A grandson grows, and my father is found

My favorite picture of Kegan--guess why? 

The long hair is so he can have a man-bun when he plays soccer

Happy Birthday to Kegan David Alter, who turned eleven today. He’s a real star on the soccer field and told me by phone that he won’t celebrate tonight because he has a soccer game. Celebration will come this weekend. Jacob couldn’t believe that his cousin hadn’t opened his presents yet.

As I wrote a few days ago, I’ve been searching for my father’s gravesite and, coincidentally, that of my younger sister who died at the age of six months, because I knew if I found one I’d find both of them. I’d always thought they were in a cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, where my grandparents lived, but there are multiple cemeteries there. I followed various leads—I found a record of my sister’s grave at Oak Woods, an old Victorian cemetery not too far from our Chicago home. Dad was a proud MacBain, and I am a registered member of the clan, so I called the office and they set their genealogist on it. She found a record in a cemetery at Peterborough, Ontario where I’m quite sure he lived at one time, but the associated names and dates were quite right.

Dad was president of the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine and administrator of the associate Chicago Osteopathic Hospital, now part of Midwestern University in the Chicago area (not the one in Wichita Falls). On a gamble, I called them and was referred to Dan Grooms, archivist. He’s my hero who solved the mystery.

McBain/Elliott plot

I have no idea who the Elliotts were

My father’s cremains and my sister’s body (I’m presuming in 1942 as an infant she was not cremated) are in St. Jude’s Anglican Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario. According to my new friend, Dan, the graves are in some disrepair, something I’ll look into when I’m in Toronto late next summer. In my childhood Oakville was a small town some twenty or thirty miles from Toronto; today it is part of the urban sprawl of the city. My grandfather was a minister, and this may solve another mystery—I’ve never been sure if he was affiliated with the Methodist church (as my dad was when I grew up) or the Anglican church, which would have been more logical. I’ll call tomorrow and get more information.

I have only vague memories of my sister, Jean Isabelle. She was born April 22 (also my oldest son’s birthday), 1942, and died that fall. My fleeting memories, as a four-year-old, include the day she came home from the hospital and the times I was allowed to sit—way back—on the couch and hold her. I remember nothing of her death, and neither does my older brother. We were told it was a cardiac problem, but I have long wondered about SIDS.

I was on such a discovery kick last night that I uncovered my brother’s father’s gravesite (he is really my half-brother; our fathers were colleagues and roommates at one point; both served in WWI and John’s father died in 1934 of war wounds). Found him at Mound Grove Gardens in Kankakee, Illinois—our mother’s hometown.

I’ve even found my grandparents’ house in Oakville on Google Maps—it was white clapboard and now looks to be brown shingle, but it’s the same house.

Who knows? I may have a new career in genealogical research—except I’d have to have Dan Grooms as my cohort.