Were They Brother and Sister? Verifying an 18th Century Relationship with Autosomal DNA

Were Thomas Kirk, my fifth great-grandfather, and Mary (Kirk) Geiger siblings?

I believe DNA has finally given me an answer.

A Web of Parallels

Setting DNA aside for just a moment, there were a few curious facts that initially made the siblingship case worth considering, including:

Name:  Given my extensive research into Thomas Kirk, any Kirk who crossed his path or simply toe-tapped into his proximity was an immediate person of interest and required a full-fledged investigation. Naturally, when Mary Kirk, who married Anthony Geiger in 1797 in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), appeared in the same Ohio neighborhood, the sleuthing commenced with an excited fury.

Age:  They shared a close proximity in age. Born in 1778 in Virginia, Thomas was just four years younger than Mary who was born in 1774. 

Time and Space:  They both lived in the same geography and timeline. Tax records confirmed that Thomas, my fifth great-grandfather, was in Licking County, Ohio by 1805. Meanwhile, a 1901 biography of Mary's grandson Richard Geiger, recalled that "In 1804 he [Mary's husband Anthony Geiger] came to Ohio, the year following the admission of the state into the Union, and located in Licking County..." Mary was even buried in the same cemetery as Thomas. Only a few yards separate them in their eternal rest.

Although these facts coalesced around my theory, there was still no explicit evidence of a family relationship.

Finding Family With Saliva

What, if anything, could DNA tell me about their possible connection?

The first challenge with autosomal DNA is that the genetic material inherited from a given ancestor fades with each subsequent generation. As a result, the strength of autosomal DNA matching only goes back about five, six or maybe seven generations.

To put this another way, consider approximately how much DNA we inherit from each preceding generation: 50% of our DNA came from our fathers and the other half from our mothers. Jump back another generation, and we've inherited 25% of each of our grandparents' DNA. As you climb back each generation, the average amount of inherited DNA decreases by half. The further back you go, the numbers slim proportionally until the DNA is virtually indiscernible.

Exactly how much of Thomas Kirk's DNA should I have? As a fifth great-grandson, I could expect to share less than 1% of his DNA (0.78% to be exact). If we were to graph my DNA, Thomas would represent a slim sliver.

Of course, DNA is rarely that straightforward. The process is further complicated because we don't necessarily inherit DNA from all of our ancestors at this distance. For a more detailed explanation on this quandary, I defer to genetic genealogist Roberta Estes who has addressed this issue in her blog Ancestral DNA Percentages - How Much of Them is in You.

Mindful of the pittance of autosomal DNA that I've inherited from Thomas, I'm fortunate to have a first cousin twice removed - two generations closer to Thomas than me - who tested her autosomal DNA. As a third great-granddaughter of Thomas, she's inherited approximately 3.12% of his DNA.

More DNA, of course, means increased odds for matching genetic Kirk cousins. Could we link her to any of Mary (Kirk) Geiger's descendants?

I searched my Kirk cousin's DNA matches for the surname Geiger and found six individuals who had a pedigree that traced back to Anthony and Mary (Kirk) Geiger. At first blush, it seemed there was indeed a genetic relationship between descendants of Thomas Kirk and Mary (Kirk) Geiger.

Crunching the CentiMorgans to Verify Relationships

My next step was to evaluate the accuracy of these six genetic matches, and determine whether the amount of shared DNA corroborated a sibling relationship between Thomas and Mary.

I do this by making the assumption that Thomas and Mary were siblings and calculating the descending relationships between my Kirk cousin and her Geiger matches accordingly.

Next, I examine how much DNA each match shares and whether this falls within the verified range for similar family relationships.

To make this assessment, I rely on The Shared cM Project, an invaluable tool developed by genetic genealogist Blaine Bettinger.

Bettinger has polled an enormous number of DNA testers and their known relationships to determine the average amount of centiMorgans (a DNA measurement) an individual could expect to share with cousins at various levels. The expansive chart details both the average amount of centiMorgans (cM) common for a particular relationship as well as the range of cM that exists for that particular relationship.

If Thomas Kirk and Mary (Kirk) Geiger were in fact siblings, the published pedigrees indicate that four of the six individuals would be fifth cousins with my Kirk cousin. Their relationship would look like this:

(*Note that the Geiger relationship is not a direct paternal line of descent,
the surname is used for illustrative purposes only.)

