Calling W6RMQ . . .

Calling W6RMQ . . .


We lost Dad (aka my father-in-law, Welner "Bing" Tully) three years ago today.

He had been in hospital for about a week after his heart and kidneys failed, and he was on his way home when he died in the ambulance as it left O'Connor Hospital.

Dad was a ham radio buff from an early age - think of ham radio as his generation's version of Facebook or Blogger -- and instead of "friends," "fans," or "followers," he collected calling cards -- colorful postcards with the call signs, names, and cities of his fellow radio operators.  Here he is at his homemade radio station at his Aunt Amelia Binning's home on South Grande Vista in East Los Angeles, sometime in the mid-to-late 1930's.  


Incidentally, I think this is the only picture we have of him with "long" hair - after serving in the United States Army during World War II (as a radio operator in the Pacific Theater), he wore it "high and tight" for the rest of his life.  He used to say he saved money on combs that way!

I wonder if he has a radio station up there in Heaven, so we could tell him how much we miss him but how his spirit lives on through his family and those who loved him.

Caliling W6RMQ...Bing Tully, do you read me?

Did you know Welner "Bing" Tully, or are you a member of the Hoppin or Tully families?  If so, share your memories and comments below.
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Marriage Record of Francisco Perrotin and Maria Amaro

Marriage Record
of
Francisco Perrotin and Maria Amaro

Orizaba, Veracruz State, Mexico

March 3, 1889

The following is my translation of the Marriage record between my great-grandparents, Francisco Perrotin and Maria Amaro:

Number 25.

Second act of The Marriage of Francisco Perrotín with María Amaro


In the City of Orizaba, at nine in the morning of the third of March of one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine, before me, the undersigned Judge of the Civil Registry of the Town, appeared Citizen Francisco Perrotín, demonstrating that as the term prescribed by law for the publication of his convened marriage with Miss María Amaro, without no impediment imposed whatsoever against it, asked for a date and time to celebrate it. The Judge, certain of the above, by the individual and in agreement with him, indicated five-thirty in the afternoon tomorrow and signed with the same. = Mr. Galindo. Francisco Perrotin = Fernández


Number 26.
Twenty-six.
Marriage of Francisco Perrotín and María Amaro


In the City of Orizaba, at five-thirty in the afternoon of the fourth of March of one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine, before me, Agustín Portas Ariza, first Justice of the Peace, legal substitute of the the Town Civil Registry, by physical impediment of the second (judge), appeared with the object of celebrating their civil marriage, the Citizen Francisco Perrotín and Miss María Amaro, the first twenty-two years old, originally from and neighbor of this City and a mechanic, current in the payment of his personal taxes, son of Mr. and Mrs. Francisco Perrotin and Catalina Ogradi (sic), married, of legal age, of this vicinity, the first originally from France, industrialist and the second from Ireland. The bride is celibate and seventeen years of age, originally from Tecamachalco, Puebla State, of this vicinity, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rafael Amaro and Soledad Cid, married, of legal age, originally from Tecamachalco, of this vicinity and the first an artisan. Both bride and groom demonstrated that: their matrimonial presentation of the fourth day of last February having been verified, the publications having been made as prescribed by law, without any impediments having been imposed to the contrary; that the bride’s father having given his consent in the act of the presentation and ratified by same today, in this act they petition the present Citizen Judge to authorize their concerted union. In virtue of having fulfilled all the requirements of the law, the relative articles of the law of July twenty-third, one thousand eight hundred fifty-nine having been read to them. The bride and groom having been interrogated as to article One Hundred Fifty-seven of the State Civil Code, whether it was their will to unite in civil matrimony, each taking the other and submitting mutually to one another as husband and wife and in view of their affirmative answer, I, Agustin Portas Ariza, first Justice of the Peace in this city and legal substitute of the Town Civil Registry Judge, made the following declaration. In the name of Society I declare Citizen Francisco Perrotín and Miss María Amaro united in perfect, legitimate, and indissoluble matrimony. The final part of the aforementioned article was read to them. Witnesses to this union were the Citizens Félix B. Marín and Francisco Salas, both single and Francisco P. Carmona, married, all of legal Age, the first originally from AltoSonga and the second from Puebla, both of this vicinity and the third
from Veracruz. The present act was read to them, with which all agreed and signed and sworn = Ag. Portas Ariza = Francisco Perrotín = María Amaro, = Felix B. Marín, Francisco Salaz, F.P. Carmona.



Did you know, or are you a member of the Perrotin, O'Grady, Amaro, or Huesca families?  If so, share your memories and comments below.

Francisco Perrotin: 1866 - 1899

Francisco Perrotin

1866 - 1899

“The first cases (of yellow fever) in Orizaba were all of persons living in a small radius, close around the railroad station. In the next epidemic they spread out a few hundred yards farther and took in another block of houses a little farther off from the railroad station as a center, and it may be that in course of time they will establish themselves permanently a little farther off from the railroad station. But at any rate that point, at Orizaba, is the highest point where I found the Stegomyia mosquito permanently breeding in the country of Mexico.” 1   


My great-grandfather, Francisco Perrotín (seen here with his wife, Maria Amaro, their son, Francisco, and infant daughter, Catalina), was one of those “first cases.” A mechanic at the railroad station in Orizaba, in Veracruz state, Mexico, he was likely bitten by an infected Stegomyia fasciata mosquito as he worked on one of the engines there. He was pronounced dead at his home on San Cristóbal Street in Orizaba on Saturday, November 11, 1899, at 6:00 p.m., by Dr. Rafael Labardini, the Perrotin (and later Huesca) family physician. He was 32 years old.


A search for answers

The initial outbreak in Orizaba stunned scientists, as the offending species was not native to a city that rose 4,500 feet above sea level. Scientists and medical experts on the disease quickly descended on the area and traced the source of the disease to the mosquitoes breeding in the waste water from the Montezuma brewery, across the street from the railroad station in the port city of Veracruz. Mosquitoes were believed to have been transported inadvertently on the trains to Mexico City and were released when the cars were unloaded at Orizaba, accounting for the first wave of cases at and around that unfortunate station. 2

Yellow fever was the scourge of the late nineteenth century along the east coast of Mexico, the Caribbean, and several port cities in the United States and Central and South America. After a 3 – 6 day incubation period, victims suffered fever, headache, chills, jaundice and vomiting. Most people survived this first stage, while a fifth of those afflicted were doomed to die in misery, experiencing multiple organ failure, internal bleeding, delirium and coma. The vomit, which took on the consistency of coffee grounds (when it was in fact coagulated blood), gave the condition its Mexican name of El Vómito Negro – the Black Vomit. It might as well have been the plague for the terror it wrought in those days.


