One-hundred-fourteen years ago, on September 18th, 1895, Daniel David Palmer performed the first chiropractic adjustment… to make a deaf man hear. *Ahem.*

Mr. Palmer (not yet elevated to “Dr.” status), was an on-again/off-again beekeeper, school teacher, and grocer with what might have been an unhealthy interest in mysticism. Despite some serious skepticism that lingers to this very day, he did manage to create a field of medicine that touched (no pun intended) several of our family members, including yours truly.

I’ve never been very good at family interviews. Which is odd, considering I spent more than twenty years interviewing politicians, businessmen, and criminals for various TV news programs. There’s just something uncomfortable about asking your grandfather how much he embezzled from the public trust.

But I do have a some questions… above and beyond the obvious birth/death/marriage queries… that I wish someone had asked my dead ancestors. I mean, how much can they care, now that they’re dead? So here we go…

Sometimes, the search is half the fun. Sometimes, the answer you get isn’t the one you want. Sometimes, you get wa-a-a-a-y more than you ever dreamed of finding. All three of those things are true in the case of the search for Burt Family Bible.

Bibles are of particular interest in cases were public records are non-existent or in question. The Burt Bible was of particular interest to members of the Burt and Leonard families because of their deep ties. Copies of three pages of that Bible turned up in the files of Jennie Leonard Hutchinson in Uniontown, PA.

Indulge me, if you will, while I mourn the loss of my very best friend and thank whichever ancestor decided it was a good idea to domesticate wolves.

Chase Leonard was born 1 Jun 1998 under a rundown porch outside of Portland, Oregon. Her parents were of pit bull and labrador extraction, her mother being a bitch and her father a bastard. Chase was rescued from these sordid conditions at the age of six weeks and adopted by Julie and Richard Leonard of Seattle, Washington, where she lived until her death on Thursday.

In my earliest days of researching my family history, I tried to put myself in my ancestors’ shoes. I wondered what it was like to pack up as many earthly belongings as would fit and LEAVE my family and friends, with a very real possibility I might never see them again.

Worse yet, I wondered what it would be like, given the lack of telephones or even telegraph, to send or receive a long delayed notice that a family member had DIED. Now I know. Ann Frankenburger Nicklas, granddaughter of our common benefactor Jennie Leonard Hutchinson, recently provided us with just such a letter.