|
Twenty-five years ago, Myrna Holman and
husband, Johnny Holman, became the parents of a little girl they named
Laura.
The first time Myrna’s grandmother, Mae
Colson, saw Laura, her great-grandchild, she made the comment to Myrna
that Laura looked just like Myrna’s father. And it was that comment that
started Myrna seriously thinking about the possibility of finding her
father.
Up until that time, all she had was a
name, Charles Walker, a fellow who had lived in Illinois. Someone reading
this story might question why she waited so long to begin her search, but
Myrna’s answer is a simple one: she grew up with as much love as there
could possibly be for any little girl, so she really didn’t ask any
questions about her father when she was small, nor did she believe
anything was missing from her life.
But that comment from her grandmother
Colson started her thinking. If her own daughter looked like her father,
did she (Myrna) resemble him any at all? And what about medical
information she might need to know sometime? Thus, in 1978, her search
began, which she started by asking her grandfather, Hershel Colson, what
he knew about her father.
A last known address of Beaumont, TX,
was about all that was known, and it was with this little tidbit of
information that she began a long and drawn-out process.
The names of her father’s parents, Basil
Walker and Ola Walker, were the next bit of information she was able to
find out.
After many years of not getting
anywhere, and as time went along, computers that contain unlimited
information were made more and more available to most everyone. Armed with
only those two things to go on, Myrna went online.
She was overwhelmed with the hundreds of
Charles Walkers listed in the computer, and had no idea how to go about
narrowing down the number.
Her next step was through e-mail to try
to find vital records in the state of Illinois, where her father was born.
This resulted in running into another stumbling block when she was told
the state of Illinois is a closed state as far as information from birth
records is concerned. But some important information she was given by a
very friendly and helpful clerk was a website that might possibly be of
some help to her.
The clerk referred her to
www.ancestry.com, and after logging
on to that site, she was directed to go into the Social Security index,
under the family tree section, and to type in what information she had.
In the next few minutes, much to Myrna’s
surprise, there appeared on the screen her father’s name, his date of
birth, and the names of his parents. But it also contained information
Myrna had not counted on. His date of death was also listed.
The name of the person who had provided
this information was also on the screen, along with an e-mail address, and
that person turned out to be a relative of her father.
At this point, Myrna was not sure about
contacting that relative, someone who didn’t know she existed. She
hesitated to go further, but decided that since she had come this far, she
would go on with the search.
The person she contacted was her
father’s first cousin, Michael Walker, who lived in Springhill, KS.
After communicating first by e-mail,
Myrna then talked to Michael on the phone.
Information about
the family was exchanged between the two, things such as Myrna’s father
had been married to a woman from the state of Louisiana, and they had two
daughters whose names were Mary Ann and Sherry Ann, and at the time of his
death, he was employed as a Texas border patrolman. He died in an
automobile accident in 1973. She
also found out that her half-sister, Mary Ann, had died when she was only
25 years-old. |
