Histories Lost and Found.

Until I was 20 years old I believed my grandfather was an orphan. No family, rescued by my "Aunt" Sally. No one ever spoke of his parents, not their names or their histories, no stories of siblings or aunts and uncles. Nothing. It was as if they had never existed.

When I was a teenager I found a large photo of a young woman. Gazing steadily at the camera, she fascinated me. Short dark hair, a pale calico dress and a silent stare. Maybe it was my teenage romanticism ( soon to be replaced by teenage skepticism....but that is another story) but she seemed to be asking to be let out, wanted to be found. I asked my Granny and she sighed, "That's Charlotte, grandpa's mother." "What?" "Who!" All my life I had been told basically that no one knew anything about her, that she had died when my grandfather was a toddler . And here she was languishing in an old trunk? Hidden away, buried. Here was her photo! A beautiful coloured photo. Someone knew who she was, someone cared enough to take a photo, to enlarge it up, to colour it and frame it. "Grandpa doesn't talk about her. Don't ask him." Slam. That was it. No more talk of Charlotte. My Granny was not a stern woman, but when she told you "no." She meant it. There was no question that Charlotte was going to remain hidden in time. The trunk lived in the hallway outside my bedroom door, I often thought of Charlotte still there, waiting for me. ( see, romantic ) But I never opened it and I never asked.

Several years later, after my Granny had died, I did ask. My Mom and I were looking for something in the trunk and there was Charlotte's photo again. My Grandpa was sitting at the table reading and I just up and asked. It flew out my mouth before I could stop myself. " Is this your mother, grandpa?" He didn't even look up, I am pretty sure I didn't inhale. Then very quietly he said, " You can have it if you want." Air, finally! For me and for Charlotte. I took the photo and hung it in my bedroom. It has been there ever since. Every bedroom since I was 20 years old.

There is more to her story, once the photo was out my grandpa would sometimes say things about his past. How his mother and father and baby sister died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, how "Aunt" Sally raised him. How even thought she loved him he always felt like an outsider, a servant, a prop for her. He told one very poignant and angry story of posing for a photo with a bicycle. He had never had a bicycle and of course like any little boy was thrilled to have one. But it wasn't his, he didn't get to keep it. He posed for the photo and the bicycle was given to one of the other children in the house, he never rode it. In her defense she adored him, her whole life he was her boy, even when she had children of her own he was special. But he never really felt it.

For another ten years or so Charlotte remained a mysterious figure, there was talk from " Aunt" Sally that she was "from the wrong side of the tracks", trouble, not good enough. And a general feeling that it was best not to ask too many questions. In the 1990's my grandfather died. While clearing out his closet I found a scrapbook. A very confusing scrapbook. There were photos of teenagers, post cards, letters, a scrap of fabric. And one photo labeled "Charlotte". This book, this story was put together by someone called Ella. Charlotte had a sister. In fact she had two sisters. Rosetta and Charlotte. There were letters from Charlotte postmarked Canada to her sisters at home " Do you think "Mama" will let me come home now?" Mama was her fathers second wife. She was only a few years older than Charlotte and her sisters. There were Ella's letters back, gift cards and funny cards, letters from Rosetta all the way out in Colorado. All this time this treasure, this remembrance of a cherished sister was hiding in Grandpa's closet. Did he even know it was there? How did it get there? If he was truly an orphan, how did we have possesion of this book from Charlotte's sister.

Fast forward to the Internet. For years I have been searching for some concrete truth about the mysterious woman. Anyone who could have told me anything is long dead, and truthfully, I don't think they were about to talk. Several years ago I made contact with a man who was the son of Charlotte's father and his third wife. He gave me some basic genealogy but said that the only person in his family who knew anything about Charlotte wouldn't talk about her, that she was quite elderly and he wouldn't tell me how to find her. But now I had her full name Charlotte Mosen. I also knew that while my grandpa was being raised an "orphan" in the wine country of northern California his grandfather was living in Bend, Oregon. His grandfather was alive until 1958. A full ten years after my grandfather went to war and had children of his own. His Aunts Ella and Rosetta, lived untill the late 1970's. He had an uncle living not more than 3 hours away until 1983. He never knew it. He believed that he was an orphan. " Aunt" Sally never said a word.

This morning while cruising Ancestry.com I typed in her name " Charlotte Mosen" fully expecting nothing, like every other time I tried to find her. And then, just like magic, there she was. In the 1900 census. Charlotte Mosen, Rosetta Mosen, her father Karl Mosen and her mother Lille Kalland. In 1910 ten year old Charlotte is listed with Rosetta again and her father, her baby sister Ella and Karl's new wife and their children. By 1920 Charlotte is gone, dead from the flu along with her husband and infant daughter. Karl and the others are still there. By 1930 there are more children and soon a third wife and even more children. There are also ships records showing Charlotte and her sisters returning to Norway and the arriving back in the U.S. I sat her at the computer and cried. I have looked for so long for some trace of her in the official record, and there she is plain as day. Found.