Day three brought us back to Main Street for one last look...

...and to say, "Good bye" to Wanda and Ted who had played such central roles before and during our magnificent visit.  Ted surprised us by posting a short paragraph on his website titled "Expectations Exceeded" and saying pART Two: Realization would be coming soon. Wanda gleefully pulled it up on her computer screen so we could see it.

We swung by my Great Grandfather, Grandfather, Father’s house one more time.  It had become obvious the current owners were not home.  But we hoped against hope they would return before we left.  They had not.  I did, however, receive an excited phone call two days later in response to the note I left in the mailbox.  The owner promised I would receive photos of the inside.

As I left the front porch, walked down the sidewalk and turned toward my husband waiting in our car, I found a dime.  Now that may not seem like much to others, but it was a million dollar moment for me:  My Father always found coins.  In fact, his nickname was “Eagle Eye.” 

I placed the dime in the palm of my hand and silently showed it to my husband; he immediately understood its significance.  He took a dime from his pocket and said, “Go place it somewhere by the house.” I did.  My husband is going to mount the dime I found not merely by chance on a disc…24K Gold…of course, so I can wear it whenever I wish.

I did not just find my Father’s roots in Collinsville. I found my own.  I was always proud of being a Chicagoan, for it is a City to be proud of.  But my family’s contribution to it does not warrant a footnote in its history.  Now that I live in Charleston, SC, I am acutely aware of what it means to be “one of them.”  The Realization that my Great Grandfather got to Oklahoma Indian Territory sooner than almost everyone else, gives me a sense of heritage I didn’t realize I had been missing.

We continued North on 20 on our way back to Kansas City, MO to visit my husband’s kinfolk.  Just before we reached the Oklahoma/Kansas border, we cranked up our Oklahoma CD once more.  With a smile and a tear, I proudly belted out “(Collinsville) Oklahoma you’re OK.” 

You’re OK because there are people like Ted Wright preserving your printed history, and people like Brad Francis preserving your architectural history.  You're OK because people like the Sallees keep giving back to their community.  You’re OK because you have people making strangers feel like kinfolk, and people raising children to love their town.  And even if they should leave, they will leave their heart just as I did and my fathers before me. 

Art’s Daughter,

Barbara (Archie) Goldsmith Burkel

Footnote:  There is another coincidence in addition to those mentioned throughout: My new found cousin from Tulsa sent me an email that said, “It seems to be a Goldsmith trait that if you don’t like your name, change it.” I (unofficially) changed my name to “Archie” fifteen years ago.  He did not know I unknowingly had followed the

 family tradition.

Footnote #2:  I received a phone call from the current owner of the Goldsmith house.  He had just read the above article as it appeared in The Collinsville News. This time HE was the one who got chills. It happened when he got to the part about my finding a dime.

It seems he occasionally found pennies on his property.  He had saved them because he knew they were old.  After reading about the dime, he went looking for where he had put the pennies; he found two of them: One is dated 1920 (when my Father would have been six years old and living there); the other is 1928 (when my Father entered CHS). 

He sent these two pennies to me...along with current photos of the inside of the house and photos previous owners gave him.

The dime I found, and the two pennies my Father didn't find as a young boy, have now been made into a charm...a very lucky charm for me:

Yes, they are hanging from a pickle!  One of my friends gave me a pickle pin for my birthday, in honor of my Father having been a pickle man.  I brought the pin and three coins to a jeweler...not just any jeweler, but a goldsmith.  Here is my priceless necklace.

Footnote #3:  A year after my visit, Ted whose great grandfather founded The Collinsville News, who currently runs the Collinsville web site and provided so many of the historic photos, sent me a letter my Father had written to his Father in 1987. In it, my Father was offering his "condolences" the newspaper had sold to a conglomerate.  How ironic is it that 20 years later I am now corresponding with this man's son.

Finding My Roots