[If you should choose to adopt this prompt to contribute your own stories of folks who have gone out of their way to lend genealogy-related assistance to others, I would greatly appreciate a mention to Filiopietism Prism whenever you do so. Thank you! And please do use the same photograph below to illustrate the prompt. ;-) ]
Raymond Trump of Bristol, England was 82 years old in August 2012 when he happened to run into "Mike" at the local "Liberal Club"[1] where he played snooker (a table game related to billiards and pool). After chatting for a bit, it was discovered that Mike had lived in the very house in Bristol that Mr. Trump grew up in with his mother and siblings. Raymond recalled that during World War II he and his family spent lots of time in an air raid shelter in the yard of the home that both he and Mike had once lived in.
Mr. Trump left the family home in Bristol when he was 21 years old and eventually he moved to another area of Bristol with his wife and his two daughters, Diane and Jane. By the summer of 2012, Mr. Trump also had four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
When Raymond and Mike got to talking about the Bedminster neighborhood of Bristol and the house they both knew so well, Mike asked Raymond if perhaps he could help him solve a mystery regarding an old locket he had found several years earlier while he was digging out the old air raid shelter in the yard of the home. When he later showed Raymond the locket he had found, Raymond opened it carefully to find a small photo of himself and his sister as young children looking back at him from the open panels of the locket! As added poignancy, Jean Trump, the sister pictured in the locket, died in 1978 at age 48.
Thanks to this chance meeting and the kindness of Mike, the Good Samaritan who the Trumps have since lost contact with, the Trump family now has a family heirloom back in its possession after some 70 years. Raymond Trump gave the locket to his niece, Lorraine, who is his sister Jean's daughter.
To read more about this story and to see photos of the locket, its contents, and members of the Trump family, go here.
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Photograph of the The Good Samaritan sculpture by Francois-Leon Sicard (1862 - 1934). The sculpture is located in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, France. The photograph is by Marie-Lan Nguyen and has been placed in the public domain by her. See, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Good_Samaritan_Sicard_Tuileries.jpg
"Liberal Clubs" are facilities formerly known as "gentlemen's clubs" that are now open to men and women. So-called Liberal Clubs appear to be local clubs with roots going back to the National Liberal Club established in London in 1882 by William Ewart Gladstone "for the purpose of providing club facilities for Liberal Party campaigners." For more detailed information about the National Liberal Club, see the Wikipedia article on the club here.
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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew
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