Family History: Sometimes you get the shivers

Every once in a while, a family historian will find something that gives the shivers.  It can be pleasant, or unpleasant.  And sometimes, it can be very intense.  That happened to me.

Like many families, my family wasn't close.  After my folks divorced when I was five, I almost never saw my father's siblings.  His brother, George Leslie, lived in California, so that was easy to explain.  His sister lived about fifteen miles away, so that was harder to explain.  But like many families, it was what it was.  (Shrug.)

Dad's brother was George Leslie.  I saw him a few times when I was a kid, and then once, just by chance, when I was 28, and then never again.  I used to be amazed at how seldom my wife got together with her cousins, but later I realized that my own cousins were complete strangers.

George passed away some time ago.  I reconnected with his wife, my Aunt Pat, a few years later, and the family historian in me kicked in.  I asked Pat about George, and what he had been like.  It quickly became clear that we would have liked each other a lot.  She said that we had the same sense of humor, an interest in history, and broad other interests.  George was career military, which had been a dream of mine until I realized that I would flunk the vision portion of the physical. 

When we got down to details, my hair stood up.  George graduated from Oregon State University in 1939. I graduated from Oregon State University in 1979, exactly forty years later. Cool. We walked the same campus, studied in the same halls. Stood under the same trees to get out of the rain. 

After the war, the army decided that George needed more education to become a senior officer.  (He ended up a full Colonel.)  So they sent him to the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned his MBA, in 1947.

My career took me to Pittsburgh as well.  I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh.  You guessed it, in 1987.  Exactly forty years after my Uncle George.

It's interesting to realize that I probably walked the same pathways and hallways as my Uncle George, not dozens, but literally hundreds of times. 

Sorry I didn't get to know you, Uncle George.