Archive for the ‘Sherry’s Family Tree’ Category

I had a flu bug this weekend, and it is that flu bug that I have to thank for having a “Happy Dance” weekend!

A little virus had me sitting more than usual, and to combat boredom, I started ‘hunting’ on the Internet for ancestors and their siblings!  Thanks to the virus, I don’t remember exactly how I arrived at this wonderful Kentucky website, but I’m not sure I had ever been to this one before, and if I had, it has a lot of new ‘stuff’ on it, including my Gr-gr-grandmother’s brother, Willis Laird’s death certificate!

As a volunteer here in my own county, I am doubly appreciate of those who find and share family history information, and I want to say “Many thanks to the volunteers of this Southern Kentucky website at http://www.so-ky.com!  I am so very grateful to find out for certain now, that Willis is my Gr-Gr-Grandmother Elizabeth Laird Jones Crabb’s brother”

You can see a scanned image of Willis Laird’s death certificate here: http://www.so-ky.com/dth/14/Jesse%20W.%20Laird.jpg

According to the website, Willis’ first name is actually Jesse, and though his death certificate doesn’t state that, his tombstone does.  Comparing the dates on tombstone and death certificate help verify that they are one and the same.

Information on the death Certificate:

Commonwealth of Kentucky
State Board of Health
Bureau of Vital Statistics

Place of death:
County: Hart KY
Vet.Fot. Northtown

Registration District No. 6174
File No: 4772
Registered No. 51

3. Sex  Male
4. Color or Race: White
5. S/M/W/D:  Married
6. Date of Birth: May 7 1835
7. Age: 80 yrs  8 mos  8 da
8. Occupation:  Farmer
9. Birthplace: KY
10.  Name of Father: Hesikiah Laird
11.   Birthplace of father: Unknown
12.   Maiden name of Mother: Patsy Carter
13.   Birthplace of Mother:  Unknown
14.   Informant:  V. J. Eggsdon/Iggsdon (?) Address:  Cave City
15. Filed:  Feb 17, 1916 Informant:   J. M. Isenberg
16. Date of Death:  2-15-1916
17: I here certify, that I attended deceased from February 4th, 1916 to February 14th, 1916, that I last saw him alive on February 14th, 1916, and that death occurred on the date stated above at 8:00 a.m. (I think, hard for me to read).  the
Cause of Death was as follows:

Lagrippe – Duration 15 daays
Contributery: Pneumonia
Secondary: (illegible, at least to me)

Duration  5 Days

Signed: J. T. Godby, M. D.
2-16-1916 Address:  Cave City, KY

18. Length of residence – not filled out
19. Place of Burial:  New Hope Date of Burial: February 17, 1916
20. Undertaker: J. W. Oster Address:  Cave City, KY

What a lot of information is contained in this death certificate!  I know that Willis was living in the Cave City area, and that he died 4 years after his sister Elizabeth Laird Jones Crabb did.

I know what cemetery Willis is buried in, and luckily enough (and thanks to the Southern Kentucky volunteers) also have a photograph of the tombstone as well as photographs of the cemetery and church there, and will be sharing links to that soon!

Thank you Kentucky volunteers!  I’m still doing a Happy Dance!

More Laird info:

http://www.familytreewriter.com/category/sherrys-family-tree/lard-laird-genealogy/

by Sherry Stocking Kline
February 19, 2012

It’s Saturday Night!  (well, an hour ago it was!)  Time to play the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Game with Randy Seaver at GeneaMusings.com

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Ancestral Name Roulette

It’s Saturday Night again – time for some more Genealogy Fun!! 

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) What year was your paternal grandfather born?  Divide this number by 100 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your “roulette number.”

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an “ahnentafel”). Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the “roulette number.”

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person’s name for your “roulette number” then spin the wheel again – pick a grandmother, or yourself, a parent, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!

My paternal grandfather, Elmer Leverett Stocking, was born in 1879.  Divide that by 100, and you get 18.79, rounded up to 19.

So, I went to my family tree program, used the Ahnentafel program, and there she was, my #19.