According to the Shared cM Project, fifth cousins share, on average, 25 centiMorgans (cM), but the amount of shared DNA can range anywhere from 0 to 94 cM. So, where do each of those four 5th cousins fall?

• 18.2 cMs over 2 segments
• 33 cMs over 2 segments
• 35 cMs over 2 segments
• 12.8 cMs over 1 segment

While there is some variation among the four and none individually match the average, all fall well within the range that you would expect to see for a fifth cousin relationship. The average cMs for these four is 24.75 - a near exact match to the fifth cousin average.

Two of the six Geiger matches would be fifth cousins once removed. Assuming Thomas and Mary are siblings, their relationship to my Kirk cousin would look like this:

(*Note that the Geiger relationship is not a direct paternal line of descent,
the surname is used for illustrative purposes only.)

According to the Shared cM Project, 5th cousins once removed share, on average, 21 centiMorgans (cM), but the amount of shared DNA can range anywhere from 0 to 79 cM. Here's how the two 5th cousins once removed stack up:

• 8.6 cMs over 1 segment
• 24.1 cMs over 2 segments

Again, the shared DNA falls within the established ranges we could expect to see for fifth cousins once removed.

Taking Stock of the Genetic Relationship

Six people who descend from Mary (Kirk) Geiger are genetic matches to a descendant of Thomas Kirk. 

The amount of shared centiMorgans between them all supports the claim that they are fifth cousins (or fifth cousins once removed), which in turn indicates that Thomas and Mary were siblings. This is, of course, assuming there's no other shared ancestry between the matches, which would skew my results. To my eye, there is no other obvious overlap in the family trees.

While the evidence doesn't contradict my theory, I do recognize that the cM range for these distant family relationships are quite expansive. The shared cMs for the six cousins could just as easily be used to indicate a 6th or even 7th cousin relationship, putting another generation or two between Thomas and Mary. But what's the likelihood that six matches would show up for a single 6th or 7th cousin relationship?

All of these matches are in the largest DNA database in the family history market, which means there's currently no access to additional tools like a chromosome browser to further scrutinize the connections. 

How else could I leverage these matches to determine definitively - should that be possible - that Thomas Kirk and Mary (Kirk) Geiger were brother and sister? 

In the meantime, I'm increasingly confident that Thomas and Mary were siblings.

Society Pages Identify Unknown Photo and Expose Marital Heartbreak

Remember earlier this month when a newly digitized 19th century newspaper helped me identify Lucinda Dornon as the subject of an unlabeled photograph?

What if I told you I did it again and found another photograph of Lucinda, and, in the process, uncovered more of her heartache?

Lucinda, my fourth great-aunt who was sister to my third great-grandmother Anna (Dornon) Benedick, led a life marred by personal tragedies.

• During the Civil War, her family lost many of their possessions as they hurriedly fled invading Confederate forces.
• Her father died in his 40s before she was ten years old.
• In 1893, her husband Sylvester Scannel was killed in a prairie fire.
• In 1904, she was judged insane and admitted to an asylum where she died just one month after turning 50.

Another Photograph
In the same family photo album as the recently identified photograph of Lucinda was a photo of a couple - perhaps a wedding picture - that was imprinted with the logo for the Wheeler Portrait Studio in Taylorville, Illinois.

The back of the photograph included an inscription, "Al and Annie from Mertie and Lou." Al and Annie were my third great-grandparents Albert and Anna (Dornon) Benedick. But I hadn't identified a Mertie or Lou in my family tree, so the image was left unidentified.

Nosy Society Pages 
Recently digitized Kansas newspapers offered a series of clues that snowballed and culminated with the identification of the pictured couple.

The mystery first revealed itself when I came across a brief blurb published on February 25, 1898, in the Rooks County society pages. I was puzzled.

The Stockton Review and Rooks County Record, February 25, 1898

Mr. and Mrs. G.W. Benedick are George and Abigail (Dornon) Benedick. Abigail was a sister of both Anna (my third great-grandmother) and Lucinda. [Yes, Dornon sisters Abigail and Anna married Benedick brothers George and Albert, but, alas, I digress!]

Who was the mysterious Mrs. M.L. Moore who was evidently a sister of Abigail? I had never come across any Dornon sister marrying a Moore.