Although the modern-day world has seen a significant decrease in cases of yellow fever thanks to the wonders of vaccines, there still is no cure for it. Modern-day treatment for the disease includes offering the patient plenty of rest and fluids, blood transfusions for severe bleeding, and dialysis in the event of kidney failure.


From pot-maker to boiler-maker
If Francisco Perrotin’s demise was dramatic, so too, were his beginnings. We can trace the Perrotin family back to Melle, an ancient rural town in the region of Deux-Sevres in western France. It was rumored that his grandfather, Jacques Perrotin, had served with the Napoleonic Army. Francisco's father, Charles Jacques François, however, had refused to perform his obligatory military service and instead left Melle for America with his brother Romain Paul. With enough money for only one ship’s passage, Charles Jacques François smuggled the younger Romain Paul in a mattress onto the “good ship” Louis XIV at Le Havre, France, arriving at New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 29, 1843. Safe from capture for draft evasion, the brothers shortened their names to François and Paul.


The sons of a long line of chaudronniers / poeliers, or oven and pot makers, François and Paul were hard-working, ambitious, and creative. The brothers arrived in America during the last stages of the Industrial Revolution.  They became entrepreneurs, building stoves and ovens and figuring out how to use their metal-working skills in new ways. They made enough money to travel to Cuba, where they stayed for a time, and returned briefly to France to settle the affairs of their newly-deceased father before returning to the United States. In 1860, François married Catherine Grady, a young Irish seamstress who had sailed to America with her own sister some years earlier. The couple lived in Shreveport for a time before moving to New Orleans and later, it was said, to Niagara Falls before heading to Orizaba to make their mark on the flourishing railroad enterprise being promoted between Veracruz and Mexico City.

The Niagara Falls connection
And here is where the mystery of Francisco’s birth begins.

Family legend has it that my great-grandfather, Francisco Perrotin, was born in Niagara Falls, but no one can say for sure. His sister, Maria Dolores, was born on 15 September 1866, in Orizaba, Mexico. If indeed he was born in Niagara Falls, it could have been between 1865 and as late as March 1866, though the later he was born in this period, the more likely it would have been in Orizaba. Maria Dolores could have been born prematurely; hence, it would be possible that Francisco could be born in the same year as his sister and their mother become pregnant right afterwards. If he was born in Orizaba, it probably would have been after the first part of 1867.


Of the five vital records that mention Francisco, four place his birth sometime between 1 April 1865 and 31 May 1867. Only one, his death record, is way out of range. This would be understandable, as the informant, Porfirio Amaro (Francisco’s brother-in-law), would be more likely to have estimated his age.


1.  Marriage between Francisco Perrotin and Maria Amaro
     Date:  3 March 1889
     Age noted on record:    22
     Possible Birthdate Parameters:
     From March 4, 1867 on


2.  Birth Record of Francisco Perrotin, Jr (Francisco's son)
     Date:   31 March 1890
     Age noted on record:   24 
     Possible Birthdate Parameters: 
     Between March 4 and 31, 1867


3.  Death Record of Francois Perrotin
     Date:  26 May 1891
     Age noted on record:   24
     Possible Birthdate Parameters:
     Between 27 May 1866 and 26 May 1867


4.  Birth Record of Catalina Perrotin
     Date:  31 May 1893
     Age noted on record:  26
     Possible Birthdate Parameters: 
     Between March 4 and 31, 1867


5.  Death Record of Francisco Perrotin
     Date:  11 November 1899
     Age noted on record:  29
     Possible Birthdate Parameters: 
     Between 13 November 1869 and 12 November 1870


As the informant for his father, Francois’ death record, Francisco should be a credible source.  However, his age does not line up with the other records. I think it is possible that with all the grief he was going through and all the affairs he had to handle, he forgot that he had just turned 25 and stated erroneously that he was 24.


By removing Francois’ and Francisco’s death records, we narrow down the birthdate parameters and can conclude that Francisco probably was conceived almost immediately after his sister’s birth and would have been born prematurely in Orizaba, between March 4 and 31, 1867.   It also would mean that he was not 29 years old but 32 when he died of the horrendous Yellow Fever, or “Black Vomit” as it was then called, on November 12, 1899.


As for Niagara Falls, could a third child have been born there – perhaps before Maria Dolores and Francisco? Perhaps it was a boy – also named after his father but more likely “Frank” or “Francois.” This would seem plausible. Part of the legend surrounding my great-grandfather was that he was named “Frank” Perrotin. Could there have been a Frank Perrotin who died young, say, before Francisco was born in 1867? This, too, would be reasonable, as Francois and Catherine had some six years from the time of their marriage in 1860 to the time of Maria Dolores’ birth in 1866, to conceive other children during that time, though these conceptions could have resulted in miscarriages, stillborns, or childhood deaths. It still makes sense to think that Catherine and Francois left Louisiana shortly after their marriage, as it would not have been a desirable place to raise a family on the eve of the Civil War. Niagara Falls, by contrast, was home to a number of Frenchmen, refugees from the politics down south.


Though they may have stayed there for a few years and would been closer to Francois’ brother Paul and his own family (who lived in New Jersey at the time?), I think it became apparent at some point that Niagara Falls was not where Francois and Catherine wanted to spend the rest of their lives.


A new venture
Shortly after arriving in Orizaba, Catherine gave birth to two children within a short period of time. María Dolores was born on September 15, 1866, and (following the theory mentioned above) Francisco followed a scant six months later – a surprise if ever there was one. Though premature, the child was buoyed by the high tropical climate, where the air was pure and everything flourished, and he grew into a strong young man who followed in his father’s footsteps as an engine mechanic.  

Thanks to Francois' keen instinct for opportunity, the family was financially comfortable and well-travelled.  Maria Dolores married a British train driver, Timothy Bennett, at a celebrated wedding at the Orizaba train station in 1885, and Francisco married Maria Amaro in 1889.  He was 22; Maria was 18.  The couple welcomed their first-born son, Felix Francisco “Pancho”, a year later. Four other children followed: Juan, Catalina (my grandmother, or Abuelita, who was named for her own Irish grandmother, Catherine), Hugo Ramiro, and Blanca Luz.


The young family lived in a house on the "with the letter 'I' on the second street of San Cristobal" in Orizaba. Francisco and Maria (who presumably was multilingual like her husband) spoke Spanish, French, and English at home, and their children grew up speaking all three languages fluently and gliding easily from one to another, much as their parents had done before them.