19. Hannah “Juline” BROOKS: born 29 May 1839 in Williamstown, MA; died 4 Jan 1899 in 6712 Wabash, Chicago, Cook Co., Il..

Hannah “Juline” Brooks married Edward Hitchcock 18 Sept 1856 in Davenport, Scott County, IA, and died in Chicago while visiting her son.  Juline was my Great-grandmother, Frances “Fanny” Hitchcock’s mother.

Fanny married my great-grandfather, Roderick Remine Stocking in Crescent City, Iroquois County, Illinois,  on 3 May 1876, and they moved to Kansas shortly afterwards where they homesteaded in Sumner County, Kansas.  My paternal grandfather, Elmer Leverett, was Fanny and Roderick’s first born.  Frances, Roderick, and Elmer are all buried in the Osborne Cemetery near Mayfield, Sumner County, Kansas.

 I can’t begin to tell my cousin Larry how grateful I am that he shared these photographs with me, and allowed me to add numerous photos of our shared ancestry into my own family tree!

Roderick Porter and Myrtle Nyberg Wedding Photograph

Roderick Remine Stocking Photograph

Roderick Remine & Frances (Hitchcock) Stocking’s tombstone

by Sherry Stocking Kline
16 October 2011

I love to check out the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenges that Randy Seaver sends out way each Saturday Night, and this one looks like a great way to quanitfy what research I need to do next!  So tune up the “Mission Impossible” music, check out the challenge, and play along!

Hello, genea-world! 
It’s Saturday Night (in the USA!) — time for some worldwide 
Genealogy Fun! 

Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to: 
1)  Participate in the Ancestors GeneaMeme created by Jill Ball on the Geniaus blog. 
Thank you to Jill for the SNGF idea!  Jill is collecting Ancestors MeGeneaMeme entries too.The rules, and the Meme list, is given below in my response. 
Here’s mine:  The Rules:  

2)  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook Status post or note, or in a Google+ Stream item. 

 The list should be annotated in the following manner:

Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item

The Meme:

Which of these apply to you? 

 

3.  Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents.  (I do have photos of all of them, thanks to my mom, and my generous aunts and uncles who have shared their holdings so that I might scan and digitize them.)

4.  Have an ancestor who was married more than three times. (I have some who were married three times, but haven’t located any that I know of that were married more than three.)

5.  Have an ancestor who was a bigamist.  (Not that I know of… Would  make the family tree more interesting though, wouldn’t it?)

6.  Met all four of my grandparents. (I Couldn’t.  Both grandfathers passed away before I was born. I did meet and know both of my grandmothers.)

7.  Met one or more of my great-grandparents.  (I remember my great-grandfather even though I was about 2 1/2 years old when he passed away.)

8.  Named a child after an ancestor. (We did, though not intentionally. My husband’s great-grandfather was named James Kline, and we gave that name as a middle name to our son without knowing that there was an ancestor bearing that as a name.)

9.  Bear an ancestor’s given name/s.  (Not only do I not bear an ancestor’s name, my grandmother was unhappy with my mom, her daughter, for giving me the name of an alcholic beverage.  Unhappy enough that for a time, when I was very, very small, I wondered if the “Carrie” that took an axe to the bars and saloons in Kansas was my grandmother…)

10.  Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland. (I have an ancestor from Great Britain, and I probably do from Ireland as well, but have yet to find that link or proof of it.  Very difficult with the name Jones!)

11.  Have an ancestor from Asia (No.)

12.  Have an ancestor from Continental Europe. (Probably. My geography isn’t what it should be….)

13.  Have an ancestor from Africa. (No, but my granddaughters do.)

14.  Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer (in the US and UK) (Yes, most of my ancestors were involved in farming, right up to my own father, and the same on my mother’s side.)

15.  Have an ancestor who had large land holdings (what’s large?  Larger than 40 acres?  Yep.  Larger than 640 acres?  Probably.) (Yes, by yesterday’s standards my ancestors had large land holdings.)