A key clue was in the location: Lucinda and her first husband Sylvester Scannel had lived near Palco, Kansas. That's where Sylvester was killed in the tragic fire.

Following Sylvester's death, Lucinda had lived with her siblings, bouncing from her brother's home in Colorado to her sisters' homes in Plainville, about 15 miles east of Palco. Eventually, she moved to Illinois where another sister, Mary Susan (Dornon) Vandegraft, lived.

Did Lucinda get married in Illinois and return to Kansas? Were her impending nuptials what she was hinting at when she wrote to her sister on the back of the previously-identified photo: "Sister dear... I have news for you... The sooner you ably answer this the sooner you will get the news. You will both be glad to hear it, I am quite shure [sic.]."

Misspelled Marriage Record
I was highly skeptical that I would find a marriage record for Lucinda in Illinois because I had already conducted that search. There were no hits for a Lucinda Dornon or Lucinda Scannel remarrying.

But what would happen if the search was for a man surnamed Moore with a spouse first named Lucinda?

1896 Illinois marriage record between Lucinda and Meredith L. Moore

It came back with a match in the Christian County, Illinois marriage registers. However, Lucinda's surname was misspelled as Scannen instead of Scannel. Apparently that was enough of a spelling difference to befuddle a handful of genealogy sites' search algorithms and overlook this marriage in my prior investigations.

On June 7, 1896, Lucinda married Meredith L. Moore in Christian County, Illinois. Where was Christian County, I wondered?

A Google search quickly provided a synopsis of the County's location, its demographics, and the county seat - Taylorville.

I immediately thought of the photograph taken in Taylorville, Illinois that was sent from Mertie and Lou to Al and Annie. Were Mertie and Lou actually diminutives of Meredith and Lucinda?

Both the name and location coupled with a strong resemblance with the previously identified photograph of Lucinda led me to conclude that the photograph was likely an 1896 wedding picture of Meredith L. Moore and Lucinda (Dornon) Scannel.

Lucinda (Dornon) Scannel Moore Stanley

Marital Bliss It Was Not
It was just four months after the death of her sister Mary Susan (Dornon) Vandegraft when Lucinda (Dornon) Scannel married Meredith L. Moore. By November 1897, Meredith and Lucinda were living in Kansas.

Apparently, though, it was an unhappy marriage.

On March 4, 1898, the society pages wrote that M.L. Moore had returned to his former home in Illinois. For a visit? Permanently? The paper didn't clarify.

The Stockton Review and Rooks County Record, March 4, 1898

In March 1898, Lucinda visited with her sisters in Plainville before returning home to Stockton in April.

In May 1898, Meredith "formerly of Palco" along with his father returned from Illinois and were headed for Palco.

The Stockton Review and Rooks County Record, May 6, 1898 

The phrasing that Meredith was "formerly of Palco" was unusual and seemed to indicate that he was no longer permanently living there, and, perhaps, we could infer, not with Lucinda who had just returned to Palco the prior month.

On May 27, 1898, the society pages wrote that G.W. Benedick visited his sister-in-law "Mrs. M.L. Moore of Palco" the previous week. There was no mention of Meredith.

The curious comings and goings made more sense in July, when a divorce petition was published in the newspaper.

The Stockton Review and Rooks County Record, July 15, 1898

On July 11, 1898, Lucinda E. S. Moore filed for divorce from Meredith Moore. He had until August 26, 1898, to answer the petition, otherwise the court would grant and decree "a divorce in favor of said plaintiff and against said defendant and further restoring said plaintiff to her former name of Lucinda E. S. Scannel" as well as making her the sole owner of property near Palco.

The divorce must have been granted. Nothing appeared in the society pages suggesting Meredith contested the petition, and Lucinda married Levi Stanley on June 11, 1899 in Gove County, Kansas. She was listed in Gove County's marriage register under the surname Scannel, further suggesting her divorce petition was granted in full. 

I am thankful that a recently digitized 19th century small town paper's nosy society pages helped me identify another unknown photograph, and surface the marriage, and, sadly, the heartache that Lucinda must have endured as she petitioned for a divorce in a very public manner. Digitized records are the gift that keeps on giving to genealogists.

