my mother's first cousin, dr. bruce broughton and his wife mary are visiting from arizona. we have not seen them since we took the children to grand canyon the first time on a spring break at least 11 years ago. he was a surgeon on the navaho reservation at the time- now he and his wife are retired. he is the adopted son of my grandfather george broughton's eldest brother harold- the one with polio who became a minister. the family myth was that he was found on harold's parsonage doorstep and that harold moved to a church out of state after the papers were signed so the birth parents couldn't ask for him back. bruce said that this wasn't true- that he had been 2 years old when he was adopted and that he found the birth parents name and address in his parents belongings- he always understood that a friend of his father's had arranged it all. he was quite kind about it all to cayle, telling her that they had this special thing in common.

in the course of the dinner last night, with mother and her sister and her husband and all of us- i am not sure who trys to monopolize the conversation more- mother, or her sister- it was an evening to sit back and marvel. one interesting bit of trivia- one of grandpa broughton's uncles married a black woman- and was basically ostracized from that point on- mother remembers her grandmother broughton telling them that they really didn't want to know what had happened to this uncle. therefore, there are black broughtons walking around this earth related to me through my greatgrandfather. i hope they are better looking than some of the ones i have met.......