16.  Have an ancestor who was a holy man – minister, priest, rabbi (Jonathan Oatley in Killingly CT in 19th century, several more in 17th century) (We have ministers in my family, and one of my ancestors was “Deacon Samuel Stocking, son of George Stocking.  George was born in circa 1582 in Suffolk, England.  Deacon Samuel was born in England also and immigrated to America in 1633.  They became part of Thomas Hooker’s party, and George was one of Hartford, CT’s founding fathers.)

17.  Have an ancestor who was a midwife (unsure) (Not that I know of.)

18.  Have an ancestor who was an author (unsure) (Not that I know of.)

19.  Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones (many Smiths, no Murphys, only one Jones line) One large Smith line, one Jones line that quickly turns into a huge brick wall.

20.  Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng.  (No.  Not that I know of.)

21.  Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X.  (Not that I know of.)

22.  Have an ancestor with a forename beginnining with Z (three generations of Zachariah Hildreths, and a Zechariah Barber)  (Not that I know of.)

23.  Have an ancestor born on 25th December.  (Yes, my great-grandfather, Roderick Remine Stocking was born 25 December 1853.)

24.  Have an ancestor born on New Year’s Day.  (Not that I know of.)

25.  Have blue blood in your family lines (supposedly if Royal Descendants book is right) (No.  Not that I know of.)

26.  Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth.  (No.)

27.  Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth (nope, one great-grandparent born in Canada is the last one born in another country) (No. Two lines came to America in the 1600’s. Need to get other lines back that far.)

28.  Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century (all but 3 or 4 of my 32 3rd great-grandparents.  (Have several lines back to the 18th century.)

29.  Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier (quite a few) (some, not as many as to the 18th century.)

30.  Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents (Austin Carringer, Della smith, Georgia Kemp, Frank Seaver, Thomas Richmond) (Just Roderick Remine Stocking, thus far.)

31.  Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X (not that I know of) (My earliest Stocking ancestor, George Stocking, Hartford, CT founder, signed his will with an X.  He was, besides being a farmer, a surveyor, so I wonder if he was just no longer able to sign his name due to advanced age, rather than not being literate.)

32.  Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university (not that I know of) (Yes, both my grandparents on my father’s side, Elmer and Maud (McGinnis) Stocking attended college, though I believe neither graduated with a four year degree. My grandmother received a teaching certificate and taught for a year or two, perhaps a bit longer.)

33. Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence (several are in Sex in Middlesex book)  (Not that I have found yet.)

34.  Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime (logic says someone in 12 generations must have been, not sure about this one) (Probably, but I have not found it yet.)

35.  Have shared an ancestor’s story online or in a magazine (probably in Genea-Musings…) (I have shared several ancestor’s short stories online on my blog here, and in the small town history book that I co-authored, “Mayfield: Then & Now.)

36.  Have published a family history online or in print (two books self=published and shared with family) (I haven’t published a book, just a notebook that I take to family reunions.)

37.  Have visited an ancestor’s home from the 19th or earlier centuries (several in New England, and the Ranslow Smith Inn in Wisconsin) (Yes, several here in Kansas, and one ancestor’s home in Kentucky.)

38.  Still have an ancestor’s home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family (not in the family…the Ranslow smith Inn in Wisconsin would qualify if I’d bought it) (My grandfather’s farm was bought by my parent’s and is still owned by my mother.  It has been in the family now since 1903.  The house burned down several years ago, however.)

39.  Have a family bible from the 19th Century (have Bible pages for births, marriages, deaths, but not the Bible) (The only family Bible that I know of is owned by my Uncle and his family.)

40.  Have a pre-19th century family bible  (No.)



by Sherry Stocking Kline
October 12, 2011

I have been blessed this year with so many who have shared family photographs with me, and this past spring, my cousin Larry brought me a huge box of photographs to scan!  I have yet to measure the box, but it is approxinately 1.5 feet by 3.5 feet, and chock full of family photos!

Needless to say, I spent hours scanning and am still trying to make time to organize the results!

