Cousins Who Became Friends

{Left to right} Ed,Carol,Louise,Louis

It all began with a simple phone message left on my recorder in the winter of 1997. Hi,my name is Melba and I am your cousin. I kept her name and number with every intention of quickly returning her call. Very soon a week went by,then a month, and before I knew it a year had gone by and embarrassingly I finally returned her call in the fall of 1998.
After several visits with Melba I discovered some other cousins who were into our family genealogy. After some correspondence back and forth I finally spoke to Carol and we decided to meet over dinner in Westport. Melba,unfortunately could not join us as her health kept her home bound but I did keep up my visits until her death. I have no idea what took so long but we finally met on September 21, of 2000 at Marcianos with our spouses Jim and Nancy. I feel a little remorse for Jim and Nancy as it was hard for them to get any input into the constant conversation about our family and its past.
Carol then suggested we meet her brother Louis and his wife Billie now things began to move at a faster pace and this meeting took place at the Bevo Mill on November 10th 2000. Nancy and I arrived first and when Louis appeared there was no doubt the two of us were related in fact my granddaughter looks at pictures of Louis and says grandpa.
Our pace continued to speed up and in the spring of 2001 we met at Louis and Billies home and I met another cousin Louise and her husband Dave. Since the meeting of the four couples we have been getting together a minium of four times per year and participating in other major family events.The four families hosted our first family reunion and we had a large group of extended family at Creve Couer park on June 1.2001.
The four of us are related on the grandparents line as they were all brothers. I have a vivid memory of Louis and Carols grandpa as he had a disintive truck that drove around South City in the 1940;s and he coached a school soft ball team that I played on. I remember the names of Louise and Melba's grandparents and to my knowledge the four cousins proably never met as kids. It is amazing how much the four of us are alike even though we had no contact the first sixty years of our lives.
You may think we are related but to me I describe us as friends.