Ann Eklund

The Ribbon Untied Ann Eklund

Are you searching for someone missing from your family tree?

Ann was. Her husband, Chuck, was born out of wedlock in 1944 and raised by his mother, Mary Lou, and a stepfather. Chuck grew up an only child, thinking that his mother was the only blood relative he had. After his stepfather dies of a heart attack in 1966 and Mary Lou succumbs to cancer in 1972, Chuck needs to sell the family home.

As Chuck and Ann clean everything out of Mary Lou's house, they unearth a shoebox full of love letters tied with a red ribbon. Postmarked during World War II and addressed to Mary Lou, the letters were written over a span of two and a half years-by an American pilot. Could he be Chuck's missing father? With no effective way to search and no one to ask, Chuck and Ann can only ponder and speculate. Until the world wide web comes into existence! Aided by the tools of the internet and her own tenacity, Ann embarks on a genealogical quest to unravel the mystery . . .