Finding Harry's Son

I have been working on an ancestry tree of my family for several years now.  I am one of seven children my parents produced over the 46 years of their marriage.  My father suddenly passed away when I was about 25 years old and while I thought often of the family's heritage, I continued on with my life having two small babies of my own at that time.  It is only in my later life that I became extremely interested with the histories of both my parents families.  My father was one of nine children in his family and my mother was one of seven, having one full sister and five half brothers and sisters.  So I was looking at researching many days and months for the particulars of each child in each family.  I did this mostly through Ancestry.com and obtained much of the information from their databases.  I also did much searching of my childhood memories to remember to whom each one married, children born to them and when they passed away. 

Since my mother and father have both passed on, I was left seeking help from my older brothers and sisters.  At our family reunion in 2008, I had an opportunity to talk to my oldest brother Dick, who finally gave me some information about my dad's younger brother Harry.  Harry died suddenly from a massive heart attack at the age of forty six.  I remember this time, but am unsure of the year or the circumstances surrounding his death.  I do remember Dad taking off work and driving somewhere with Harry's wife Sylvia.  Dad was so upset with the loss of his dearly loved younger brother.   I remember it weighing heavily on him during that year, seeing a sadness in him as never before.  Dick told me that Harry went to visit another of my father's brothers, Rex, who was an Air Force major stationed at an air base in North Dakota.  Harry had the heart attack and died while at the air base.  His wife Sylvia came down to Illinois from Michigan, where they lived, and with my dad drove to North Dakota to retrieve the body.   I don't remember the funeral in Michigan since it was a long car trip with the cost alone preventing all of us from attending. 

Harry was ten years younger than my dad and much too young to die.  I remember feeling so bad for Roger, Harry's only child, since he was but 17 when this happened.    He had to be supportive of his mother while suffering the loss of his beloved father.  Sylvia and Roger stayed in Michigan and as usual within larger families, we lost contact with them.  I have often wondered what happened to him and his mother, but could never find any information about them from family or on the Internet.   I didn't know if Sylvia remarried, died or still lived in Michigan.  I didn't have any information or facts on Roger...no birth date or even where he was born.  I didn't know Sylvia's maiden name or how she and Harry met or when they married.  I don't even know if Harry's name was just "Harry" or something more as in "Harold".  It is difficult to know in my dad's family because my grandparents used nicknames all the time, but that's another story! 

This past Wednesday, I was doing some work on the family tree when I had an idea to search Facebook for a Roger Barnhill.  I thought it was a long shot, but maybe he or one of his children (I was assuming he was still alive and had children) would have a profile or page.  Several Roger Barnhill pages came up and the first one I looked at had a picture of a man and woman.  I could not tell if it was our Roger since one changes over 50 years and he had always looked like his mother, which I vaguely remember.  He listed his high school as one near Dearborn, Michigan, where I knew they had lived.  I looked at several other Roger Barnhill pages and by sheer age alone eliminated them.  I decided to send the first Roger this message:

Hi Roger, my name is Bonnie Barnhill Victoria. I am looking for my uncle's (Harry Barnhill) son named Roger. Harry was my father Lloyd's younger brother who passed away at the age of 46. Harry and his wife Sylvia lived in Michigan when he died. My family lived in and was raised in Illinois. If this sounds familiar to you, please send a message back to me. I am compiling a Barnhill family tree and have much information, but we don't know what happened to Roger. Thank you, Bonnie

I am happy to say that he sent me this message:

Hello Bonnie. I am the long lost son of Harry. I am living in Memphis TN now and have for the last 28 years. I will give you my email address.  Good to hear from you.

I feel like I've hit a jackpot of sorts since I have been looking for him for so long.  I sent him a long email detailing the facts in my life and that of my family.  I am asking him all those questions about his mom, dad  and about his life from then till now that have gone unanswered for so many years.   It was good to hear from him and he is now a friend on Facebook.  He is in the process of compiling that information for me so I can insert it into this very old family tree. 

The twigs of this ever growing tree have formed many branches throughout many centuries.  We are all, in essence, a part of a gigantic family tree growing in time with many connecting branches filtering up from the strong trunk through history.  I firmly believe we need to look back in our history to achieve a better future.  The persons resting on each leaf atop the twigs and branches within those family trees have been a part of your life, either creating it or having an affect in some way on the life you live and lead today.  It is important to pass this information on to our younger generations so they, too, may better understand themselves.  These are their connections from the yesterdays that give them hope for all the tomorrows to come. 

Some ancestors may have been famous in either a good or bad way, but I feel most of our ancestors were common everyday people looking for a better life for their generation and the generations to come.  Although they are gone, some more recently than others, our fathers and forefathers left us histories conceived from a single strand of golden thread and woven into our inner fabric.  We are now weaving with that same golden strand into the fabric of our children and grandchildren and into their future children.  What a joy it was this week to find another piece of  woven fabric that will sit atop the one leaf that completes Harry's branch on our ever expanding family tree.  Another day, another branch complete and still another one to grow.