When this column was recently given the new name of
”
Making Connections,
”
little did I imagine how apt that title would be. When I wrote
about Elmo Powell (5/23), it led to the discovery that I have a
relative I had never met from my mom’s family in Oklahoma living
just eight minutes from my front door (6/6 column). Her name is
Wanda Lewis, and when we talked, she mentioned that Pat, her best
friend for 50 years had died last fall.
”
I used to go over and sit with her when she was ill,
”
she recalled wistfully.
”
Sometimes I gave Jim and Sandy a break.
”
When this column was recently given the new name of “Making Connections,” little did I imagine how apt that title would be. When I wrote about Elmo Powell (5/23), it led to the discovery that I have a relative I had never met from my mom’s family in Oklahoma living just eight minutes from my front door (6/6 column). Her name is Wanda Lewis, and when we talked, she mentioned that Pat, her best friend for 50 years had died last fall. “I used to go over and sit with her when she was ill,” she recalled wistfully. “Sometimes I gave Jim and Sandy a break.”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Jim and Sandy who?”
“Well, Pat’s son and his wife,” she answered, “Jim and Sandy Marlowe.”
I nearly fell out of my chair. Sandra Marlowe has been in the column (most recently, 5/30). She is one of Gilroy ‘s finest musicians, a local performing artist who teaches and the former musical director at my own church. Imagine my surprise that my newly discovered cousin Wanda has another connection to me in that she was best friends with my friend Sandra’s mother-in-law.
But it gets even stranger. It also turns out that in talking with Marlowe’s husband Jim, I learned we have a common ancestor by the name of Dr. Wilson Williamson Marlow (1816-1885). That means Jim Marlowe is related to my mom, her first cousin Elmo Powell, and Elmo’s first cousin Wanda Lewis as well.
So it turns out that Wanda and Pat were friends for 50 years without ever knowing that Wanda was related to Pat’s husband’s family. Sandra Marlowe told me: “My mother-in-law would get the biggest kick out of knowing her longest and best friend, Wanda, was related to her husband.”
When I received the e-mail that triggered the discovery of these connections, it came from Wanda’s daughter after she read the Elmo column. I noticed that she signed her name: “Linda Armenta,” and I had thought to myself, “Hmmm … I wonder if she’s any relation to Lili Armenta? Lili works as the volunteer coordinator and First Five Supervisor at St. Joseph’s Family Center , the nonprofit organization where I’ve been serving as president of the board. She grew up as one of 14 siblings in Costa Rica, so I figured there was no connection. But I wrote to ask Linda whether she knew my friend Lili, by any chance.
“Yes,” the reply from Linda floored me, “She’s my daughter-in-law!” After I told Lili the story of how her mother-in-law’s mother just happens to be my grandfather’s niece, Lili grinned and called me “cousin” the next time she saw me, to my delight.
In summary, what I learned is that without knowing we had any connection, I became friends with Sandra Marlowe, who just happens to be married to my mother’s third cousin, who just happens to live here in Gilroy, (more than 1,500 miles from where my mother’s family lived) and her husband’s mother just happened to become lifelong friends with my grandfather’s niece, whose daughter’s mother-in-law just happens to be a friend of mine with whom I work.
Who knows what undiscovered connections you might have out there? Sandra says, “I swear there’s only really 300 people in the world, and we just keep running into one another in various ways. Could it be that at some genetic level, we are connected and end up in similar environments and terrains, finding ‘our people’ so to speak? Kind of like those studies they’ve done on twins who grew up apart and yet end up having very similar lives, jobs and spouses. It really is all so fascinating – the interrelatedness of the human family eventually includes us all!”
