while I don’t have a photo specifically of my 6th real-life birthday, this is a very special photo from when I was about that age.  My husband found it while he was scanning the thousands of slides my dad had and pulled it out of the archives.  Just maybe I was thinking about what would turn up in my family history so many years later!



And now on to 7!