Paying it Forward

So the other day on Facebook I get this message from a woman's name that I did not recognize. I was just about to hit delete without opening the message but something stopped me. I knew a few women with her first name and thought perhaps it might be one of them so opened the message. OH MY GOSH! I am so happy I did! She starts off with I hear you are writing a Cloutier book and are looking for some pictures? I'm thinking what? She goes on to say her grandmother was my paternal grandfather's sister so we were 3rd cousins!! At least I think that makes us 3rd cousins. I have not seen her in who knows how long. Anyway long story short she now has moved back to my home town has a lot of pictures and information for me!!

As if that was enough after I stopped screeching in her ear well as about as screeching as you can get online with typed words, she gave me the name of a man in Calgary who "inherited" a box and more of family pictures from his mother but as he has been going through them he notices that a lot of them have nothing to do with his family. He talks to her as he knows her grandmother was one and would she like them. So she said actually I have someone I just found who would be thrilled to take them off your hands. I called this man in Calgary last night and he is actually going to be driving from there to my mom's (which is 6 hours away)when I am there in 2 weeks to hand deliver all these pictures one of which is at least 2 feet long and was some sort of family gathering for the Cloutier's!!

I am not the least bit embarrassed to say I spent a long time on my knees last night thanking God for opening doors for me when it comes to my family history. Doors that have seemed completely locked tight. I was at the family history centre last night as there had been a training class and as I am recounting my story to my co-worker I was trying to figure out how I could scan all these pictures when I get there cause some will remain with them. Although there are my family members in the pictures, there are their family members in some of them too (small town!!) so she said no problem I have one of those small flat scanners that you can take with you and scan them at your mom's!! Could my day get any better????

I know I know you are all thinking what is she so excited about it's barely 8 in the morning!!! I am excited because of a promise I made to my grandmother Amanda Marie-Ange Beauvais Cloutier that I would make sure that I would do everything in my power to keep our family history alive.