Building A Relationship With Dad

This week's post begins a recurring series featuring the reminiscences of my maternal aunt, Diane. A longtime genealogist, her years of family history detective work piqued my own curiosity, which laid the foundation on which everything Family Sleuther is built. This week, Diane takes us on a journey of discovery as she seeks out her father (my grandfather) after a years-long absence following her parents' 1959 divorce, and builds a father-daughter relationship.

---

A Telephone Rings In A New Beginning
I met Dad just before my 20th birthday in the summer of 1973. Mom and Dad were divorced when my sister Donna and I were very young, about four and six. We didn’t remember him. Donna learned that Dad lived in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and mailed him her high school graduation announcement. He didn't attend, so we made plans to go to him.

A quick roadside respite on the journey to Oklahoma, 1973

I took a two-week vacation from my job and our odyssey began. We left our Colorado home in a 1963 celery green VW Beetle (with a 260 air conditioner - two windows rolled down at 60 mph!). We stopped in Plainville, Kansas a few days to see our maternal grandparents before heading on to Muskogee.

The night before our departure from Plainville, I called Dad's home. A woman answered (his wife, Dorothy) and I asked to speak to Charles Upton. While inwardly scared senseless, I was grown up and proud of myself as I forthrightly told him, “This is Diane. Donna and I will be there tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he replied.

That brief conversation was the first of many years of catching up and getting to know each other.

An Oklahoma Odyssey
We left Plainville the next morning with the same 1958 road map that Grandma and Grandpa had used when they visited Oklahoma over a decade before. We didn’t know about interstate driving that would have cut our trip considerably. They didn't exist on the map! It took us about ten hours driving small county roads going through many little towns with funny names like Sapulpa.

With many miles and hours before us, Donna and I talked of all we would ask him and wondered why he had stayed out of our lives for so long, not even a phone call. The questions we talked about asking were pointed and somewhat disrespectful, I think. But, as our destination was soon before us, we each lapsed into our own private thoughts and became anxious. Many what ifs.

Diane's first photo of her father Charles Upton

[Author's note: Donna reminded me that our sisters road trip was much more stressful than I remembered. She recalled that we fought like cats and dogs and at one point I pulled over to the side of the highway and told (ordered?) her to get out. She flatly refused.]

We pulled up into the drive of Dad's home. The front door swung open and a ten-year-old boy greeted us with an Oklahoma drawl, "Hi! I got sisters." In that moment, Donna and I learned that we had a half-brother.

Dad was quiet as he hugged us both, and brought us out of the muggy heat into his air conditioned home. He laughed when he saw the outdated map we used to navigate our way from Kansas.

We were in Muskogee among family that had known us when we were very young. Most of our hard questions fell by the wayside as we were swallowed among new family and somewhat new culture (the South, Oklahoma style with fried food three meals a day).

Making Up For Lost Time

Over the course of the next ten years Dad came to visit me in Kansas and Donna in Colorado and we traveled to Oklahoma. Each time I found the questions easier and gleaned more information.

Diane, James Upton "an old man"
and Donna

My first family history question to him was, “Tell me about your Dad.”

His quick somewhat irreverent reply was, “He was an old man that died.”

I asked him if that was what he wanted me to tell his granddaughters about him. He answered as best he could. To be fair, Grandpa James Upton was an old man that died. Grandpa Upton was born in 1877 and my dad was born in 1930. Dad was the first child from the second marriage. So, to him, his dad was an old man that died.

Over the course of the next many years there were a lot of opportunities to visit with dad about family history. He shared what he knew but it often ended with his, “I don’t know.”

The closest Dad and I became was during the last six weeks of his life. He had a five-year battle with cancer and his mortal journey was ending. He was young, only 63.

We had talked about afterlife and our vision of what it would be. He was stubborn in his belief and I was positive in mine. As the time became close he was in his recliner chair (where he’d been for the past eight months) and kept looking up to the corner of the living room ceiling.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“Who?” I replied.

“Up there, all of those people," he answered.

“Dad, that’s your people, all of those I’ve asked you about. You don’t think you’ll go to God without your family gone before to take you to meet Him do you?”

I think it brought him a sense of peace and there were more contemplative moments that last week. For both of us.

Newly Digitized Newspaper Identifies Unknown Photograph

Lucinda Dornon, my fourth great-aunt, has been a remarkable character and the subject of a handful of this blog's attention-grabbing headlines.

