In August of 2001 my sister, Tina, and I took our mother to West Virginia to visit, for the very first time, the coal mining towns where she had grown up and where grandpa had worked at down there. Then, in January of 2002 one of my dearest friends, Diane Corpening, contacted me from out of the blue through Classmates.com. I hadn't heard from her in nearly twenty years and it made me realize how many friends I had lost touch with. My dad was 49 when I was born. I had cousins in their eighties that I hadn't seen or heard from since the 60's and 70's. I had never met most of my mom's aunts or uncles or cousins even though I had heard about them often throughout my lifetime through mom's fond recollections. I only knew one grandparent and spent hours listening to Goldies's oral histories of the the family during summer visits to her home in Romulus, MI when I was a kid.
All of these things combined made me realize how much I missed the people I had cared about and how out of touch I was with old friends, my extended family and my roots. I built this web site, started looking in the phone book, and began work on a family tree to do something about it. Due to the circumstances of my dad's age and his going to prison when I was five years-old, I didn't even know his parent's names when I began. Except for my sister, Jonell, I never had much, or any contact with the brother and two sisters from our dad's first marriage. Sadly, I found out after the fact when they died. In some cases, many years later.
I'm happy to say that I have now contacted many of the old friends from my youth including some from the army who I haven't seen in thirty years. I have also found and spoke with many extended family members now, most of whom I had never met. In August 2002, Tina and I made a return trip to West Virginia with our mom and met quite a few second cousins and two of my sister's, Joyce's, daughters who are my age. In October 2002, I went with my cousin's son, Don, to Kentucky to visit the two cousins (his aunts) mentioned above who are in their eighties, and felt right at home while we were there. On June 28, 2003 we had the first Steele-Smith family reunion for mom's father's side of the family. I'm sorry to say that mom passed on in June 2005! |
