Lost Relatives . . .

Recently I transcribed my grandfathers letters to my grandmother from a period just prior to their marriage.  It was interesting because it gave insight to life at the turn of the century.  There were no telephones, no automobiles, few paved roads, transportation of any distance was by steam boat, even the telegraph was yet to come about.  Reading and transcribing brought  to mind our Morrison family.

My father's middle name was Landry.  I thought as youth we were related to the Landry's in Morganza, LA, nearby town.  While there certainly were Landry's in Morganza that was not the relationship at all.  As is the practice of many family's, mine included, we gave middle names derived from family names.  The name Landry came from my fathers grandmother, or his father's mother.  Our Pointe Coupee ancestor Jacob Haight Morrison had married a Landry from Donaldsonville, LA (another river town).  But today we know nothing of our Landry ancestors at all.

I asked friend who was from that region about Landry's and she said every other house along the Bayou was a Landry home.  A common name in that area.  So there is a challenge to go seeking out Landry's to find our relations, albeit very distant today.

When my mother and father had their 50th Anniversary party at my brothers log house in New Roads, Uncle Sharkey Campbell was an attendee.  I had heard of Uncle Sharkey here and there but did not know the relationship to my family.  It turns out my grandmother, Camille Seghers had a twin sister.  They grew up in upper Pointe Coupee Parish around Lettsworth.  My grandmother's sister had two marriages, her second marriage was to Sharkey Campbell from Northern Mississippi.  The Campbell's live South of Memphis, TN, down the river so to speak.  Uncle Sharkey was a salesman of sorts and operated at business that sold radios and later televisions.  I am sure it did more than that but I have no idea what it was.

While stationed at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, one of the wives of a fellow officer was from that region of Mississippi.  I casually  mention Uncle Sharkey Campbell lived some where around there.  She knew the Campbell family well and we conversed about them.  Small world, right.

But the point is we have lost track of the Campbell's too.  We know next to nothing about them and our last contact was 1981 at the 50th anniversary party.  Pity.

Recently, Herrise made a trek to Delaware to attend Little Sister Hayden's funeral.  Little Sister was a first cousin.  Since then she has made it her business to keep up with my mother's family.  My mother's family was five sisters, all deceased now.  Three of the sisters had children, two did not.  Not many of us but yet scattered about the nation.  I learned from Herrise of one of our cousins from that group was in the hospital in Georgia.  So at least we are keeping up with some of the cousins.  But Herrise while keeping address and the like, writes nothing of history or of the past.  She likes to deal with her children and does so very well but other than the cousins, and other direct Morrison relationships, has no knowledge.  She knows a wealth of data but unless I convince her to write it down, it too will be lost.

To many lost relatives.  Where are they, what are they doing.  We know we have cousins down in Brazil, in California (we have lost track of all the Seghers' family).  Even some of my grandfather's brothers and sisters are out of reach.

What a terrible loss.