François died of meningitis in 1891 at his home on the station property. A year later, Francisco and María’s infant son, Juan died of the same disease while still in his infancy. Shortly afterward, María Dolores and Timothy left for England with their own two young children. The grief of losing her father, coupled with the fear that the dreaded meningitis might affect her own babies, must have shaped María Dolores’ decision to embark on such a major change, although it is also probable that Timothy was ready to return home to his own family and origins.



Catherine, also grieving for her beloved François and missing her daughter, eventually decided to join her and her son-in-law in England. Though she hated to leave her son and grandchildren, Pancho and Catalina, she told herself that Francisco was going to be all right with his young and growing family, while Dolores, in a new land, needed her more. She left for England in 1895.  As she bade Francisco farewell, she may have wondered whether she would live long enough to see him and his family again.  Little did she know that she would outlive her son by two years.   


When Francisco died in 1899, Pancho was 9; Catalina was 6; Hugo was 4; and Blanca Luz (later called Blanca) was a month shy of her first birthday. Juan had died seven years before of meningitis.  

Of the five children, Juan was the shortest-lived, succumbing at the age of nine months, while Catalina (pictured below, left) would live the longest, dying in 1998 at the age of 105.

Pancho grew up to become a mechanic in the new family tradition. He married a woman named Ester, and they had two daughters, Catalina and Celia. He died in 1921 or 1922, probably in Veracruz state. My father, Gilbert Huesca, recalled that his Uncle Pancho had very Irish looks - a stocky build, red hair and fair skin. He also remembered that his Uncle owned a most unusual cast iron stove, untypical of the stoves in Orizaba at the time. Did Pancho build it? Or did his grandfather, Francois, the poelier?

Hugo became the family correspondent with his grandmother Catherine, his Aunt Dolores Bennett and his cousins overseas. When his letters stopped suddenly following a major earthquake in Mexico, the Bennett family assumed that he and all the rest of the Perrotin family in Mexico had been killed in the earthquake. (Contact between the two branches of the family resumed a century later, when Don and Jennie Murray of Highnam, England, contacted me and began correspondence, in June 2006.) Other than this, I do not know whether Hugo ever married or at what ever became of him.

The three Perrotin women had wavy dark brown hair and lively brown eyes, and they possessed an inner strength that was as appealing as their beauty. Blanca Perrotin was about 5’6”, slender, regal, proud, strong-willed, and beautiful. As a young woman, she was the image of her grandmother, Catherine, and perhaps because of this, she felt extremely close to her all her life, though Catherine had left Orizaba three years before Blanca was born. She was married briefly, but when she found out that her husband had a temper and was known to sleep with a dagger strapped to his calf, she either separated from or divorced him immediately and resolved never to marry again. Perhaps because of this and because she never had the family she had wanted, she became rather bitter. Her stern personality was quite a contrast to her sister Catalina’s, who was a happy person and surrounded by a loving husband and 11 children.

Still, Blanca (shown at right), Catalina, and their mother, Maria (Amaro) Perrotin, were very close. Aunt Blanca and her mother lived together all their lives, always next door or very near Catalina, first in Orizaba , Veracruz , and later in Mexico City. Aunt Blanca was the leading authority on the Perrotin family. When I was 9 years old, our family moved from Chicago to Mexico City. My great-aunt Blanca, my Abuelita (grandmother) Catalina, and my mother became fast friends, perhaps because of their shared Irish heritage, and they spent hours poring over family pictures and sharing family stories. Although she did not need to work, Aunt Blanca was an industrious woman and worked with her nephews (my paternal uncles) in their embroidery businesses. She died in about 1980 or so, roughly at about 88 years of age.

María Amaro Perrotin, Francisco’s widow (shown above), would live to age 98. A beautiful and attractive woman, she would marry again, twice in fact, after Francisco’s death, to foreigners; both of whom died of natural causes. She ran a bakery or café in Orizaba, helped by her daughters.  It was there that Catalina met the young Cayetano Huesca, who she would soon marry.

_____________
1  Dr. L.O. Howard, chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Entomology, reporting on the pattern of the initial outbreak of yellow fever in Orizaba during 1899, Transactions of the Second International Sanitary Convention of the American Republics, The Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C., October 9 – 14, 1905
 
2  Dr. Narciso del Río, one of Mexico’s top experts on yellow fever and a member of the Consejo Superior de Salubridad Pública.  Public Health and Reports, Volume 28, by the American Public Health Association, 1903


Post Script:  Revenge

My husband and I have been sick since last week with nasty colds - it is very damp here in California right now - and we’ve spent a considerable amount of time resting and reading. Last Saturday, I read up on yellow fever (not the best topic to tackle when you’re sick, by the way) and learned a considerable amount about Stegomyia fasciata, the species of mosquito that became infected and went on to spread the disease throughout coastal Mexico and beyond. It must have really made an impression on me, because when I went to bed that night, I had vivid dreams about mosquitoes and yellow fever.


Sometime during the middle of the night, our eldest son tapped on our door to ask where the bug spray was. It seemed that there was what he called a "gi-normous bug” flying around outside our bedroom, on the upstairs landing. Our son tapped again on our door a few minutes later and said he couldn't find the bug spray and was going to leave the bug there.


Now, normally one of us (not me, mind you) would have gotten up at that point to take care of the dreaded intruder, but my husband and I were too sick and too out of it to budge. Still, I knew what was out there and spent the rest of the night in restless sleep, terrified of being bitten by that horrible mosquito and getting West Nile Virus or some other blood-borne disease. Funny how one's mind can take off like that! When I awoke in the morning, I rolled up a nearby magazine, gingerly opened the door, and held my breath as I looked about the landing. There it was, just above the bathroom door.


"Damn you!" I yelled at him as I swatted it violently. I startled myself with my own reaction and then realized I had killed it not just for myself but for Francisco and the family he left behind. Looking at its flat, lifeless form on the magazine, it seemed ironic to think that such a small insect could have inflicted so much misery.


I went back to bed and slept quite well.




Did you know Francisco or Maria (Amaro) Perrotin or their children, or are you a member of the Perrotin, O'Grady, Amaro, or Huesca families?  If so, share your memories and comments below.

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Patricia Ann Fay

Patricia Ann Fay

Born: 12 July 1923,

Stuart, Iowa

Died: 16 January 1997,

San Jose, California

Faith, family, and charity were the recurring themes of Patricia Tully's life.

Born the youngest of eight children to Daniel Francis Fay and Sarah Ellen "Ella" Riney on July 12, 1927, in Stuart, Iowa, Mom - or "Pat," as she was called by those who knew her - was a sweet little girl who adored her brothers and sisters and was loved in return for her cheery and fun-loving ways.