The following photograph is my Great-Aunt Myrtle Nyberg Stocking and her husband, Roderick Porter, who was called Porter by his family and friends.  Porter and Myrtle were my cousin Larry’s grandparents.

Roderick Porter & Myrtle (Nyberg) Stocking

Porter and Myrtle were married on December 30, 1908, and Porter was killed on July 5th, 1924 when he was working on electrical lines.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
18 May 2011

My cousin Maxine and her son Larry loaned me a HUGE box of photographs.  It’s so heavy that I can’t lift it!  I’ve spent the past 2 – 3 weeks scanning off and on, and some time this week to re-organize and locate the ones that I have questions about. 

But just one of the treasures that they’ve loaned me is here below, a photograph of my great-grandfather, (and my cousin Larry’s as well) Roderick Remine Stocking. 

I was between 2 and 3 when Great-Grandpa died, and I remember him as a very tall, white-haired gentleman.  My mother, his granddaughter-in-law, dearly loved and respected him. 

He and his wife, Frances Hitchcock Stocking homesteaded in Sumner County, Kansas, just west of Mayfield and the Chisholm Trail. 

 Their first home was 10 X 12 and they had to put the table out at night to put their bed down, and their oldest child, my Grandfather Elmer Leverett Stocking was born while they still lived in that home.

 I think he is a very handsome and distinguished looking gentleman.  And I sure wish I had had the opportunity to get to know him better.

And to ask him all the questions that I now have about family history!

Related Posts:

Where Were My Ancestors during the 1930 Census!

Carnival of Genealogy – the J. H. Stocking Bible

Carnival of Genealogy – Scrapbooking My Family History – One Page at a Time

How Many Descendants Does Roderick R. Stocking Have? 

Roderick & Frances Stocking’s Tombstone – Osborne Cemetery, Mayfield, Sumner County, Kansas

by Sherry Stocking Kline
Saturday, May 14th, 2011

Recently, bloggers using Blogger found themselves unable to blog, and also found some of their blog posts had disappeared, and this blogging challenge from Randy Seaver comes from that 20 hour stint of not being able to blog!

Hey genea-philes – it’s Saturday Night – time for lots more Genealogy Fun!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  We all know that Blogger (www.blogspot.com) was down for 20 hours from Thursday afternoon to Friday morning.  What did you do with yourself during that time period?

2)  If we lost our blogging platforms for awhile (but not the Internet as a whole), what would you do with your genealogy time?  What projects would you start, continue working on, or try to finish instead of blogging?

3)  Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this post, or in a status thread on Facebook.

I don’t blog on the Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society blogsite at http://www.ks-schgs.blogspot.com everyday, so I didn’t know that Blogger was ‘down’ for 20 hours and created lots of problems for Blogger bloggers and giving everyone serious blogging withdrawal!

So, what would I do if my self-hosted WordPress went down for 20 hours? 

Panic.

  Then spend time trying to find out what went wrong and what I needed to do to fix it. 

 Then once I learned that the glitch wasn’t up to me and was out of my control, I’d ‘play hookey.’ 

Which is what I did today!   I played ‘hookey’. 

I had ‘stuff’ that needed doing, but the little ‘bug’ that landed in our house this week wasn’t helping me feel like getting things done around the house, and so for a few hours I played hookey.

I went to the Illinois State Genealogical Society, and began searching for the two surnames that I knew came from Illinois to Kansas, McGinnis and Corson. 

And Voila! 

There they were, my great-great grandparents, Richard S. Corson and Mary Corson, buried in the Bethel Cemetery in Sangamon County, Illinois.  I knew it to be them, because I had some of their information already, but I did not know where they were buried. 

And now, I do.

And that reminded me that I might just be lucky enough that some kind soul had posted their tombstone photo on Find-A-Grave.com.  

Once again, luck was with me and Richard’s and Mary’s tombstone photo was online and may be found right here.   The contributor was listed as “anonymous,” and I just want to say “thank you” to the anonymous contributor who put their tombstone photo on the website. 

