Finding Family

Through 23andMe, I have found a branch of my family tree that I didn't know existed. 

My grandfather, Howard McConnell, is on the left, posing with his brother George in about 1904. I never knew if George had children, and it turns out that he did. He had two daughters. And now I am in touch with George's great grandson. 

My mother was an only child. Howard died when she was twelve. By then he had an artificial leg having lost one in a train accident whose details were never shared. At one point, he owned a pool hall. How was it that he married my classically-trained-pianist grandmother Ruth? Proximity, to be sure. Their families lived around the corner from each other. But I wish I could go back in time and hear the conversations they had. And I wish I could hear what the brothers had to say to each other on the day of this photo.

Mom adored her father. A daddy's girl, she undoubtedly became a different person after he died so suddenly.