Meanwhile, Not So Hubba Hubba

 

Pursuing genealogy goals is always a good research policy...until, that is, life happens. In my case, yesterday, life happened—and Thomas Puchała and the quest to discover this great-grandfather's parents will have to be put on hold. At least for one more day.

In the meantime, I took the opportunity to fly to Honolulu on the eightieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yeah, what was I thinking? If my husband had thought longer and harder about it, we would have gotten here a day earlier so we could actually visit the now-historic site on this commemorative day and immerse ourselves in the history that inspired his father to enlist in the U.S. Navy before he could even finish high school.

Meanwhile, I was wishing we had made the trip a day or two later, so I'd have one last chance to make it to a special sale. You see, the local newspaper just provided the headlines in their community section informing our little corner of the world that an antique shop had announced it was closing. Not just any antique store, though; this one was called, of all things, Hubba Hubba. And that was the store where a new-found genea-friend found all of Marilyn Sowle Bean's family photos.

Oh, I had bought plenty of the photos from that collection, once my friend messaged me with the tip to go find them there. But reduced price and great bargain nonetheless, it takes money to rescue as many photos as Marilyn kept. I always promised myself that I would go back and rescue the rest of them. Someday.

That someday, however, may have already passed. In the meantime, posting here at A Family Tapestry about the family lines related to Marilyn's parents and in-laws, I've since been fortunate to hear from a few of her distant relatives—and wished I could now go back with clearer eyes to thumb through the rest of those pictures. The names I might not have recognized before I am now much more well acquainted with. Perhaps there are more still to rescue. If I can get in touch.

As sometimes happens, the answer might come in the guise of a friend of a friend. In desperation, I've reached out to someone who knows a woman affiliated with the owner of the store. As uncertainly as a castaway on some tropical isle might cast a message in a bottle into the sea, I'll be sending my desperate plea to a stranger twenty five hundred miles away, in hopes of recouping that once-lost photo collection.

Some discoveries have a way of eclipsing our best research intentions.