Dee and the Red Tricycle (Alternate Title: Ashton Contacts Strangers Online, Peskiness Ensues)

My great grandfather was alive until I was seventeen years old.  We visited him a lot, and when I was little, one of my favorite things to do at his house was play with the red tricycle. I think it was originally my mother’s or my uncles, meaning it was a product of the mid sixties. 

There was a sort of ceremony surrounding it.  After an appropriate amount of begging, my grandmother would walk with me down the gravel road to the barn that my great grandfather built with his hands. (that still amazes me).  We’d pull the heavy door aside and make our way through the well organized mess to the back wall.  My grandmother would get the tricycle from its hanging spot on the wall and take it outside into the sunlight.  It was then thoroughly washed down. 

That’s the type of woman my grandmother is.  Everything is thoroughly washed down. 
(recently my grandmother asked if I needed a dress ironed for a funeral the next day.  I told her that it was a dress that was supposed to look wrinkled and that it actually couldn’t be ironed. My grandfather sighed and said “sweetheart, she can iron anything. absolutely anything. even that.” he was right.)

After it was thoroughly washed down, I got to ride it.  I really don’t remember actually riding it - that wasn’t the fun part.  The fun part was the anticipation.

That’s the way things usually go. 

I think that I loved the red tricycle so much because it was so old.  It looked rustic, and when I wasn’t using it it hung mysteriously in the back of a dark, hot barn.  My mother and uncle had ridden it when they were young, however long ago that was. It’s also possibly that I was just pesky and liked to annoy my grandmother about it. 

Regardless, I loved that thing. 

Oddly enough, this red tricycle would eventually lead me to contact a stranger online.  I do not think my great grandfather would have approved. 

I don’t actually think that it can be blamed entirely on the tricycle, in all honesty.  It’s just that the tricycle to me represents the mystery of the past. 

It must have been this fascination with the mystery of the past that led me to google my ancestry during my freshman year of college.  That and a fondness for procrastination. 

I’m a weird bird.

My great grandfather had died the year before, and my aunt and uncle had taken over his house.  Nothing was the same, and I hated losing that link to him and to the past.  So when I found a post by a woman named Dee that mentioned people that I thought I might be related to, my interested was piqued.

I also didn’t want to do my chemistry homework.  So that factored in. 

I responded to the post, saying that I thought I recognized some of the names and that we might be somehow related.  I told her that my grandmother and great aunt could probably help her answer some of her questions. 

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  This sixty-nine year old woman began emailing me relentlessly. I only replied the once, but she continued to talk to me in each email as if I had only missed responding to the last one. 

I initially thought that she had made a mistake, and that we weren’t related after all.  Of course, had I considered the crazed way that she was attempting to make contact with me, I would have seen that it was in fact extremely likely that she was related to me. 

She is related to me, incidentally. 

It seems irrelevant, but I would like to note that this woman’s email address, when we started emailing at least, was butterflywings@bellsouth.net.  Of course. 

Soon, I was routinely receiving emails like this one:

Ashton,

I have a distant cousin....Tim Ballard....

Tim is the great-grandson of Jane Alvin (Cocke) and George Ballard Jr. were married in Pike Co, AR. early 1900, lived in Thompson Township...Jane & George had children, Luke, Ezra, Estelle,& Bill....Jane Alvin died and George Jr. married another woman, Malissa Sturart (sp?).  She and George Ballard Jr., in the late 30s and early 40s were in Ouachita Co, AR, they a son Norman Ballard (who died a few years
ago, around Ft Polk, LA), and a daughter (unknown, she went north and does not associate with the family....she may be dead!

Just thought that there may be a connection to you and this line....!

Dee

This woman was clearly confused as to my motives.  I know almost nothing about my family.  I answered the email using my knowledge of my family genealogy in its entirety - the names of two of my great grandparents.  What was I supposed to do with this email? These questions?  I hope the polite answer is laugh and not respond, because that was exactly what I did.  If I wanted to answer questions, I could’ve just done the chemistry homework. 

My favorite part is “she went north and does not associate with the family....she may be dead!”

Here are some additional excerpts from Dee’s emails. For simpilicity’s sake, my thoughts are italicized:

“You might ask you father, I'm assuming he is the Ballard....or you may be married to a Ballard....let me know if you find out anything about someone in the Ballard Family having a Ballard man being married around 1875 to early 1880....not sure exactly when? He would have died by early 1880.”

How in the world would I find out anything about someone in the Ballard (F)amily haivng a Ballard man being married around 1875 to early 1880?

Dee’s so crazy.

“Ask your grandmother if she will call me at this telephone number....318-868-****. Is she Jeanette Young Burford, daughter of Velma Cocke and Bryant Young Burford?”

I don’t know why I find this funny, but I find this funny. That is my grandmother, and those are her parents, so this should probably not be funny to me. 

“I turned 69 June 14th and my sister is 78 and will have her 79th birthday in November of this year....We both live in Shreveport, LA”

Dee’s sister’s birthday, noted.  On my calendar. (It really is, I don't know why. I have a weird sense of humor.) 

“Will you please ask your grandmother if she has any idea who someone named Robbie and Deck might be? Someone from Olive Branch, MS....sent a floral tribute to my father's funeral in 1963, and I found this after my mother died....(she died in 1994) found it some years after her death....she had the registry book where people sign their names when they attend a funeral....mother also, kept all the cards that the florist had attached to the flowers when they arrived at the funeral home....and the funeral home gave those to her so she could forward Thank You's to the sender....When I saw the one from Olive Branch....I was so curious as to who that might be....I only started searching for the family, in 2002, when I got my first computer....”

From what I know of Dee, the fact that she is avidly searching for the identity of someone who sent flowers in 1963 in order to write a forty-seven year late thank you note is entirely in character for her.

I've never found my grandfather's death date or where he is buried....anything that you may know on the family that you could share with me I will so be grateful....! I have gone to Idabel, OK in search for his burial in Forest Hill Cemetery. 

Of course she did.  I’m surprised that I didn’t get the invite for the followup road trip.

Soon, probably. 

Here's hoping that you will receive this and some of it will make sense....I try to give as much info. as I can and sometimes get too boggled....please, get back with me....

Your Cousin,

June Delores 'Dee' (Cocke) Hall

-

I am extremely unsure how we are cousins, or even related, although it seems that Dee has got it figured out for the both of us. 

After receiving the last email, which bore the signature above, I realized that I was in over my head (causing an old and self-proclaimed “boggled” woman undue strife) and called my grandmother.  With some trepidation, I tried to explained the three year tale of my online relationship with Dee in a way that would sound as not sketchy as possible. I then forwarded her the emails, which she in turn read.

She agreed that Dee was definitely related to us, but opted out of contacting her.  The excuse was that she didn’t really know any more than Dee did, or something like that. 

I kind of love that she didn’t contact Dee, who is so clearly salivating over the chance to get her on the phone. 

Instead, she forwarded the emails to her older sister, who incidentally lives less than an hour from Dee in northwestern Louisiana. 

I don’t think that my great aunt opted to contact Dee either, but I feel that my work is done. (read: feel slightly less guilty about contacting Dee in the first place)

On the surface, this story is only (very) mildly entertaining and seemingly meaningless.  If you did a little deeper, you’ll find out that the view from the surface was pretty much accurate. 

However, if you work a little, you might be able to extrapolate a few morals from this story.

I’m here to teach (read: be held up as an example so that others can learn from my mistakes). 

Possible lessons include but are most definitely not limited to:

1) Don’t contact strangers online. 

Actually, I’m just going to stick with that one.  You’d think it didn’t need to be said twice. 

But here I am.