During the past year, I have been compiling genealogical information into my computer about my maternal grandmother, Mary Jane Farner, for relatives and family members. But I had been procrastinating writing her story as a young bride in Nebraska.

Almost a month ago, I received a very intriguing e-mail from a man who was researching a HOLCOMBE line that turned out to be my very own line. He mentioned that one of his great-grandfather's brothers moved to Nebraska in 1881.

His name was General Jackson Longstreet Lee Hill Holcombe, born in 1863. In 1891, the General married Mary Jane Farner in Keith County, Nebraska. Well, I knew right away that we were related to the same family line; his ancestor and mine were brothers.

He had seen one of my queries on the internet that I had posted on my HOLCOMBE family. One web site you can use to search surnames by migration and time period is The Roots Surname List. It also includes the submitter's name and e-mail address.

You can also get this same information via e-mail. Create an e-mail message addressed to RSL@genealogy.mksi.com. In the message block, you can enter up to 100 surnames that you are researching. I use this service quite frequently and have found it to be very useful in locating people researching my same family lines.

Well, as my new "cousin" and I became acquainted by e-mail, he shared stories his 95-year-old grandmother had told him. She had visited my grandparents as a little girl. She not only knew my mother, but had played with her as a child. She also told my cousin that William Joseph Holcombe, her father, was visiting with my grandfather – his brother -- the day he died.

After hearing these stories from my "new" cousin, I decided one night to sit down and write my grandmother's life story. At this point in time, I would like to share with the reader a most interesting story about my grandmother, Mary Jane Farner Holcombe.

Back in the middle 1970's, I learned that my maternal grandmother, Mary Jane Farner Holcombe, now deceased, had written her life story. I had not seen a copy nor ever read it. So I had to go about locating the handwritten copy, which I finally found in the possession of her youngest daughter, Corinne. After a conversation with my aunt, she consented to make a copy of the story for me. After receiving it in the mail, my willing brother-in-law typed it for easier reading as it had originally been written in pencil.

My mother, Georgia Holcombe Broach, told me that for some unknown reason, my grandmother had burned the first half of the story. I was never sure why she burned it, but my suspicion was that she did not want to share some personal part of her early family life that could have had some painful memories.

Mary Jane Farner Holcombe was born on April 30, 1873 in Zurich, Switzerland and came to America when she was two years old. Her own mother, Barbara Meyers, died in May 1874, 13 months after Mary Jane was born.

Mary Jane's father, Johan Jacob Mangold, had re-married Verena Gossman, nine months after the death of his first wife. Two years later, on February 8, 1876, Johan and his oldest children emigrated to America from Zurich, Switzerland. Upon arrival he changed his name to John Farner. His new wife, Verena, and youngest child Mary Jane, were left behind with plans to join him later in America.

Verena had decided to leave Johan's youngest daughter, my grandmother, with relatives in Zurich and go to America alone. At the last minute she decided to take Mary Jane, as Johan might become very angry if she showed up without her! So she and her stepdaughter came to America and they were taken to their homestead in Hemingford, Box Butte County, Nebraska.

The story that my grandmother left for her children to read begins with her life as a married woman on the cattle ranch where she and her husband lived in Ogalalla, Keith County, Nebraska. She writes about ranch life, her children being born, and simple things like canning fruit.

She also mentions interesting stories about some of the other ranchers in the area that they knew. One was about a neighbor boy who had been bitten by a rattlesnake and died. It's like reading a "wild west" story at times.

She even tells about their sod house, and the birth of my mother in that house, which I found to be most interesting. Apparently, she had chosen a certain bedroom for the birth, but at the last minute she decided to give birth in another room. The next day, they found a rattlesnake in the bed where she was supposed to have had my mother.

There is also a story about the time she got too close to the branding fire while she was watching them brand cattle. Her skirt became engulfed in flames and her husband had to push her to the ground and roll her over and over to smother out the flames.

She also wrote about them selling the ranch and packing up for the move back East to Bremen, Georgia. She writes,"I had sold all my furniture, curtains, range, everything: even my canned fruit. I had 200 quarts of lovely cherries. I sold them all. Mr. Holcombe and his son, James, rounded up the cattle and shipped them to Omaha. It took them most of two months to sell all of them and the horses."

The rest of my grandmother's handwritten story is the most usual part of this story. It covers a road trip that she took with my mother and father and her younger daughter, Corinne. In 1938, they traveled from the East Coast to the West Coast in a 1933 Chevrolet.

As a young adult, when I first read the story, the part about their cross-country trip seemed a little boring to me. She told about the different sights that they saw and even gives some descriptions from literature that she must have collected along the way. She quotes dates, mileage, and statistics of places visited while on this trip. This part of her story runs much like a travel log.

I also discovered that the trip went from Florida to the West coast and then to Canada. She also included at the end of her story, "We were gone almost two months. Traveled in a Chevrolet car over 13,000 miles and had just one flat. Believe it or not."

Well, here is the "amazing" part to this story. I recently went to Georgia for a family reunion with my sisters and their families (our parents are deceased). While there, my older sister handed me a really crumpled brown grocery paper sack with a string tied around it.

She told me that our mother said it had been taken out of our grandmother's attic many, many years ago. The things inside had been given to our mother by her sister-in-law. And now my sister was handing it over to me.

When I got home, I peeked inside. There was a terrible musty smell and all I saw were wadded up newspapers inside. It looked like a big mess to me, so I folded the sack back up and put it aside. Well, one day a few weeks later, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to go through the brown paper sack no matter what the smell or condition, and then decide what to keep.

First I dumped it all out on a bed for viewing and to my surprise, I saw all kinds of things appear. First there were letters that were faded by moisture coming in contact with the ink. Then I saw lots of newspaper clippings from the 1890's.

I also uncovered photos and some religious tracts. There were many "Ripely's Believe it or Not" articles cut out of the newspapers; and articles about President Roosevelt dying. There were genealogical finds as well. A large clump contained the obituaries of one of her sisters, her stepmother, and other family members.

Finally, I came across two very important letters. One was about the death of my grandparents' son Lloyd while he attended college at the University of Georgia in the early 1900's, and the second was a letter from their son's roommate talking about their friendship. These letters were very touching.

As I started sifting through more of this hodgepodge of stuff, I was surprised by all the post cards I found. At first I didn't think anything about it, but then I began uncovering more and more postcards and brochures.

I began to recognize a pattern to what I was finding. I realized at that moment that I was looking at the post cards, brochures and maps from the journey my parents and grandmother had made 60 years ago. I could hardly believe my eyes. But it was definitely true.

I placed these treasures into archival safe plastic sleeves and as I viewed, them I could quickly see that they went with her travel story. She seemed to have a post card for many of the places she had written about.

I later called my sisters to tell them about my "find." They just couldn't believe that the post cards and brochures were still around after 60 years. I also realized that there was a 21-year gap from the time I had first read my grandmother's life story, and my finding of the post cards that go with the story. I guess the impossible is still possible!

Note: Family names of the lines I researched include: Holcombe, Lewis, Farner, Mangold, Driver, Meyers, Gossman, Reids, and Kellet.