A Picture, Two Visitors, and Never Ending Mysteries

These never ending family mysteries come at you from out of no where, sometimes catching you off guard and taking your breath away until you have a chance to sit down and think them through a bit.

Pat, descendant of Henry Hosch (slave owner), had told me in one of our recent e-mails that during the 1960s, two men, descendants of the slaves, had visited her father in Hoschton, GA. She informed me that they had left a picture. Pat said that she would bring the picture back during her next trip to GA. Well, today she e-mailed me the picture.

Imagine my astonishment when the picutre I received was almost the exact same as the picture Aunt Lucille had just given me of my grandfather, Oscar Lucillous (LC) Hosch, and his big brother, my great Uncle, Will Hosch.

LC Hosch (1898 - 1978) and Will Hosch (1896 - 1962)

There however was one huge difference between the picture Aunt Lue let me have to copy and the one Pat e-mailed. Aunt Lue's photo has no dates, etc. on the back but the one Pat sent me had this on the back.

The picture given to Pat's father appears to be a copy of the original and provides evidence that it wasn't my granddad and my great uncle that visited Pat's dad as Uncle Will died in 1962. But who visited and how did they find out about Pat's dad and that he was a descedant of the former slave owner?

I think I can narrow the who down a lot easier than the how. Seeing as the copy of the picture that was given was done in Winston-Salem, NC, mom and I have narrowed the who made the visit down to Cousin Julius, one of Uncle Will's sons, who lived in Winston-Salem, and perhaps one of his brothers. The rest of this trip and how they determined the slave owner's descendants is an utter mystery. I've a couple of theories but all the people in my family that might have been involved are no longer here, so I don't know if I can follow through on any of my theories.

Perhaps, if Pat can find the other picture, it will shed more light on this mystery. Until then, I'll continue to try to track and understand the interwovenness of lives between two american families, one black, one white, one free, one slave.

Until Next Time!