A LOST RELATIVE IS FOUND IN FLORIDA

Dear Jack, I received your e-mail and I'd be delighted to give you the circumstances surrounding my re-patriation with my niece. I'll give you some of the background as to how we drifted apart before I tell you how we found each other.

My oldest brother William Scrimgeour (now deceased) married his wife Patricia Gillies in Montreal around 1950. They had one child Diane Mary in 1951. Diane and I used to play together as kids until my brother and Pat separated when Diane was about ten years old. Diane resided with her mother after the separation and we didn't see each other very often after that.

When I turned seventeen I joined the Royal Canadian Airforce and left the Montreal area. On the odd occasion when I returned to Montreal for a visit I would visit Pat but Diane was each time at school. The years passed and I found the Scrimgeour Clan site on the Internet through your information. I regularly check the site for new members and in April this year I noticed a person had identified herself as Diane Scrimgeour Balley from Plantation, Florida, USA. She indicated that she was from Montreal. I had learned many years earlier that my niece Diane had married and moved to the USA. I immediately sent an e-mail to Diane and lo and behold it was my niece who I hadn't seen or heard from in nearly forty years. She couldn't believe that she had only submitted her name on the site three hours earlier.

My other brother was visiting me from Montreal at the time so we telephoned Diane in Florida and we spoke with her and her husband and her two children for almost two hours. Now we all plan to travel to Florida this fall for a reunion. After speaking with Diane many fond memories which had been forgotten over the years came alive. Basically, I owe you many thanks since if you had not taken the time to give my brother-in-law at the Radio Shack store in Ottawa * the information about the Scrimgeour Web Site I probably never would have come into contact with Diane. Diane and I are only a couple of years apart in age. I hope you can use this information in the up-coming Skirmisher.

From: Ross Scrimgeour, North Bay, Ontario.

E-mail <northbayalarmsystemsympatico.ca>

* The above story by Ross had its beginnings when an alert store clerk in Ottawa noticed the name Scrimgeour on the credit card of your overseas editor.