Cousin Imogene, 1887

     According to the calendar, summer ends on Wednesday.  For us, it will end the same way it began – with houseguests and the threat of rain.  I am looking forward to the former and hoping for the best on the latter.
     Our houseguests are from Bath, England, and though we have never met, we have been in communication with them (well, with husband Colin) for more than five years.  Our contact began with a phone call and was followed up with this email:
     Very good to make contact with you a few minutes ago… I am delighted to have been able to put together these diverse parts of two interesting families.
     My interest is that I am the great grandson of the Civil War era blockade runner, Cuban gun runner and Arctic trader, Captain James Carlin whose oldest son, James Cornelius Carlin married Horatia Cornelia  (Shea) Richardson in about 1878 . They had a daughter Alline Imogene Carlin born in 1879/1880.
     This Captain James was quite a character not all of it very admirable but certainly fascinating! After James C. Carlin’s death at the end of 1880 in Salt Lake City she married Nathan Stein and may have had more children.
 Willard Espy mentions this James Carlin and I think his Uncle Sam Carlin, in his book and these Richardsons are of course part of his ancestry and the history of Oysterville… 
     Although we have exchanged many emails, I’m afraid I have been of little help to Colin who, according to his reckoning, may be a cousin “of sorts.”  Despite my interest in writing “generational history,” I really have a very limited knowledge of my family’s genealogy.  (That was my Uncle Willard’s bailiwick.)   However, Colin is determined to visit the Research Center of the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma where Willard’s archive is housed to take a look for himself. And, while he is at it, he’s coming to Oysterville with his wife so that we can get acquainted face-to-face.
     I have dragged out the old photographs from the branch of the family in question, hoping that some of the information on their backs will trigger recognition by Colin.  I do not have any of James Cornelius Carlin, but I do have one of my grandmother’s first cousin, Imogene Carlin.  It was taken in 1887, about seven years after her father, James’s death, and she looks to be seven or eight years old.  When I was a child living in Alameda, California, we used to visit “Cousin Imogene” who lived near us.  From my childlike vantage point, of course, she seemed like an old, old lady.  I wonder what she and my grandmother would think about this upcoming visit of Colin Carlin and his quest for information.