I’ve Done Very Little Research on the Corson’s…

I have done very little research on the Corson line as I’ve been focusing in other areas, but as I said, I was playing ‘hookey’ today, and simply out searching to see what fun thing I might find, so I headed on over to Ancestry.com  and then to FamilySearch.org  to try to find them on as many census and other records as were possible.

I was able to locate the Corson family on three different census records, and have to admit that I now have a new puzzle.  On three different census records 1870, 1880, and 1900, there is a person with a different name with the same birth year.

In 1870, there is a 13 yr old male, Francis E, born it appears in 1857.

In 1880, there is a 23 yr old female named Emma, born it appears in 1857.

In 1900, there is a 43 year old female daughter named Fannie and a granddaughter named Fannie (they have different initials).  Fannie would have been born in 1857. 

So, was Francis and Fannie twins?  If so, where was she in 1870? 

My guess is, and it is nothing but a guess, that the Francis E listed in 1870 should have been Frances Emma or Emmaline, and listed as a female. Then it would be sensible for her to be there at the age of 23 listed as Emma, and back home at 43 listed as Fannie, and with a daughter named Fannie also, who was born in California.

I’m Done Playing Hookey for Today…

But, without further research I won’t know the answer to those questions, and since I’m done playing hookey for today, those questions will have to wait.  But the cool thing is, I now know the names of a few of my Great-grandmother Margaret Corson McGinnis’ siblings!

And maybe, just maybe, I will be very, very lucky, and one of my great-grandmother Maggie’s siblings will find this blog, and write me a note that explains this mystery!!

Related Links:

Margaret “Maggie” (Corson) McGinnis Dies at Age 101

Margaret “Maggie” (Corson) McGinnis Sang for Abraham Lincoln

Gr-Grandmother Maggie (Corson) McGinnis & Maud McGinnis Stocking Scrapbook page

Thomas J. McGinnis Obituary

The Corson Family Association

Book: “Three Hundred Years with the Corson Family” by Orville Corson

Milt Stocking, 86, local music teacher
Palo Alto Daily News – Nov 28, 2001

R. Milton “Milt” Stocking, a retired Palo Alto music teacher, has died.  He was 86.

Stocking died Saturday (Nov 24^th) from complications of Parkinson’s disease at the Manor Care Nursing Home in Sunnyvale.

He was born Aug 10, 1915, in Topeka, Kansas. He earned a degree from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, then a master’s degree in music education from the University of Colorado, in Boulder, and took doctorate courses at Columbia University in New York City.

During World War II, Stocking served in the Air Force in Europe. He continued to serve in the Air Force Reserve and worked for the Veterans Administration in Wichita, Kansas.  He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1975.

He taught music in Kansas, Sacramento and in Palo Alto Unified School District schools. He also taught jazz at Foothill College after he moved to Palo Alto in 1956.  He retired after teaching for 23 years.

He was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto and a member of BPO Elk’s Lodge No. 1471 of Palo Alto for 27 years.

He was also a past charter member of the Schola Cantorum Community Choir and director of church choirs in Kansas and in Los Altos.

He is survived by his wife, Martha; former wife, Lea; daughters Raina Glazener of Seattle and Annie Stocking of San Francisco; and many nieces and nephews and other relatives.

Friends are invited to attend a memorial service to be held at 1 p.m., Monday, Dec. 3^rd, at the Alta Mesa Memorial Park chapel, located at 695 Arastradero Road in Palo Alto.

Contributions may be made in Milt’s memory to the Parkinson’s Institute, 1170 Morse Ave., Sunnyvale, CA. 94089, First United Methodist Church, organ fund, 625 Hamilton, Palo Alto, CA 94301 or the American Red Cross of Palo Alto, CA.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
28 April 2011

It’s a bit past Monday, but I didn’ t find this little tidbit until Tuesday, while volunteering to hunt for an obit for the Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society’s requests. 

Unfortunately, after looking through the requested time period’s “The Monitor Press” (no longer being published) I didn’t locate the obit, but did find a cool little bit of news that tells me that my Grandfather and Grandmother, Warner and Carrie Jones and family, hosted a family gathering, when my mom was just a bit more than 15 years old.