When she was two years old, Pat followed her older brother, Francis "Frannie," into the fields to play. As Frannie tried to show her how to use a slingshot, he accidentally hit a beehive. With hundreds of angry bees swarming around them, the two panicked children fled. But Frannie, about 9 at that time, easily outran his baby sister, and little Pat arrived at the house with a multitude of bee stings. Her father, Daniel, picked her up and silently cradled the helpless toddler her in his arms. Years later, she remembered feeling safe and protected as he rocked her tiny, pain-wracked body throughout that long night. It would be her only memory of her father.

Daniel Francis Fay

Daniel Fay died a year later, in 1927, leaving Ella, a seamstress, to raise her eight children on her own during the Great Depression. Ella's strength, love, and spirituality made her a role model and hero to Pat, who remembered her passionately throughout her own life.

Ella faced her challenges bravely and not without a sense of humor. About a year or so after their father's death, she came home one sunny afternoon to find her four youngest children carefully carrying the household furniture outside. When she asked them why, little Pat piped up, "Because Frannie says we need a bigger house, Mother, so we're gonna set fire to this one!" The others nodded excitedly in unison.

Scooping up her youngest child, Ella matter-of-factly informed the other children that the family would not be moving, instructed them to return the furniture to the house, and calmly went inside.

Ella and Pat were extremely close. Pat would climb into bed with her mother every night, where the two would snuggle together, Ella calling Pat her "little stove" because she kept her mother warm. In the morning, she would awaken her daughter by gently stroking her forehead. These moments of tenderness would carry Mom through her life and help her to become both loving toward and beloved by all whose lives she touched.

Pat was 12 years old when Ella was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Ambrose had died five years earlier of tuberculosis, and Joe and Frannie, now adults, had left home. The only treatment center being in Chicago, Ella moved her five daughters, Katherine "Kay," Dorothy "Dot," Monica "Mickey," Adele "Del," and Pat to a small apartment on Chicago's South Side. Del and Pat entered St. Thomas Aquinas High School (coincidentally, my own mother, Joan Schiavon, would attend the same school a couple of years later).

When it became clear that the treatments were not working, Ella decided to return to Stuart to die. With little to her name, she made a special trip to a photography studio to have a portrait made of herself so she would have something to leave her children. Knowing she had little time left, she baked Pat a beautiful chocolate cake for her 13th birthday in mid-May of 1938, though Pat's actual birthday would not be until that July. On May 22, barely a couple of weeks later, Ella Riney Fay died, surrounded by her children.

Sarah Ellen Riney

The only things Pat had of her mother's were her parents' wedding picture and her mother's portrait. She treasured the pictures all her life and hung them near her bed, so that they were the first things she saw when she awoke in the morning.

After her mother's death, Pat and her sister Mickey moved to California, living together in Oakland for about a year until Mickey joined the WACS during World War II. Mom was on her own from that time on. Adversity had made her resilient, outgoing, and adventurous, and she and a group of her girlfriends moved to Honolulu, Hawaii for a couple of years before returning to California, this time to Santa Monica, where held a number of jobs and even learned to fly a two-seater prop airplane. She used to say that God was always watching over her because she was never without work.

A lovely young woman with an easy laugh and a love of life, Pat met Welner "Bing" Tully, a young World War II Army veteran, when she moved into an apartment in the same building in which he lived. They found a strong and common bond in that they had both lost their parents at an early age and had been on their own for a long time. They were married in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 1, 1958, moving to a small cottage in Topanga Canyon. As time went on, they would live in London, England, Santa Monica, Santa Maria, and San Jose, California, eventually celebrating 39 years of wedded life.

Pat and Bing forged their marriage based on mutual support and devotion and gave their children, Charles and Kathleen, a life filled with love and laughter and encouragement.

The consummate mother, Pat took great pride in her children and used to say they had never given her a moment's trouble. She never raised a hand to them but reared them instead with firmness, wisdom, and respect. Among her most prized possessions were their school pictures, a pencil holder that Charles had made her as a little boy, and a short story Kathleen had written in grade school. Once, when Charles was about 10 years old, he put a rubber rat on her Mixmaster electric mixer, probably thinking he would scare the daylights out of her. She thought it was so funny that she glued it right onto the base of the machine, where it remains to this day. She took great delight in baking birthday cakes for her family. No one could bake a German chocolate cake like Mom could. Your birthday was not complete without one of her famous cakes.

When Charles and Kathy were grown, Pat took on do-it-yourself home improvement projects. No sooner than Bing was in a limo on his way to the airport for a business trip, Pat would pull out her tools and begin painting, wallpapering, or sanding floors. Bing used to joke that when he returned home, he sometimes wondered if he had walked into the right house.

Left to right: Bing, Patricia, Charles, Kathleen, and Linda (Huesca) Tully, Christmas 1984

Although a sentimental person, she loved a good laugh and preferred an outrageously funny greeting card to a serious one. She entered easily into conversation with friends or strangers alike. She explored both sides of a problem and refused to judge anyone - "you never know what another person is going through," she used to say. She was a good listener, compassionate, and empathetic. She was always ready to put her own thoughts aside to be present for anyone who needed her ear.

Pat was proud of her Irish heritage and kept a number of books on Irish history and culture by her chair in the living room. A favorite song of hers was "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," and she loved to sing it to her grandchildren as she cuddled them in her rocking chair. The thought of her grandchildren's names being very Irish delighted her, and she claimed that each of them had "the map of Ireland" on their faces and in their eyes.

Material things meant nothing to her. Her riches were her memories of her mother and of Charles and Kathy when they were little, and her almost daily visits by her grandchildren. She was proud of the closeness she and her sisters shared, though they lived thousands of miles apart. She loved visiting them and reminiscing about the old days when they were all together, of how their mother had loved them all so much and of all the hardships they had overcome together after her death.

Pat and her sisters (and spouses): Clay and Dorothy Tillisch, Monica Shipley, Adele and Leo Bianchi, and Patricia and Bing Tully. Omaha, Nebraska, September 24, 1989.


Her family having been poor, she wanted to help others in any way she could, and she knitted scarves, mittens, and between 90 - 100 caps a year for the clients of Martha's Kitchen, a soup kitchen for the poor in San Jose. On cold winter nights, Brother Joseph Nuuanu, the director of the kitchen, and his staff would distribute the caps to their clients after meals, so that they "would leave the hall feeling full and warm." He believed that, "thoughout the years, anyone who wore one of Pat's caps was wearing her prayer; and everyone who wore those caps reflected a prayer (for her)."

