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And Then a Miracle Happens: A Story of Search and Reunion, Page 2

My Uncle Jimmy had married young to a local woman, Elizabeth, and they had had an extraordinarily happy life together, married fifty-five years and, as granddaughter Kelly put it, "Still like love struck teenagers." He and Elizabeth had one son, Jim, and just granddaughter Kelly as well as two step grandchildren. He is thrilled with my appearance in his life and I thoroughly enjoy our regular phone calls and correspondence. Sadly, his wife Elizabeth passed away in late November 2001. But Jimmy now had a new mission to ease his grief—aiding me in the search for his sister and other missing brother, Michael.

Between the ever-helpful Judy in London and my Uncle Jimmy in Manchester, we ran checks of marriages in the UK, thinking that perhaps my mother had come to the UK from Ireland after 1961. Jimmy knew many women of his generation with good sewing machinist skills who were able to find work in the numerous UK textile factories and mills. We felt this might be a likely destination for her with her training background. Judy had run UK marriage checks for me some two years before, but although there were some reasonably close entries, we were unable to match my mother's exact date of birth with any of them. However, having run them again, one showed up as a Josephine born 1940 who had married in 1966. My Uncle Jimmy thought this one should be written to, regardless of this mismatch in year of birth. His plan was to send oblique letters to a few of the close matches and see if anyone responded. He included some information about my mother's background that only she would know and sat back and waited.

Less than a week after his mailing, a woman called who matched all of the details Uncle Jimmy provided, except for year of birth. As Jimmy went through a list of questions, she seemed to become more and more agitated, and finally begged off. Uncle Jimmy was perplexed, but gave it a week and decided to try phoning her this time. She became more skittish and finally said she couldn't be the right one and besides, she had family of her own to consider.

We all took a step back to compare notes and decided Uncle Jimmy would try writing to her. By this time, he had managed to obtain an early photo of his mother, my grandmother, Johanna. It was taken in 1932 with her sister, one of her uncles, and an unknown gent in Manchester. In his letter to Josephine, he stated he had copies of the photo and would gladly send her one. The reply he received was quick and curt. She wanted nothing to do with any of it and continued to claim he had the wrong woman. But between Jimmy, Judy and I, we were nearly 100% sure it was she. A private investigator based in Dublin who had also been assisting me reviewed what we had and stated he thought we had the right woman.

I was in a quandary — if this woman wanted nothing to do with her brother, whom we all felt was a much safer and less threatening contact than me — what was I to do?

The general consensus was to let things lay for some time. Perhaps Josephine would have a change of heart. Meanwhile, we did some background work to help ascertain for sure it was her and to see if we could find another avenue of approach. Judy and I learned from her marriage certificate that Josephine lived at a certain address in Wiltshire in 1966. Through various online directories, we found the owner of this rooming house still at the same address. Judy called him with some trepidation, simply stating she was helping a friend in the States with some genealogical research. Our man in Wiltshire, from Co. Sligo originally, was more than happy to help and swore he would do so discreetly. Turns out he not only remembered and knew my mother, but still saw her regularly about town and at Mass. He would see what he could learn and get back to Judy.

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