IN GENEALOGY, IT'S WORTH THE WAIT

When I was a kid growing up in Long Beach, California my mom used to tell me little things that happened in her life as a child. She grew up on a farm in Kansas, and she was faced with tornados instead of earthquakes, acres of crops instead of Victory Gardens, and stifling heat instead of afternoon breezes off the ocean. I was always interested in these stories and of course believed every word she said.

Among the stories was one she told about coming out to Newport Beach from their home in Caldwell, Kansas in April of 1920. She said her dad had some kind of illness that he felt the fresh salt air would help. He had tried Colorado Springs before and had experienced no change, so California was next on his agenda. Mother said she started first grade in the Newport Beach schools but that in a few months her dad packed everyone up - everyone being his wife, sons Bob and Byrd Jr. and daughters Florence, Virginia and Marie - and headed back to Caldwell.

When I started doing genealogy in 1984, occasioned by my mother's death and the realization that I was carrying around in my head lots of details about the life of the Ryland family and no one to confirm it with, I tackled the job of proving every thing she told me. None of her younger brothers or sisters remembered the California story, so I decided that when I finished with the major, more important part of my research, I'd tackle the Newport Beach story. I figured I'd run down to the Newport Beach School District to see if I could find any corroborating facts.

I never got around to it.

In 1984 I had located a fairly close Ryland relative, Verne, who still lived in Caldwell and as luck would have it, two of his three children lived here in California. One of those two had already done some research on the Rylands and over the years we swapped details and ideas. Verne died in 1997 and in the years since, his son has methodically gone through some of his dad's memorabilia. So imagine my surprise when one day in the mail I received a copy of a postcard that Verne had kept all these years (above). It was sent to Verne's mother by my grandma Ryland and gave me the confirmation I needed of my mom's trip to California. The postmark tells when and the postcard shows where.

Imagine! Almost 20 years after starting my research I received something new and surprising. In the scheme of things it is not all that important, but we who research understand that every tiny "find" adds one more dimension to the story we can leave for our children. Right now it probably doesn't matter to them, but it matters to me. And someday they are going to find this as interesting as I do.

Patience and serendipity, two important values for the genealogist.