She was never a "mother-in-law" in my eyes. She and my mother had been close, and when my mother was dying of cancer ten years ago, she asked Pat to be my mother in her absence. Pat was indeed my "mom." Saturday evenings, long after everyone had left the dinner table, we bared our souls to each other and talked for hours, about the Church, family, childrearing, and moral values. If there was one subject we disagreed on, it had to be our after-dinner drink of choice: she loved her coffee, while I preferred tea. "How on earth can you drink that stuff?" she would tease me.

In her later years, Mom lived for her grandchildren, Michael, Kevin, and Erin. She and Dad babysat them every chance they got, and she delighted in their growth and accomplishments. She was ever the doting grandma. She cried when each of them started preschool and beamed when they brought her nosegays of flowers from the garden. Her "babies" could do no wrong in her eyes. To her, they were perfect in every way.

Mom owed her deep love for the Church to her own mother, a devout Catholic who brought her to daily Mass and passed on to her daughter her devotions to the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary.

Erin, Michael, and Kevin

A long-time parishioner of Queen of Apostles Church in San Jose, Pat helped out in the office, edited the parish newsletter, The Queen's Herald, served on the parish council, and participated in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), a program for new and not-so-new Catholics who wanted to better understand the Church. She had many friends at the church: lay, clergy, and religious, and she spoke of them often.

Until her health worsened during the last eight to ten months of her life, she had never missed a Sunday Mass. The one exception she made, possibly her last Mass, was the celebration of Michael's First Communion on April 20, 1996. It was a highlight of her life to witness her eldest grandson receive the Body of Christ.

Although she had survived a surgery to repair six blockages in her arteries, the strain on her body began to take its toll, and the flow of oxygen to her brain diminished during the last year of her life. Her memory began to fade, but the things that mattered most to her all her life were the things she remembered up to the end. Her God, her precious mother, her family - these things never left her mind or her heart.

One sunny August day in 1996, she confided that she had forgotten how to knit. She was frustrated that she could no longer knit the caps she so loved to bring to Brother Joseph, but even this she tried to accept gracefullyand quietly.

She seemed to know that she would be leaving us soon, and she talked longingly and frequently of her mother. Her voice would trail off as she recalled stories about her mother, and sometimes she seemed to be in another world. She began to give little things to Erin, as if she no longer had any need for them. She talked of Charles and Kathy, of what good children they had been and how proud they had made her.

The evening of the day Mom died, we drove over to the house to be with Dad and Kathy. The children, at the time ranging in age from 8 to 4, understood that Grandma had died that morning, and they became excited as we entered the house. "Look!" they cried as they noticed some of her belongings. "Grandma left these behind!" I guess they thought that when you die, you take your things with you.

She left us behind, too, but thankfully, she left us with a lifetime full of memories - memories of a sister, a friend, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother whose life gently, lovingly, and gracefully touched all those who knew and loved her.

Did you know any of the people mentioned in this story, or are you a member of the Fay, Riney, or Tully families?  If so, share your memories and comments below.

Where the Flowers Is: How Dad Impacted the World

"Where the Flowers is..."

One of the great things about writing a personal blog, even one such as this, is that you get to write about whatever and whomever you want. One the of the hardest things about it, though, is that sometimes the things or people you want to write about are so close to you that it's difficult to do. I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's because you're exposing a piece of your heart to the world. Is that such a bad thing? I seem to wrestle with this a lot. In the end, I think it is only right to share that which is special to us with others, so that they, too, may be enriched in some way. And so it is with my husband's late parents, "Bing" and Pat Tully, both of whom were like a second set of parents to me.



How Dad Impacted the World


The following is taken from a remembrance I gave about Dad just after his death at age 85:


As we gather here today to remember Bing, I find myself also remembering his wife Pat, who died during a very stormy January ten years ago. Back then it seemed that the whole earth was missing her. Even the clouds were shedding tears.

But today, here we are, celebrating Bing and his birth unto new life, and it has been a sun-filled day and a bright, sun-filled week. And somehow that, too, seems right, doesn't it?

Welner Clayton "Bing" Tully - I have to call him Dad from here on out, because he really was like a second father to me - well, he was like the sun: shining brightly, filling our lives with his sunny smile and warm sense of humor.

He loved this time of year and never failed to entertain us with one of his silly rhymes, remembered just for the occasion:

Spring is sprung

The grass is riz,

I wonder where

The flowers is?

He certainly would have loved all these flowers here today. But even more, he would have loved to see all of you. We'd like to think that he does see you - from Heaven, where he is finally reunited with Pat, his parents, his sister Vivian, and the rest of his family. They must be very happy.

So why are we sad? We miss him, his smile, his twinkling blue eyes, his gentle ways, his corny jokes. This simple man, humble to the end, who managed a faint smile and thanked his nurses for their help, just minutes before he took his last breath. We couldn't get enough of him, and here we sit, wishing we had more time with him.


If he were here, he'd probably have this to say: Things could be worse.

I'm sure many of you have heard him say this throughout his life. No matter how bad the situation, he always found a way to look at the bright side of life. And whenever he said this - things could be worse - people just felt better. Yes, they'd agree, it could be worse, so maybe things weren't so bad, after all. Hearing those words seemed to give people the strength and encouragement they needed to get through whatever challenges life had given them.

Dad's life was not without its own challenges. He and his older sister, Vivian, went to live with their father's sister Amelia (nee Tully) Bining when their parents became ill and unable to care for them. It was the beginning of the Great Depression, and Amelia, who lived in a poor area of East Los Angeles, had children of her own and must have wondered how she would make ends meet with two new mouths to feed. But..."things could be worse."

Amelia couldn't say no to her family, and she raised Dad and Vivian as her own. She had little money but lots of live. Dad grew very close to her. He worked alongside her in her little grocery store, learning enough Spanish to help the customers, and he took on odd jobs to help the household. As soon as he was old enough, he moved out on his own so he would not be a burden on his aunt. He eventually the Army and was sent to India and Burma as a radio operator.

After the war, Dad returned to California and put down roots in Santa Monica, going to night school and earning a Bachelor's degree in engineering. He dated his fair share of ladies but was smitten in particular by Patricia Fay, a dark-haired, independent and fun-loving young woman who lived in the apartment below his. Pat's confidence belied her own struggles, having been orphaned just after her 15th birthday. I think they must have been good for one another and maybe together resolved not to let these tragedies get the worst of them but rather make the world a better place in spite of them.

