A Visit to Indiana

Last week I took a trip to Indiana to visit with my 97-year-old Great Uncle Pete.  My parents and my aunt took the trip with me as well, we drove out, visited, and drove back!  We rented a minivan so everyone could have a roomy trip and now I'm thinking I need a new car because I don't have cell phone chargers and USB ports hiding out everywhere in my car!  We're all so spoiled!

Anyway, we took the trip specifically to visit with my Great Uncle Pete Domelle.  He is the last of the Domelle siblings, Tony, Mary and Bill (my grandfather) have all passed away.

It was just lovely visiting with him and with his daughter, my 1st cousin once removed, Mary.  Mary and her husband Larry welcomed us and let me rummage through all kinds of photographs.  :-)

Here is a photo of Mary and her 1st cousins, my Mom and aunt.

Uncle Pete regaled us with many stories during our visits with him!  The last time we were out in Indiana was over 9 years ago. 

It was strange - Uncle Pete doesn't really look like my grandfather, but the way he used his hands - the gestures he made, as well as the cadence of his speech - when it came to that they were nearly twins!!  It made we wonder - did they learn their gestures from being around their father?  Uncle Pete would still toss out a German word or two - growing up, their parents were immigrants and spoke German.  My grandfather says he remembers his dad reading German language newspapers from Chicago (they lived in the northwest corner of Indiana).

I'm so glad we were able to make this trip.  It was a long car drive but so worth it to visit with everyone!!!!