Albert William Macbeth (1930-1997)

4 September 1997

Dear cousins,
Your letter was a pleasant surprise. I thank you for your interest.  Albert's son Albert Williams a.k.a. Bill and Malcolm Bruce a.k.a. Bruce did not do a good job of maintaining contact with our Macbeth aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Bruce has some excuse as he was close to mother.  Eulalia X. Lewis Macbeth, only talked to one Macbeth family member regularly and that was Monroe.  After she and Albert Clarence (my dad) divorced in 1947, I don't think she even talked to uncle Monroe. Dad was only 58 when he died.  He is buried near Grandpa harry in conneaut.  I called uncle Monroe regarding dad's death and he was at the funeral as were other Conneaut relatives that I'd never met before.  Uncle Monroe seemed to know them all and he introduced me.  She was very anti-Macbeth after dad left her in the summer of 1947.  I tried to keep in touch with uncle Monroe and aunt Clara which I did until their deaths. I asked uncle Monroe about contacting uncle Don and he said he let them read my letters so don't bother. When uncle Monroe died I never heard from Don so I assumed he wasn't interested. In hindsight I'm not sure I understood the clan animosity but I think it was very heated at times.  My mother was part of the problem i.e. she hated aunt Clara and Jo, but I think dad got into it with his siblings over grandpa's will too.
Having lived all my adult life except in the summer of 1951 in the west I did not make an effort to contact my cousins. In hindsight that's lamentable!  If you have Don's son Bruce's address I'd appreciate having it. Incidentally where is Jane's brother John?
I am making copies of data that you sent for our son Alex. He married a Mormon girl and joined her church. Genealogy is a big deal for Mormons and he has more data than I do.  If I keep at him I may get him to the largest genealogy library in the world which is in salt lake city.
Also grandpa Harry had a sister who married Roberts. They live in Ogden Utah and 35 years ago they came to our home.  We invited them in but they only stayed briefly and left without indicating any desire to establish a relationship.  We dropped it of course and never heard from them again. Interestingly Mr. Roberts looked like grandpa Harry indeed my jaw dropped when I saw him at the door.
One time early in the 40s perhaps 1940 or 41, we visited family in Cleveland Heights.  They had three daughters and as I recall teenagers where one was nine or 10. I do you not recall names at all and only remember dad saying these 32nd cousins, whatever that meant. The family name may have been Krueger or something like that.  They never came to our house nor did we go back to their house again.
I would appreciate having Pat Miller's address too. That name rings a dim bell but I cannot make any connections as yet.  In my papers I have letter that flew on the first flight of the Douglas B-19. I haven't seen it in 20 or 30 years so I don't remember who wrote the letter or who it was to, but dad got it for me saying it was from relative that works for Douglas.
To conclude we had just bought a new home here.  We'll be moving in the next 30 to 45 days.  Once we are settled, we intend to gather and organize all our family history and photographs I'll go through stuff looking for data that you may find interesting and get it to you.
Sincerely Bill and Donna
PS congratulations on your 50th anniversary as that's a great achievement.  hope you enjoyed Alaska.  the 35 mm slides dad took in 1937 1938 when we lived there are very faded now but I still remember some about it.