Dad had a child-like sense of wonder, which endeared him to any kid who knew him. When Charles and Kathy were little, he was always helping them build things, or steady them on their bikes, or take them off to play tennis and grab a milkshake on the way home. All the kids in the neighborhood knew that Bing was fun on two feet, and many of them would knock on the door to ask if he could come out to play. He lay out on the grass with them, telling stories about the clouds, hung tire swings from trees, and built clubhouses out of boxes.

When our own kids were babies, he'd bundle them up in his navy blue terrycloth robe and quietly rock them to sleep. He and Michael used to take trips to Home Depot to buy supplies for projects, read astronomy books together, or camp out in the back yard.

Our own kids could not get enough of Grandpa. We recently learned that sometimes they would fake being sick from school, just so they could spend the day at his house. When a TV show called Pokemon was all the rage, Dad bought a Pokemon poster with pictures of the 100 or so characters on it. He framed it and hung it in his living room, and he memorized all the character names so he'd know who the kids were talking about.

There's this little yellow cartoon Pokemon character, kind of a fur ball and cuddly, with with big eyes, called Pikachu. Kevin loved Pikachu. So one day, Dad found a paper cup at a garage sale, with a Pikachu on it. Every time we'd go to visit Dad, he'd get that cup out, fill it with something or other and give it to Kevin. Then he'd carefully rinse and dry the cup so Kevin could use it again next time. This went on for about a year, until the cup finally fell apart. I think Dad was more upset about it than Kevin.
The kids loved rummaging through the house, because Dad always had some kind of treasure there. Once, when Kevin was about 5 or 6, he found a book of matches and brought them out to Dad's back yard to ask if he could light them. Dad said, yeah, fine, just do it in the dry grass so you won't catch the good grass on fire.

Once, when I was at work and Dad was taking care of Erin, he fell asleep in his chair on the porch. Erin was just learning to tie her shoes, and she got this bright idea to tie the laces on Dad's boots together. So she tied the laces over and over in tiny knots. Then she ran into the house to hide. Her giggling woke Dad up, and he called her to help him, but she thought she was in trouble, so she locked the front door and sat on the couch to watch cartoons. Dad worked his way over to the window. He started knocking and startled her so much that she fell off the couch. Neither of them could untie all the knots, so she had to get a pair of scissors and they cut the shoelaces to get the boots off of Dad's feet. He wore Velcro after that experience.

Dad wasn't beyond his own sense of mischief. Over the last year and a half, while he lived with us, he and Sugar, our Golden Retriever, became constant companions. Dad loved to feed Sugar, especially when he had no appetite but didn't want anyone to know. In the morning he'd always have two slices of raisin toast, but on the days he couldn't eat he'd wait until my back was turned and slip the toast to Sugar, who was only too happy to help. Once in a while I would catch them in the act, and Dad would give me that sheepish grin of his as if to say, "gotcha!"

Perhaps due to his Depression experience, Dad was a thrifty man, saving odds and ends for a rainy day or a chance to help someone else. I think I could safely say that they helped most of the people who knew him in one way or another. He never talked about it much, unless he wanted you to know where he'd been so no one would worry. But the little things he did meant a lot, and it gave him great joy to know he'd erased someone else' burden a bit.

He once pulled over the side of the freeway near Santa Maria to help a stranded traveler. He drove the man to a restaurant, bought him lunch, and got him a motel room, then went back and worked on the man's car so he could be back on his way the next morning. He did things like this various times, and when we'd find out, we'd worry that someone might take advantage of him, but they never did. It was as if he had an angel on his shoulder.

Another time, when he was living in his little house in the Rose Garden neighborhood, Dad saw a homeless man pushing a grocery cart down the street. He went out and gave the man some fruit, then invited the man to come back to the house once a week, so Dad could give him soda cans and bottles to recycle.

He retired early from his job so he could care for Mom when her health declined. It was a busy retirement, even after Mom died. Dad was never idle. With his engineer's mind, he loved mechanical challenges and was always fixing cars or appliances for us or others. "Why call someone else when I can fix it better and for less?" he'd chide you gently. He got a kick out of mowing neighbors' lawns and sweeping their gutters, or giving friends a ride to the grocery store.


His neighbors knew they always could count on him for a hand with anything. He never could say no to anyone and made time for all. To him, what is important in life is not how much you have but in how much you give to others. "My pleasure is double when they come to me in trouble," he loved to say.

In the last year and a half, Dad's health began to decline. His latest heart attack and kidney disease began taking their toll on his once strong body. He had difficulty caring for himself and began to lose his short term memory. He got in his car one chilly afternoon in February and disappeared for several hours.

Chuck combed the Rose Garden and beyond, hoping to find his Dd in one of his favorite haunts, but no luck. We got a call at about 6 o'clock that evening from a worker at the Taco Bell in Mountain View. Seems that after becoming lost on the freeway, Dad had pulled off the road and was in a daze. The Good Samaritan, who was on his lunch break, recognized something was wrong, took Dad to his house and fed him, then brought him back to work with him at Taco Bell while he tried to find Dad's family.

Days later, we learned that Dad has driven all the way to the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco, where the parking lot attendant helped him into the lobby for a cup of hot coffee while he checked the tires and fluids and sent him back on his way again. A fitting assist for a man who'd done much the same for another stranger many years ago.

Dad came to live with us after that. Though he came back from his many health setbacks like a cat with nine lives, he never really recovered fully and preferred lying on the couch, reading poetry, watching Judge Judy on TV, and discussing the day's events. No longer could he do many of his favorite things, yet he never complained.


He was always grateful for the slightest thing and took pleasure in listening to his grandchildren tell him about their day. On good days, he'd quote Shakespeare or Kipling, who he loved. Once he read me a new poem, in his then-halting voice. It went like this:

True worth is in doing, not seeming -

In doing, each day that goes by,

Some little good - not in dreaming

Of great things to do by and by.

For whatever men say in their blindness,

And spite of the fancies of youth,

There's nothing so kingly as kindness,

And nothing so royal as truth.

The air for the wing of the sparrow,

The bush for the robin and wren,

But always the path that is narrow

And straight, for the children of men.

We cannot make bargains for blisses,

Nor catch them like fishes in nets;

And sometimes the thing our life misses

Helps more than the thing which it gets.

For good lieth not in pursuing,

Nor gaining of great nor of small,

But just in the doing, and doing

As we would be done by, is all.

- Nobility, by Alice Cary

When he finished reading, he studied the poet's name closely, as if trying to memorize it. "Hmm...Alice Cary," he said slowly. "Well she must have been a pretty nice gal."

