It takes a village

I’m 73, and until six months ago, I did not know who my father was. It’s complicated. Families are. Last week, on the day before Mother’s Day, I met, for the very first time, a relative on my paternal side. Our community played a role in this. Like these stories tend to go, it started with the kindness of my friend, Joyce Newlin, hearing my need for answers, and encouraging me to start a DNA search on Ancestry.com. Joyce is an ace on Ancestry, and she never gave up. I had NO close matches on my paternal side, which left very little to go on to solve the mystery. After two years of work, and finally enlisting the help of another expert, we found the father I’d hoped to find. Alas, he had passed away many years ago. But this is where this story begins.

Our search to identify my father was more difficult because both he and my mother had no siblings. All of my DNA matches on my paternal side were very distant. Joyce encouraged me to reach out via Ancestry message to my closest match, a distant cousin. She kindly responded. Randy is blessed with an abundance of family members, so I’m grateful she had the curiosity to meet a distant cousin. I grew up in West Virginia. I messaged Randy that my husband and I live in Fernandina Beach, Florida. Much to my surprise, Randy responded that her family has been in Jacksonville for generations. I thought, “WHAT are the chances we ended up this close geographically?” Then she added, “We have a place in Fernandina.” Beyond amazing, right? We traced our great-grandfathers, Sicilian and Noah, brothers who lived in Ohio in the 1800s. Here we are, generations later, living within two miles of each other on a small Florida island. No small journey.

Randy and I set a date to meet for coffee. We easily chose our meeting spot at Story & Song Bookstore Bistro, a heartbeat of our community. Randy’s husband Allison joined us briefly. It turns out that we all know owners Donna and Mark. If they had been there that day, we would have introduced ourselves to them as cousins. We did giddily introduce ourselves to staff and customers who were within hearing! We've both attended many programs there. My October Press letterpress cards and broadsides are on consignment there. Allison went into the store and returned with a book for me. It was the recently published "Keeping North Florida Wild" by the North Florida Land Trust, the organization Allison leads. His personalized inscription begins with “To my cuz.” We share many friends and members of this supportive community. I like to think Sicilian and Noah would be pleased. Randy and I promised to visit more. We took a quick selfie for celebration. I’m left with profound gratitude for our community here, for my friend who never gave up helping me find an answer I needed, for Story & Song, for Fernandina, and for family found. It takes a village.

Deborah Kessler is a retired librarian. She is currently proprietor of October Press Letterpress. Her husband Barry Puhr is a retired social worker who can be found most days on a pickleball court (when he isn’t in physical therapy!). They have lived in Fernandina Beach for 14 years.

If you have a story you'd like to share here in the Fernandina Observer — about a neighbor or friend or stranger or business that showed kindness, or about kindness and compassion in general — please contact Peggie Weeks at pegweeks@gmail.com