Serendipity In Genealogy, Part I

There are entire books written about serendipitous discoveries made in genealogical research.  I'm not sure if "serendipity" is the proper term, perhaps it is the gentle prodding of our ancestors that push us in the right direction. Nevertheless, here is my story. First the background information:

In the early 1990's, I became a college student, somewhat late-in-life, as I was already married with three children. I attended an English class at the local community college and one of our assignments was to read the book, "Coming Home Crazy", written by a Minnesota author named Bill Holm. I had never heard of Bill Holm although he had written several books by then.

"Coming Home Crazy" was a series of essays about Bill Holm's experiences while teaching in China.The book was interesting to me, as my husband and I had visited China in the mid-1980's. Perhaps because of my own China experience, or perhaps because our assignment included journaling while reading, the book left an impression on me.

At this time, genealogy was also beginning to take hold on me. One of my daughter's 7th grade classroom assignment, in 1990, included documenting a family tree. That's when I discovered that my husband's mother knew very little about either side of her family. Or perhaps she just didn't want to share. But either way, there was no information about any of her grandparents except for the name of her paternal grandfather, Samuel Hughes.

What my mother-in-law did know was that her mother's name was Anna Kline, born in Minnesota in 1883, married in 1916 to her father, Harry Hughes.

I graduated in December of 1994 and was then able to use my "spare" time to work on genealogy. My mother-in-law's maternal family was a total brick wall. I could find no record of Anna Kline anywhere. Of course, the records weren't quite as easy to search as they are now. I knew that her mother grew up in the area of Minneota, Minnesota but was unable to find anything else.

Now for the serendipitous story.

Sometime late in November or early December in the year 2000, I was reading the Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday paper. As is my habit, I started on the front page of the first section, and went page by page through each section. On the front page of the Entertainment section there was an excerpt of Bill Holm's latest book, "The Heart Can be Filled Anywhere on Earth."

I normally wouldn't read such a long article, but it attracted my attention because Bill Holm was the author and I remembered my college class with his book. In his new book, he wrote about his hometown, Minneota, Minnesota. At some point, the name "Sara Kline" jumped out at me.  I read the article again, this time more closely, scrutinizing the details about Sara and her story.

It was not pretty.

The fifth chapter of the book, entitled "Glad Poverty," told the story of Sara Kline, whom Bill Holm called the "bag lady of Minneota." He described her as "small, shriveled, hunched over... stringy, greasy hair... stale smell of unwashed damp rags, sweat, urine-soaked underwear, rotting food in rotted teeth, old cigarettes, the fetor that rises off a mattress that should have been thrown out decades ago.."

This was not exactly the family I was looking for. However, I couldn't ignore the fact that she lived in Minneota and her last name was Kline. So I thought about it for a while. And then I wrote down every fact in the article that I might be able to find in records.

Stay tuned for Serendipity in Genealogy, Part II.