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Every family history researcher hopes diligence and persistence will bring forth enough details of an ancestor’s life to fill out a void on the family tree. There is always hope that serendipity will produce unexpected history gold in letters, diaries, or journals. Charles Merrill Lee (1860–1887) is one of those relatives who stand in the background of family research until the odd paper comes to hand or an old memory nags at the brain.
My grandmother always called him “Uncle Charlie.” Born in Maine, Charlie was four years younger than her father Fred Lee. Uncle Charlie was seldom mentioned, in my presence anyway, and usually in regretful tones. My questions were unanswered, and a search of the usual public records yielded little information.
Then I unearthed a few old letters, a postcard from his mother, and an old, yellowed (aren’t they all?) newspaper clipping.
From census records, I knew that he had gone to southwestern Kansas with my grandparents and my grandmother’s brother Mark and sister Genie. The letter of introduction written by Cousin Ira H. Randall to a Colorado banker told me that he had then spent several successful years in Colorado, but whether or not it was in lumbering is only an educated guess. His last job was as a cook. Charlie remains a silhouette on the family tree, coming alive only in the matter of his death.
Charlie was a cook on a cattle drive, and when the drive ended he headed for his brother Fred’s farm in southwestern Kansas. As he passed through Arapahoe, Colorado, a thunderstorm came up. Caught in the open, he dismounted, put his revolver and ammunition on the ground with his blanket, settled his saddle over everything, and sat down on it. He tied the horse to the saddle’s horn and draped his poncho over himself and the saddle.
He never knew what hit him. The lightning bolt killed both Charles and his horse, set off the ammunition, and set fire to saddle and blanket.
Strangers from the town discovered the bodies and did their best for them until family could be notified. Burial (of both, I assume) was in Arapahoe.
Uncle Charlie did everything right, but still brought himself and the horse he rode in on to their unexpected ends.
While I lack the usual public records, I have these few original, personal sources. I know where and how he lived his short life and with whom, that he was loved and remembered, but I have not one photo with him identified. No one mentions his name in hushed tones now. He may be included in my family photo albums, but he’s just one more figure in a photograph to me. Serendipity, where art thou?