The Monitor Press
Marshall Crawford Publlisher
Published Every Wednesday at
117 East Harvey Avenue
Wellington, Kansas
Bell Phone ………….143

Milan – Mr. and Mrs. John Roe and sons, Edwin and John from north of Argonia; Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Roe and daughters; Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Breneman and children, Hershel and Ilda Fern, of Wichita; Mr. and Mrs. O. C. Breneman, of Mayfield; Victor Breneman and Kenneth Jones, of Kingman; Mrs. S. E. Breneman; Miss Mildred Swain; Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Jones, of Milan, were dinner guests of Warner L. Jones and family Sunday.

It was neat to read this, and even neater to tell my mom, “I know what you were doing on a Sunday in September, 1937!” 

When I read it to her, she said “I know what I was doing, too!  If all of those people were there, I was cooking to help feed everyone!”

And if you notice, the article gave all of the out-of-town people’s home towns, and in one case, for a rural resident, even told what area they lived in.  What a help!  Now I know where these people lived (most likely) in September of 1927!

More Links:

Warner and Carrie Jones Photograph

The Victor Breneman Family

The Otto Breneman Blacksmith Shop – Mayfield, Kansas

Bernice Breneman – child of Mr. & Mrs. Otto Breneman

Constantine Breneman & daughter-in-law Carrie Breneman Jones & children

by Sherry Stocking Kline

I’m trying to blog along with the “52 Weeks of Personal History and Genealogy.”  As you can see, I’m more than a little behind.

Week 12: Movies. Did (or do you still) see many movies? Describe your favorites. Where did you see these films? Is the theater still there, or is there something else in its place?

This challenge runs from Saturday, March 19, 2011 through Friday, March 25, 2011.

I grew up on a wheat and dairy farm, about 10 miles from the nearest theater, and my folks were not rich, so we didn’t attend movies a lot.

They used to show movies on the side of buildings…

I learned after I was grown that many of the small towns in our area used to show movies on the side of a building and folks came to town, sat around in cars and chairs, visited, snacked, and made a Saturday night get-together out of it.

In fact, that used to be one of the ways that the merchants ‘lured’ people to town to shop, and then they stayed open on Saturday nights.

My husband remembered doing that, and him just a year ahead of/older than me, but I sure don’t remember it at all.  I wish I did.  It sounds like a wonderful way for small towns to spend some Saturday night fun together.

I Remember When We Saw Old Yeller…

I was eight years old, which means my brother Gary would have been twenty when “Old Yeller” came to our local historic Regent Theater (now newly renovated re-opened)

My brother asked me if I’d like to go to a movie with him on Saturday night.

And I’m all like “Me and you?”

And he was like ‘Yes, me and you!”

I thought he was kidding, I mean he usually went out on a date or out with his friends.

So, he got all Saturday-night-dressed-up, and I did, too, and we met up with one of his friends who had also brought along his little sister.

They bought us popcorn and pop, and sat us two rows in front of them. (Close enough they could watch us along with the movie, but maybe not so close that everyone knew we together, you suppose?)

On the way into town, my brother warned me that the movie had a sad ending, and that “Old Yeller” was going to die at the end.

With all the superior wisdom of an eight-year-old that knew that Disney movies did NOT have sad endings, I told him he was wrong, that it wasn’t going to end that way.

And of course, he said “yes, it does.”

Life Doesn’t Always Have a Happy Ending…

Well, come to the end of the movie, and us little girls are sitting there sniffling about that little boy having to kill his dog, “Old Yeller” because he has rabies, and he’s all like “I tried to tell you”, and I’m sniffling and saying “they didn’t have to kill him….”

I think maybe that was my first introduction to the notion that movies, and life, doesn’t always have a happy ending, and that sometimes you simply have to do things you don’t want to do.

But when I look back on it, it was a good memory, and a really unselfish thing for a twenty-year-old big brother to do.

I wish he were still here so I could say “thank you….”  one more time.

My brother, Gary…