Out of the blue I received a letter in the mail. In it was a photo.
The person who sent it to me said he’d found it in an antique store and wanted us to have it. He evidently found our family on ancestry.com and somehow got my mailing address. On the back of the photo it was inscribed “Pearl Zumbrun.”
I’d never heard of Pearl so I sent it to Josh who has researched our family deep and wide. Turns out Pearl and I are distant cousins, our common ancestor being my great-great-great grandfather Henry Sylvester Zumbrun.
Also turns out Pearl died at age 17, in 1917. Nothing we can find says why. What was a fun and sassy picture all of a sudden became sad and poignant. She must’ve died very shortly after that photo was taken.
She’s buried in Blue River Cemetery, just down the road from my house. I go by that cemetery at least once a week, but I’ve never stopped to look at it.
I stopped this week and snapped this picture and wondered about a cousin I never knew.
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