Where I Become Obsessed with Googling

Searching became a part of my life; it had ebb & flows, when my life was busy, hectic or focused on other things, I was passive, but when life was slow, relaxed or otherwise quiet, I turned back to my "mystery" as I had come to describe it. I discovered that my undergraduate history training was good for something besides eye rolling on the part of my more practically-minded friends--it had conditioned me to think critically about the details and see connections where others might not.

I had great luck reuniting inanimate objects with people who needed them, loved them and didn't even know they missed them. The first was a "ready made ancestor" that I had purchased at an antique store in Skagit Valley, Washington back in the mid-90s. The portrait had travelled with me back to Houston and I was became quite fond of the old gentleman, wondering who he was, what his story was and why he was wearing what looked to be a massive gold nugget ring. I discovered accidentally that there was some faded handwriting on the back of the large portrait when I was remounting it in it's original frame. It looked like it might say Clarke, but Clarke who? The photographer's studio address was listed as San Francisco, perhaps a gold rush forty-niner, I thought, although this gentleman's dress was late 1800s, not mid-century. After days of Googling, I identified the man as William Andrews Clark, Sr. the Copper King of Montana who became a US Senator in one of the defining scandals of the turn-of-the-century.

Oddly, in the early 1990s, I had visited his home in Butte, MT which is now run as a bed & breakfast and museum, and I didn't remember a portrait from this young period in his life. I called them, described what I had, and asked if they would like me to send it to them. Once they received it, they called me excitedly and confirmed that, indeed, it was Senator Clark from a period in his life that they did not currently have photographs. The owner had tears in his voice as he told me that the portait had been placed in the front entryway of the Copper King's mansion, back where it belonged!

Solving little mysteries like these (others were books & house histories) gave me more confidence that, one day, I would solve my own life's hidden story. More than that, they selfishly gave me a great deal of joy providing a surprise piece of hidden history for people that truly appreciated it. If you've got a mystery that needs solving, please let me know--I haven't had a good "discover the origins of XXX" in a while!