On really good days, Dad would mosey over to the window and marvel at the flowers. He loved the purple hibiscus and lavender roses out front, and he'd remind us that purple was his favorite color, though he'd add that he looked best in blue. He missed his friends but relished getting cards and calls from them and would read the cards over and over again.

In recent months, as his gaze became more distant, I used to ask him what he was thinking about. He'd smile slyly and reply with a wink, "I'm thinking about my wicked past."

When he went to the hospital three weeks ago, he was exhausted and weak. It was hard to be cheerful, but he mustered a smile for us and the hospital staff, never one to give a hard time. After all, he managed to whisper, things could be worse.

I think that what brought him the most comfort in his final days was seeing Charles and Kathy and Michael and Kevin and Erin. His eyes lit up when they entered the room. It was clear just how proud he was of all of them. They and Mom (Pat) were the core of his life.

I have no doubt but that Dad's memory will live on in our own lives. He would have liked most of this - knowing that we are remembering him here today. The one thing he might have scoffed at is the idea that we chose the poem we just read to remember him. The title is "Nobility." Dad never would have thought of himself as "noble" but rather as someone just trying to live his life the only way he knew how. Still, I think it's a fitting title for a poem about someone who put others first. Sorry about that, Dad, but remember..."things could be worse."

Now I think I know "where the flowers is." He was our sunshine, and we were his flowers.

Thanks, Dad. We love you.


- Linda



Did you know any of the people mentioned in this story, or are you a member of the Hoppin, Tully, Fay, Moreno, or Binning families?  If so, share your own memories and comments below.

A Legacy Renewed, A Cause for Celebration

A legacy renewed, a cause for celebration

On a cold wintry morning on the eve of the Civil War some 150 years ago, a dashing red-headed French baker and a wide-eyed, dark-haired Irish seamstress pledged their undying devotion in a loving embrace before God as they were joined in marriage in a small Catholic church in Shreveport, Louisiana. The bond they shared made them feel strong and invincible, the same way it had made their parents and grandparents feel.

The world lay before Francois and Catherine Perrotin, and they knew could do anything together. They dreamed of the places they would go and the children they would have, and they resolved that this wonderful love they had for each other would flourish and keep their family strong and close and great.

Little did they know that over a century later, a handful of their sixth and seventh generation descendants would also embrace in the atrium of a California hotel, brought together by the same bond that had united Francois and Catherine and reuniting a family whose branches, separated by an ocean and scattered throughout three continents, had lost contact for over a century.

(Left to right) Back row: Michael and Charles Tully; front row, Linda Huesca Tully, Gilbert Huesca, Jennifer Murray, Erin Tully, and Don Murray. Missing: Kevin Tully

Our reunion with Don and Jennie Murray of Gloucestershire, England, was definitely a dream come true and just as magical as we had hoped. My father, Gilbert Huesca, my husband, Charles, two of our children, Michael and Erin (Our son Kevin had to work that day) and I met the Murrays at the Burlingame Embassy Suites for brunch on Sunday, February 26, 2007. A very kind reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, Scott Herhold, joined us to cover the historic occasion.

Unlike some first meetings in which you look at each other awkwardly and try to think of something intelligent to say, we never stopped talking from the moment we met. How else could it be? With so many family stories to share and mysteries to explore, we plunged into a conversation that lasted until well past nine o'clock that evening.

We spent the rest of the week visiting local Bay Area landmarks, such as Mission Santa Clara, Big Basin State Park, Monterey, and Carmel. We also spent a fair bit of time at our home, studying family pictures, marveling at common characteristics, and figuring out who went where on our ever-growing family tree. And of course, we took a fair amount of pictures of our own.

By the time the Murrays returned home to England, it was hard to say goodbye. We felt we had always known each other, and maybe in a strange way, we had. It was as if Francois and Catherine, the links that had brought us together in the first place, had planned the whole thing.


Meeting Don and Jennie was just the beginning. We have stayed in close touch, sharing yesterday’s stories as we encounter them anew and laughing over today’s stories of our respective present-day families. Since our first contact, I have “met” seven other members of their extended family, living in Spain, Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

The e-mails and phone calls keep coming and along with them come old family pictures, letters and always, more stories. I am continually amazed by the pride in and passion for this heritage of ours – a common thread, it seems, perhaps sewn into the fabric of our family by seamstress Catherine O’Grady Perrotin.

I had hoped to write about this sooner, but I must make a confession here. The Murrays’ visit struck such a personal chord with me, that it has been almost too personal to write about. These long-lost cousins, this newly-found family, have moved my heart so deeply with their love for and devotion to one another and their desire to keep our history alive for those to come.

And yet it is important to record this event, because it is all about a very special celebration. Not just my own, or my father's, or my children's, or Don and Jennie's, but a celebration of our wider family - those who could not be there to join us but who share in this blessed family heritage.

It is about the reunion of a family whose branches each thought the others had perished tragically, only to discover them years later, alive and flourishing. It is about individuals who taught each other about their ancestors and in turn learned something valuable about themselves. It is about an appreciation of grandparents and great-grandparents and collateral relatives we never knew but whose quiet influence still reverberates in our own lives. It is about a celebration of the family.

To celebrate the family is to know that we are not alone. Whether near or far, whether we know it or not, another person shares a common facial expression, walks the same way, cries for the same reasons, drives a similar car, maybe even likes the same movies or gives their children the same names.

To celebrate the family is to understand who we are and how we got to be that way. It is true that each of us is unique, but we are who we are in great part thanks to – or in some cases, in spite of - someone else who was there first. Someone blazed a trail for us, consciously or not and whether we chose to follow it or not. Though they lived in a different time and place than we do today, their experiences and challenges may have been similar.

The experiences that touched our ancestor’s lives, from major events such as migrations, wars, and disasters to everyday occurrences such as courtships, Sunday dinners, misunderstandings, and vacations, to personal characteristics such as a particular skill or choice of a common trade or religious convictions, form us in mind and heart.

To celebrate the family is to honor those who have gone before us. We discover and learn from their struggles and triumphs, share their joys and cry over their sorrows. We rejoice in the present, daring to live with purpose and faith and passion, giving unabashedly of ourselves to our loved ones near and far. We look ahead to the future, keeping alive the traditions, stories and values that define us, in the hope that they will enrich the lives of those who are yet to come.

In doing all these things, we reinforce the foundation that was laid so long ago and pay tribute to a family that has taken risks, supported each other through good times and bad, and thrived through the generations.

Thank you, Francois and Catherine, for your legacy of love. It has endured and grown beyond your wildest dreams, and it is what binds us together and keeps us strong and close and great. And that is cause for celebration.

