A Twiddling of Thumbs

John flew to Germany this morning on an " on-again, off-again" trip...which was on again as of last night. He's due back early Saturday morning and so will be losing a weekend day and a half, but gaining a couple of extra days he can tack onto his vacation. In the meantime, I'm here in the apartment with not a whole lot to do this week since I seem to have some easy-going professors this semester...one's who aren't exactly pushing the school work or assignment thing very hard. In one class (which began in mid-January), I've only had one quiz and one assignment. The assignment was supposed to be just a "weekly" assignment....but so far, 9 weeks in...it's been the only thing we've had to do. The syllabus lists a mid-term project but that date has come and gone, and according to the class schedule we are still on material that we should have been done with by week 3. Not impressed....at all.

The other class has been a little better, except this guy isn't into teaching so much...he has assigned 3 projects (out of 7 for the term) but he hasn't taught us anything yet. I guess we are supposed to figure out how to do these things on You Tube or by digging up tutorials on the web. My kids would laugh at me, complaining about not having enough work to do, but I really need this stuff to keep me busy. I am contemplating a mall trip....


And then, of course, what is going to happen when those boys down there in Dallas wake up and realize that they have let us get way behind? Maybe I should send out an email or 2 to let them know I'm going to be in Greece for 6 days next month, and therefore not to expect anything from me for a couple of weeks in April. Yeah...I can see that working...

I've been told that the internet service where we are staying can be spotty. And who knows, Greece might not have any internet service by the time we get there. AND....I want this to be a vacation with no internet (except what I can get on my iPhone). I can't believe that our holiday is only a month away! I've even started to mull over packing in the back of my mind which something I rarely think about more than a day or two in advance.

Maybe it's all of the travel booking I did in the past week that's got me itching to go again. We are now set for summer vacation to Halifax and a trip with the kids to New York to celebrate our 30th anniversary (WOW!). John wanted us to go to Paris but logistically New York would work better since we have to take the trip in the middle of the N.S. holiday. I booked us into the Doubletree in Times Square and got points tickets for the 4 of us. Can't wait! We really had a great time the last time we went there together. Much better than the camping trip to Prince Edward Island in 2001 which was supposed to be our very last family vacation ever.....yes, it was that bad....took us 7 years to recover.

Okay...well...I guess I should go work on the really long multi-part entry I've been picking at for months and months....or I could go and see if I can stay awake through a few more chapters of my book...or see if it's my turn in any of my Facebook Scrabble games....

(*Walks away in an aura of self congratulation for actually typing a few paragraphs without having to get up and do something else, instead....like check the TV guide for tomorrow....or something.*)

Going Back To The Very Beginning....Part One

Those of you who have been around since the very beginning of this blog....all 3 of you (YAY!)....since day one....might be interested to hear that I have FINALLY made contact my father's family. It wasn't the simple matter I expected..... using that phone number...nothing like that. That phone number would not have worked since my aunt, Elizabeth, died in 1998 when she was just 60. So, back in 2006, I didn't know I was already 8 years too late. Of all things, it was another death in the family that got me moving along this path after so many fits and starts....and it turned out to be a much more convoluted journey than I ever imagined.

You know how every once in a while you Google yourself just to see if you're sort of, kind of, maybe a little famous? Well, I was doing that one night, and there wasn't anything interesting about me coming up at all...in fact, none of the other Sally's were worth reading about either. So, I started checking names I knew from my father's family....just because. It's not really cyber-stalking is it? I just wanted to know if any of them were famous, too. Usually, nothing at all comes up....especially nothing that lets me know that an of these random people are my family members.

Anyway, I got a surprise when an obituary popped up, and it was for my cousin....one who was about 15 years younger than me. From his obituary, I learned that his father....my father's brother, Roy...was also deceased. I Googled him and ended up on ancestry.com where I found, and entered an email conversation with, the sister of my uncle's 3rd wife. God bless those who do the genealogical heavy lifting for the rest of us. She included what information she knew about the McMullin family in her family tree. In her family tree, she had recorded the death of my father and also his sister, Elizabeth, so that's how I came to find out that Elizabeth had died. Both of them died from brain aneurysms at age 60.

