"The Only Grandmother I Ever Knew"

Sometimes, our work in digging up family history can unearth some details which upset our relatives' understanding of their relatives. As much as I appreciated my long-deceased father-in-law's brother Edward, who as "Uncle Ed" guided me through the generations of the Stevens family, once I began researching in earnest, I uncovered some conflicting details. 

My first step in such cases, of course, was to consult him. After all, he was my guide through all the names and dates, thanks to all the records, letters, and other memorabilia that family had stored for decades. But when I asked him about his grandfather John Kelly Stevens' wife—on paper, Ed's grandmother was named Catherine Kelly, another confusing detail—he mentioned the name of another woman: Theresa Blaising. "She's the only grandmother I ever knew," he reminisced.

That indeed was true, for Uncle Ed's maternal grandfather was long gone by the time he was born, and his maternal grandmother died when he was still an infant. Even his paternal grandfather John Kelly Stevens died when Ed was a young boy, so the only grandparent left to him was Theresa.

As it turned out, Theresa, living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, wrote many letters to her step-son and his family over the years. In the family's true packrat tradition, several letters—if not all—were saved in a special keepsake drawer at the Stevens home in Chicago until years later when Ed's widow gifted them to my husband.

Knowing the techniques of family research, it wasn't hard for me to find Theresa documented in several of the usual resources genealogists frequent, so I've already found much on this woman. I selected Theresa as one of my Twelve Most Wanted for this year because, despite not being a "blood" relative, she played an important part in the lives of my father-in-law's family, and I'd like to learn more about her own roots. This month will launch us into that journey of discovery, beginning with a review tomorrow of what is already known about her, thanks to family memories.