Lost Lucinda: Like Father Like Daughter
First, there was the hope that she, along with her siblings, could help me determine what happened to her father - my fourth great-grandfather Burr Zelah Dornon, whose death and disappearance from the record trail was sudden and shrouded in mystery during the height of the American Civil War. She suffered terrible tragedy. Her first husband, Sylvester Scannel, was killed in 1893 in a terrible prairie fire. Following her early widowhood, Lucinda married Levi Stanley in 1899, moved to Oklahoma, and then disappeared - like her father - from the records. 

Probate Record Lays Breadcrumb Trail
A 1916 Oklahoma guardianship case for Lucinda's second husband Levi Stanley filed by "Committee of Friends Church Cherokee" told the court that he "lives alone, and is old and bed-fast, and has no one to care for him." There was no mention of Lucinda, which made me wonder if she pre-deceased Levi.

Examined and Judged Insane
Several newspaper clippings from 1904, shone a light on the mysterious Lucinda. The articles detailed Levi and Lucinda's trip from Oklahoma to visit her sisters in Plainville, Kansas. While in Plainville, a probate judge, jurors, and physician "examined and judged Mrs. Stanley insane." She was sent to an asylum in Topeka for treatment where she died within days of her arrival. 

Lucinda's Bout of Insanity Topples A Family Mystery
Lucinda's asylum patient file unexpectedly held the key to determining the circumstances of her father's death. According to her admission form, her father died of dropsy at the age of 45 - apparently not a victim of the Civil War as I initially speculated.

An Unknown Photograph
In late 2015, I wrote a blog featuring five unlabeled photographs that I was certain featured my family. However, without an inscription to identify the portraits' subjects, I was at a loss and they remained mysteries lost to time.

Number five was a portrait of a woman in a Salvation Army uniform, with the typical 'S' on each lapel of her collar, meaning "Saved to Serve." The photograph was taken at East End Gallery in Decatur, Illinois.

There was a strong resemblance - particularly in the eyes - to other identified Dornon sisters. Lucinda did live in Decatur for some time following the death of her husband Sylvester. However, her older sister Mary (Dornon) Vandegraft also lived in the state.

Naturally, I wondered if the photograph was of Lucinda, but I had never heard any mention of membership in the Salvation Army.

At least not until another Kansas newspaper was recently digitized.

Digitized Paper Reveals Answers
The Stockton Review and Rooks County Record was recently scanned and made available online. A search of the surname Scannel returned the following hit for June 28, 1895.

Stockton Review and Rooks County Record, Stockton, Kansas, June 28, 1895

The newspaper confirmed that Lucinda was a member of the Salvation Army.

A Note Between Sisters
Although there's no name or signature to identity the pictured individual, the back of the photograph does have a handwritten note suggesting that it was sent from one sister to another.

The name Ernest, written in another hand at the top of the photo, is of my second great-grandfather who owned the photo album. I believe it was added by another person, likely to indicate it belonged to his photograph collection.

The note reads, "Sister dear let me know if you got this chromo all rite [sic.] or not. This is an answer to your letter. Write all the news and write soon. When I hear from A.C. I will send him one not like this. I have news for you when..." The note is obscured by a tear to the back of the photograph.

Turning the photograph 90 degrees to the right, the writing continues, "The sooner you ably answer this the sooner you will get the news. You will both be glad to hear it, I am quite shure [sic.]."

The note, addressed "Sister dear" clearly links the pictured individual as a sibling to the recipient. Now would be a good time to note that the photo was in the collection of Ernest Benedick whose mother was Anna (Dornon) Benedick, Lucinda's sister.

Based on the evidence in the photograph, the newspaper blurb, and the handwritten note, I believe the image is of Lucinda (Dornon) Scannel Stanley - a woman who suffered much in her life, but who did  help answer the question of her father's mysterious death.

There's no better feeling than identifying an unlabeled photograph with the help of a newly digitized newspaper! I'm glad to finally have a face to put with her storied name.

I'm Worth More: Grandma Graduates High School 24 Years After Dropping Out

Mindful that March is designated Women's History Month, I thought about the many contributions that my female ancestors made to their families and communities. Who should I profile?

Although there were many to choose from, I kept coming back to a more recent ancestor - my maternal grandmother Marilyn Lumpkins. She was a remarkable woman who was incredibly smart, wonderfully witty, and adored her family.