Are you a member of the Perrotin, O'Grady, Bennett, or Huesca families?  If so, I'd love to hear from you.

A Dream Come True

Perrotin Family Reunites for First Time in 112 Years

Tonight my family and I will bust a decades-old family myth when we meet for the first time members of a branch of the Perrotin family, who were supposedly killed by a bomb during the Second World War.

Their names are Don and Jennifer Murray, and they are very much alive.
They are making a special stopover in California on their way home to England from a vacation in New Zealand, and we will meet them for dinner tonight. The story of our reunion is almost as exciting as the life story of our ancestors in common, our great-great grandparents, Charles Jacques Francois Perrotin and his wife, Catherine O'Grady.




















Charles Jacques Francois Perrotin and Catherine O'Grady, New York City, 1884
Since childhood, I had been told that my great-great grandfather, Charles Jacques Francois Perrotin, and my Irish great-great grandmother, Catherine O'Grady, left France in a hurry in about 1836. It seems that at the time, all young able-bodied French men, when they turned 18, were required to serve in the military. For whatever his reasons, Charles Jacques Francois decided he would not serve, and our generations-old family story went that he and Catherine decided to go to America. But there was a hitch: they couldn't afford to buy two tickets, so they bought passage for Catherine and she smuggled Charles on board in a mattress.

Our family story continued that Charles (who became known as simply "Francois" after arriving in America), went to Niagara Falls and had a son, my great-grandfather, Francisco Perrotin. We were told that at some point the family moved to Veracruz State, on Mexico's east coast, and settled in Orizaba, where Francisco married and had my grandmother, Maria Angela Catalina Perrotin and her brothers and sister.

It was a romantic tale, one that everyone in our family knew and loved to tell. My grandmother and my great-aunt Blanca were especially proud to be Perrotins. We didn't know much else about our beloved ancestors, just that there was something special about them.

As a teenager, I began asking a lot of questions about our family. When my family would visit our relatives in Mexico City, I would sit at the table to listen and sometimes take notes as the adults told family stories. My great-aunt Blanca was usually delighted to have an audience and would pull out her boxes of family photographs and tell me about the people in them.

Blanca Perrotin, granddaughter of François
and Catherine, looks at our wedding pictures
with a young cousin.  Mexico City, 1984.

One afternoon my aunt - we called her Tía Blanca - took out a set of pictures from about the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th centuries. There were pictures of people sitting in a large room with potted palms on a tile floor. The women wore dark, long flowing skirts and had their hair done up in chignons. The men wore suits and stood proudly by. There were also photographs of some young boys in gray military style uniforms and caps. 

Tia Blanca said those were the Bennett boys, British cousins from our Perrotin branch of the family. Her eyes were quite lively as she talked about the Bennetts and their lovely home in England. This was exciting news, as I had no idea we had any British relatives. When I asked her for their address, she became quite upset and began to cry. They were all dead, she said. The Germans had dropped a bomb on their house during World War II. The entire family had perished in the blast.

Being young and impressionable, I was dumbstruck and devastated. You would have thought it had just happened. For years after that, I often wondered about these Bennett cousins, who they were, what their lives were like, and I would feel such a sadness that they had suffered such a terrible fate and that I would never know them. Sometimes I would dream that they were alive and that we went to their home in England. They were happy dreams.


As I researched our family, I continually hit a brick wall when it came to the Perrotins. I'd find information about most of the other branches of the family, but all I could find of the Perrotins was a ship's passenger list with names that were at best questionable. You'd think that the Perrotin family had never existed.

And then one day in June 2006, some 34 years after I saw those haunting pictures of the Bennett cousins I thought I would never know, my dreams came true.

Don and Jennie Murray, of Gloucestershire, England, sent me an e-mail inquiry regarding a family tree I had posted on the Internet. They had recognized Francois Perrotin's name and wondered if we might be related. It turned out that Jennie and I were third cousins, Francois and his wife, Catherine O'Grady, being the link between our families.

Jennie's great-grandmother was Maria Dolores Perrotin, Francois and Catherine's eldest child and the sister of my great-grandfather, Francisco. Maria Dolores and her brother, as it turns out, were born in Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico. Maria Dolores married Timothy Bennett, a British train driver with the Mexican Railroad. The couple moved to England in 1892 and had eight children (six of whom survived into adulthood). The closest the Bennett family had ever come to a bomb, Jennie said, was when her father helped extinguish a fire caused by some incendiary bombs dropped in the forest near his home, though no homes were hit.

Maria Dolores (Perrotin) Bennett and her children at
the family home, Orizaba Villa, in Ruardean, Gloucestershire.

Jennie, too, had been told many family stories about her Perrotin ancestors, and a year ago she and her husband, Don, vacationed in France, where they found a treasure trove of birth, marriage, and death records for the Perrotins.

There was something else. Jennie's family believed that my branch of the family had been killed, too, but not by a bomb. Apparently, letters to Maria Dolores from one of my great-uncles, Hugo Perrotin, stopped abruptly in the early 1900s, at about the same time there was a strong earthquake in Mexico, and the Bennetts concluded that all of the Perrotins had died in the earthquake!

Are they Bennett cousins?
My great-aunt thought so.

The brick wall quickly began to crumble as we began an e-mail correspondence that will culminate in our meeitng for the first time this evening, here in California.

Another photo from
Aunt Blanca's scrapbook,
possibly a Bennett cousin.

We have so much to learn about each other, but for now, we know that we share many things.

We both come from strong oral family traditions. Lots of family stories (and as we know now, family myths, too), proudly and lovingly passed on from one generation to another. It turns out that Catherine is a common family name. Both our grandmothers were named after their own grandmother, Catherine O'Grady -- Jennie's grandmother being Catherine Bennett and my grandmother being Catalina Perrotin. The name has thrived through succeeding generations on both sides. There is a strong resemblance between both sides (dead and living) , even after all these years.

The greatest thing we have learned is that we share a common family spirit of love and reverence for those who have gone before us, as well as a passion for and devotion to our families and our descendants-to-be and a desire to leave some record of our rich heritage for them after we are gone. I believe that this love and devotion to family are what have led us to find one another, 112 years after our respective family branches were separated.

I pray that this love will continue to grow and keep us united, both now and in generations to come. And I also pray that this will be just as special a memory for our children as it will be, undoubtedly, for us.

And what of Francois and Catherine Perrotin? Much more, it turns out. I will cover them in a future post.

- Linda Huesca Tully


Are you a member of the Perrotin, O'Grady, Huesca, or Bennett families?  If so, I'd love to hear from you.