I have a relative in an assisted living facility in California. I think she is my second cousin and there might be a 'removed' in there somewhere. Our common relative was a Major in the Civil War on the Union side who we know fought at Shiloh and later with others of the Fenian Brotherhood who in the interest of Irish Independence, decided to invade Canada as a base of operations against Britain.
The failure of that operation to achieve its goal resulted in him moving his family from upstate New York to Utah. He had two sons, one was my great grandfather Heffernan who had a trading post on the Ute reservation in southern Colorado/Utah. Joanne's grandfather (she is of my mother's generation) brought up his family in Arizona, and was in 'investments' of some sort which seems to have provided a lot of money for Joanne to finish her days in the expensive assisted living facility.
Joanne and I got together several years ago when she called Information in the Denver area looking for people with my mother's maiden name. She talked to one of my cousins and he referred her to me. Eventually I went to Los Angeles to meet her and I don't know if there was any family resemblance. She has muscular dystrophy and never married. She and her mother worked in a hospital laundry their entire careers.
We talk two or three times a year - on our birthdays and Christmas and I send her holiday cards including for St. Patrick's Day.
Joanne called me yesterday and said she thought she'd had a slight stroke and her speech is slurred. I thought she sounded better than I'd ever heard her, and told her so; if she did have a stroke, it affected her speech for the better.
Anyhow, she decided to read some riddles to me and see if I could guess them. There must have been 10 or so, and I hate riddles because I never get them, but she kept at it. I finally did get one right:
What is yours that other people use more than you do?
One I didn't get:
What has holes on the top, bottom, and sides and yet holds water?
I will be calling Joanne on August 26 for her birthday. Thank goodness it is the same day as our wedding anniversary so I am not so likely to forget it; I am not a very good rememberer of birthdays. She will be 75, so I might try to track down a special card. She has two sisters who visit her often and always make a fuss over her, sometimes I suspect it is because they want to make sure she leaves them the money she got from their grandfather.