Truly is a Small World

So now it is time to meet some family for the first time. All these meetings happened over a couple months time. This posting is on meeting one of my nieces from my Dad's first family. My oldest sister Gale, died in a terrible car accident when she was only 20 years old (I would have only been 3). She had 3 girls all under the age of 4. It was a terrible accident. As the story goes, my mother was to have been out with her that night. Thankfully she was not.

Now to put a twist on this... my niece Patty (one of Gale's girls) had seen me writing my name and number down for her and says, "That was my step-mom's last name, not sure if it was spelled the same but that is what it was before she married Dad." I say, "What was her first name?" "Rose," she says. I was like, "Interesting, that is what my father-in-law's one sister's name was I do believe." She said she'd check when she got home on the spelling. She then calls me not 10 minutes after she got home and reads Rose's obituary to me. I was like, "oh my God, that is her!" I come home and tell my mother-in-law that Henry's sister, Rose, married my deceased sister's widower!! Then I tell her that my niece was really nice and tell her name - and she about choked on her drink. She says, "I bowl on the league with her husband - for years!" So now Patty calls me Aunt Dawn and my mother-in-law Aunt MaryLou. I still shake my head at all this. My husband's aunt raised my nieces. Now of course, my husband's Dad never grew up with his siblings and that is why we did not discover this any sooner, but it truly is such a small world we live in...

My sister, Gale married Ron and they had 3 daughters together.

My sister's widower, two years later, marries my husband's Aunt and raised my three nieces.

Gale's girls shortly after her untimely death.