“I remember exactly where your great-grandparents and me were when we heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor,” I often said to my grandchildren. “Driving back from my great uncle Will’s funeral in Littlestown. We had a brand new ’40 Ford and we heard the news on the radio.” At least that’s how I remembered it. Having grandkids—15 of them—made me want to pass on our family’s history, but the only record I had was my memory, and that wasn’t always so sharp these days.
The old Stansbury Family Bible would have been nice to give them. As a child, I opened it up to find handwritten notes on an unprinted page, scores of important dates in the history of my father’s family—births, marriages, deaths, going back to the nineteenth century. The Bible was more than an heirloom, it was a record of the Stansbury name. But after Uncle Will died, I never saw it again. It ended up among my Aunt Laura’s possessions and when she passed away, her family, the Pattersons, sold most everything. Who knew where the Bible ended up?
One summer day almost 65 years later, my wife Dottie and I were invited to a cookout at our daughter’s house for our granddaughter Lauren’s fifth birthday. Lauren was having fun with her friends while I met some of their parents. Lauren’s best friend was also named Lauren, and I ended up talking to her mom, Lori. “Where are you originally from?” I asked.
“Littlestown,” she replied.
“Littlestown! My relatives lived there for a long time. What was your maiden name?” I asked.
“Patterson,” she answered. A few questions later, we figured it out: her great-grandfather’s sister was my great aunt!
A month later Lori’s parents and I sat in Lori’s living room, sharing old memories. Turned out her parents had a lot of the same recollections I did. It was good to know my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me.
Then her father got up and put a package on the table. “You must have this,” he said. “It really belongs to you.”
Inside was the old Stansbury family Bible. Still with all the handwritten history inside. And room for more.