The sister of the 3rd wife was encouraging and seemed really excited to help, but my timing wasn't so great with a death in the family just happening. I told her not to bother anyone for a while. I was in no hurry for information or contact (obviously).

I didn't hear another word for over two years. I didn't know if she had told them I had contacted her or not....I wondered that maybe they didn't want to bother with it....just some long lost cousins...and maybe they really didn't need anymore cousins. Either way I had let it go for the time being. The only information that I was able to gather from the sister of the 3rd wife was that my cousin had died of a heart attack.

My uncle, Roy, had passed away on Christmas Day 2007. She told me that my father had been married many times....at least 5 but there was speculation as to the number of divorces....sounded like there might have been fewer....or things weren't necessarily done in the right order. My uncle had taken his ashes home to be buried in New Brunswick.....and that was about it. I think that was enough to stew on for a while.

Before I go any further, I probably should step back and organize the who's who of the McMullin family.....it gets complicated (understatement).

To begin....My paternal grandmother (Elizabeth Sullivan Cyr) was married twice. I am not sure what happened to her first husband. My mother's version of events has Mr. Cyr being killed when he worked on the railway. No matter....at this point, I suppose. What does matter is that it left my grandmother a widow with 3 children...Glenwood, John, and Glenna. She remarried, to Weldon McMullin of Perth-Andover, New Brunswick and had 3 more children...the oldest was my father Wendall (he went by Jim), then Elizabeth, and Roy.

My grandmother's first husband was an American and I think the first 3 children were born there (*turns out the were born in New Brunswick*)....my father and his sister, Elizabeth were born on the Canadian side of the border, though Roy was born in the hospital in Fort Fairfield, Maine. Unfortunately, my grandmother died, at the age of 39, on Halloween, the day after Roy was born, from complications of child birth.

Upon her death, Weldon (or "Stubb" as he was known), was left with 6 kids to look after. He was a young man in his 20's and wasn't able to care for them all, plus a new born...so the family was split up. The older boys were adopted by their American grand parents and given the last name "Sullivan". (Though census record show Glenna and John as having retained the last name "Cyr"....No wonder it's been so hard to find people!). Glenna, then a teenager, remained in New Brunswick to help care for Jimmy and Elizabeth. Infant Roy, as a new born, was too much to take on so he was given to another family for raising. Roy remained with that family until he was 6 years old. Unfortunately, the mother of that family passed away and he was returned to the McMullins by the father. I can't imagine how traumatic that must have been for a six year old.

At this point in the timeline there are still many big gaping holes. I know John served in the US Navy and died of malaria that he contracted in the South Pacific. When Roy grew up he left New Brunswick and, by virtue of being a US citizen, was able to join the US navy, too. My father joined the Canadian one. Elizabeth married and moved to Fredericton.....she might have studied nursing but I am told she really wanted to pursue a career in music.

I had no idea what happened to Glenn and Glenna. Mom said she new Glenna was married to a man who ran a hardware store in Fredericton and she had 2 adopted children, Pam and Butch. Elizabeth and her husband had 4 children...Moira, Grace, Mary Sue, and Will. I remember the names of the 3 girls on the Christmas cards Elizabeth sent my mother back in the 60's....Will was born in the 70's, but by then there was no longer any contact between his mother and mine.

I thought there was a shot at maybe finding out something about Elizabeth's 3 daughters since my gut told me they had probably grown up in Fredericton. Using their maiden names, I searched on classmates.com of all places. It seemed to make sense that there wouldn't be a lot of high schools in a small city like Fredericton and sometimes, classmates.com gives the married name and the maiden name. I tried Fredericton High School guessing at approximate graduation dates. My hunch paid off because I found them....and from there it was off to Facebook. One of the cousins had a profile picture that so resembled my sister, Patty, that I knew right away I had the right person. Her photo albums were public so for the first time I was able to get a glimpse of what people in my father's family looked like. And was able to discover a little bit about their lives.

continued in Part II