Born during the Dirty Thirties, she grew up in Plainville - a small rural farm town on the Kansas prairie. Of her childhood, Marilyn once said that "it was all hardship, we just didn't know it. Times were rough, and it wasn't just us. It was everybody. It was rough to skimp out a living..."

She was a wonderful storyteller, and shared with me one in which she took great pride. It's a story I often made her retell, and is one that I now take immense pride in myself.

It's the story of her own education; her yearning to earn her high school diploma decades after dropping out, and her relentless perseverance despite the obstacles of being a single working woman.

The Decision to Dropout
Marilyn attended Plainville Rural High School where she excelled in her studies, and had a particular fondness for spelling. She engaged in extracurricular activities, joining organizations like the Future Homemakers of America.

Marilyn Lumpkins, pictured top row third from left, with FHA student members in 1951.

In March 2014, about seven months before her passing, Marilyn and I recorded an oral history interview where she recounted for me the story of her education once again.

Marilyn remembered, "I was pretty mature for my age and my mother didn't finish high school and my dad didn't and I thought they were very smart people. I didn't think my education was that important to me, and up to that point no Lumpkins had ever graduated high school. Can you believe it?"

Marilyn, pictured outside Plainville Rural High School sitting front row fifth from right
holding a bottle and wearing a cattle collar.

Her own mother dropped out of high school and married at the age of sixteen. She seemed so mature, Marilyn remembered, "So naturally I thought I was, too, and I always thought I would get married when I was sixteen. I would quit school and get married at sixteen just like my mother did."

The die seemed cast; Marilyn's future was predicated on her parents' past.

In November 1952, a month shy of her sixteenth birthday, Marilyn got married and dropped out of high school midway through her junior year.

Her daughter Diane remembered that one of her teachers couldn't hide her disappointment after learning of her decision, remarking, "Oh not you, you're one of my best students."

"I had been an honor roll student," Marilyn said. "Now doesn't that sound ridiculous when I was and I dropped out of school? But I didn't need a high school education. My mother didn't have one and my daddy didn't have one. What did I need it for? I mean, what was I going to advance to in Plainville? That's about as far as my world went. My grandmas, my grandpas, my mother, my daddy - all my kin - were in Plainville. There wasn't any place to advance to. I had no dreams or aspirations of living in a big city. None. I just didn't see that I needed any more education. I was as smart as I needed to be."

A Diploma, Not A GED
Marilyn eventually left Plainville for the Denver suburbs where she was a single working mother. Her feelings on her decision to quit school began to change.

"I'd always thought about my diploma shortly after I dropped out. I knew for a long time that I wanted it. I knew I wanted my education. I never felt like I needed to graduate college or anything; I just knew that I needed to be more than what I was. I just knew I wasn't satisfied being a high school dropout, and I thought I'm worth more."

Twenty-four years, four children, and two husbands after leaving school, Marilyn decided she would finish what she started.

"I contacted Dr. Johnson who was the Superintendent of Jefferson County Schools at the time, and I told him that I wanted my high school diploma and he said, 'The easiest thing to do is just get your GED.'"

"I said, 'I don't want a GED. I want my high school diploma,' and he said 'We're going to have to go back through and get your high school transcripts.'"

"Well, it had been a long time since I'd been to high school. They had taken all of our files from Plainville Rural High School and stored them in Codell where the schools weren't even operating anymore. They put them in the old school; I think it was in the old gym or the basement at the Codell school - that's where my records were."

"Mr. Hargrave, who was the principal of the [Kansas] school at the time, went down and dug my transcripts out of that old school where they were stored, and he got them for me!"

Marilyn submitted her transcripts to Dr. Johnson for his review. He determined that "I had to go back to school. I had to take some adult education courses. He said he was really impressed, and 'If you don't deserve a diploma now, then 99% of the kids coming out of high school don't deserve one, but we've got to go about this the right way. I'd like you to take a Business English course.'"

"I took my Business English course and a typing course," and two days before her 40th birthday, Marilyn received her high school diploma.

Marilyn's high school diploma

When I asked why she wanted to go back to school and get an actual diploma instead of a GED, she responded succinctly yet forcefully, "Pride."

Having been the first in my family to graduate from college and have a career supporting young leaders from around the world to get an education that empowers them to make a difference in their communities, I think pride is reason enough. I know I certainly feel that when I look at her example.

Marilyn in 1976 - the year she earned her high school diploma