52 Ancestors Week 7: Letters

This week’s theme is “Letters & Diaries.”
When truth is put in one's own handwriting.

If you read the blog post from last week, Surprise, DNA Version, this is a carry over from that discussion.

Letters?  Oh, I have letters!   I have letters in my biological father's handwriting that he wrote me over a span of two years (after he found out that I was his biological daughter - well, after it was confirmed by DNA).

Oddly, I only have one photo of us together.  This photo was the weekend that we met as adults at his home in Buckhannon, West Virginia.

But, let's get back to the letters.  Do you want to read them???

Click on Read More to see the picture....

There were many letters from Oden, and almost all of them had the same wording: "I swear I didn’t know." While I will never know the full truth—he has passed away, and my mother refuses to share her side of the story—I believe he did know about me.

He once told me there were plans for him and my mother to divorce their spouses, move out West, and live there while he (wait for it) attended seminary school. Let’s think about this for a moment. Two people were going to divorce their spouses, leave their kids behind, and start a new life out West? I don’t think so. To me, this sounds like a dream concocted in the wake of a pregnancy. That would be where I come into the story, right? But the truth will never be fully known.

And, of course, they never moved out West. Oden never divorced his wife. My mother divorced my father when I was in kindergarten. She remarried twice more—one marriage ended in divorce, and the other left her a widow.

The Letters, in random order:

I have no problem sharing these personal letters. Some have been cropped to protect the identities of other living individuals. There are other letters that I did not include in this post.  Together with DNA evidence, these letters help validate my legitimacy.

One Day, I will get better scans of these.  

All of these letters (and more!) are currently in a safe deposit box where they are safe from fire and theft.

It has been said that DNA alone does not confirm a relationship without a source document.  I have no other source documents except for these letters in his own hand.  

My mother lied on my birth certificate and put my Dad's name as the father of her child since they were married.  

And, that is why my last name is Craig and not Linger.

To me, these letters, along with DNA, are enough to confirm the relationship for my biological father.

Permit me the opportunity to point out that I am grateful Oden acknowledged me and we did come to have a very very basic relationship before full dementia set in.  I feel he came to know who I am as a human being and did truly care about me, at some level.

But he was not even half the man my Dad was.

February 14, 2017 - The last time I saw Oden, in person.

This week's music video is Chase McDaniel's, Your Daughter.  The words feel so biographically real for my life.   (Notes: Neither my father or my Dad drank.  The sober comment in the video, I take to mean sober up in a non alcoholic way).

What letters or diaries do you have or did you inherit?  Drop us a comment and share your story!

#52Ancestors was started by another WikiTreer, blogger, and professional genealogist, Amy Johnson Crow. Check out her Generations Cafe Facebook group