Finding Forrest

Eight years ago this week, I did my yearly search of the Social Security Death Index for my Great-Uncle, John Lewis Bartee. There on my computer screen I read his name and date of death, along with a location of Gallup, New Mexico, where his last benefits had been sent. Within hours of calling the Gallup police department and other people in New Mexico, I was speaking with Sister Gonvague at Little Sisters of the Poor.

My search for John Lewis Bartee was redirected, and a new task was put in front of me. In the first moments of that phone conversation with Sister Gonvague, I was informed that John had told them he had a son, John Forrest Bartee, whom he had not seen since the boy was a small child.

John Forrest Bartee    abt.1945
Photo used by permission / All Rights Reserved - John Forrest Bartee

For the last eight years my family and friends have had to endure my endless stories of John Lewis Bartee and what I had found in my research of his life. Though in all my stories... those involving the underlying search for that missing young son I make no apology for boring others with. Many times in my research of John Lewis I had become discouraged myself with discovering the events of his Life, and the wide scope of deceit & lies (past & present) in the music industry. I think I was always drawn back to what I felt was a journey or task that was put before me when Sister Gonvague mentioned the boy. Was he alive?  Is he OK?   Does he have a family, and do they have information regarding John's life unknown to the other long estranged Southern Kin?

Was Sister Gonvague... John's messenger to find the son he hadn't seen in over fifty years, yet had never forgotten? I think it was this question that propelled my search for John Forrest Bartee.

When I did finally get a break in my search for Forrest, new discoveries regarding him came in short time. In the spring of 2010, that break came on Ancestry.com when I got a new hit on John Lewis: a Vermont marriage license had become available. To date, the family had known John had married, but details like the bride's name or the location of the event were unknown. In previous years, I had thought many times... even if I knew her name, it was likely that when they split up, she probably remarried and took a new name. At the same time, the young boy was probably adopted by a new father, or at least given another name.

I was right about all of those details, but the marriage license gave me something special... the names of the Bride's parents and residence. With that information, I knew, through my knowledge of Genealogy research, a hobby my grandmother Olga Kathleen Haynes had started me on in my teens, that I might have a chance to find the woman John married and had a child with.

I began a genealogy search that in itself was a novel of vivid images of some very interesting individuals and events in History. Pictures of childhood Italian immigrants to the United States in the 1870s, marrying and having children in NYC, later becoming early residents of the South Florida area of Cocoa.   Then another family side of native Scots/Floridians who date back to working with Governor Andrew Jackson on the transition of the Spanish government to the United States Territory, and handled one of the first Real Estate transactions regarding 5 islands of the Middle Keys. One relative was even one of St. Augustine, Florida's first U.S. mayors.  A place where, as a child, I had stuck my head in the old cannons at the Spanish Fort.

Once you find a little out about your ancestors, you'll know the odds get better with each generation you go back, because someone else somewhere has also researched the same common ancestors. And, just as I had hoped, a very helpful fellow researcher in the Mid-West had a husband who was a relative of John's ex-wife. I sent her a note about my strange search, and within twenty-four hours I had a phone number for a Sister of John's ex-wife.

I made the call and was rewarded again, not only with information about the ex-wife, but yes... John Forrest Bartee did exist. Also... as has happened many times in my research, I met a very interesting individual herself: John Forrest's Aunt.  She let me know that John Forrest's mother had just died the previous year. That day we began a process that, on Thursday, December 30, led to me finally shaking John Forrest Bartee's hand.  John Forrest shared the New Year Holiday with his first cousin, my mother, and some of our family here in Virginia.   As I mentioned in previous posts, John Forrest knew nothing about his father until he was 8 years old.  This past Summer I sent him a book with photos of his natural father, John Lewis Bartee, along with other family photos and genealogies for both his mother & father to start introducing him to John Lewis. Of the memories John Forrest has of his father, one is his last visit with John Lewis at age 8; they went fishing at Port Washington, NY with cane poles.  If I were to have lost a parent in childhood, I would hope my last memory with them was a good one.

John Forrest left this morning (Jan. 2, 2010), not only John Lewis Bartee's image in him, but traces of a couple of his Uncles.  As he nears age 71... I pray that John is safe, and joy finds him in life.

Finally, today I can call out to John Lewis Bartee, and say, “I found John Forrest.”

With the peace of finding his Son, I feel as if the journey still has many more miles and lessons ahead.

Now some time and energy can go to The Music of John Bartee  & The Georgia Music Hall of Fame Inductions 2012.


I've added the Video below of Enya's Music and Beautiful Images... Two things that bring Joy to John Forrest Bartee's Life.