It's All Relative...

This weekend my sister and I went to Cincinnati to visit relatives. On Saturday I was able to interview two sisters who were my mom's first cousins. I had not really met them before so my mom's sisters Margie and Betty set up a lunch meeting with them. Their family lived with my great-grandparents after their father became ill and they lost their own home. (I think there is another story there.) As Michael J. Crusham was the first in the family to come over from Ireland, I was eager to hear what they had to say. Unfortunately their grandfather, Michael, died when they were still in grade school, so they had no idea why he left Ireland or who was on the ship with him. They did have some interesting stories to tell, and I shared some information with them that they hadn't known, so it was a good meeting. I was able to videotape an hour or so of it, until the battery on my camcorder died. It is kind of hard to be plugged in when you are at a restaurant. Because of side conversations I was not able to ask all of my questions, so I would like to meet up with them alone next time I go to Cincinnati.

After we left the restaurant my sister and I headed off to a second cousin's house. He is the one that has the diary of a distant relative (second cousin, twice removed to me), and I had contacted him ahead of time to see if he would consider letting me bring the diary back to St. Louis and scan it on Jim's big scanning machine at the office. Then I would return the diary to him. He agreed, as I will give a scanned copy to him as well. I was just a little concerned that we might never get a copy from whatever institution he ends up giving this diary to in the end. I will be talking more about the diary on Write Formation.

We got to see a number of other relatives as well on this trip, and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately all the visits took place around food since there really is no other place for us to meet. I always need to plan extra workouts after trips to Cincinnati!