Helen. Dear, Sweet Helen.

As I re-scan the photographs from the old family albums (the same ones that got me started in genealogy to begin with), I also have started re-visiting some of my old research and picked up where I've left on some of my lines. It never fails that whenever I delve back into this wonderful process of researching my family tree I make new cousin connections.  I'm very excited to announce that I may well have found another cousin, this time of a family line that I have been stumped on for quite some time.

I've been looking into the wife of my paternal great-grandfather, Edward HODICK. Her name was Justina, and we've been told her maiden name was "NAUCHODILE". No one ever knew the spelling; just that the /ch/ was pronounced from the back of the throat ala German style. So a month or two (three??) ago, I finally stumbled on a key clue when I found Justina's obituary which just happened to have mentioned a surviving sister named Mrs. Julia Wodesheck.  This past week or so I finally remembered this obituary and decided maybe it was time to start searching for this Julia Wodesheck in hopes that it would lead me back to Justina. During my searches for Julia I've gathered some pretty convincing evidence that Julia Nahodil had married a John Wodeshick and that Julia was indeed, my great-grandmother's sister.  I've noticed that Julia and John had a daughter named Helen. Which I thought was exciting, knowing that there was a photograph in these old albums that looked like this:

The writing is not mine; I think it was either grandma Hodick-McHugh's or her daughter, my aunt, Noreen. The page from which this photo came from in the albums also happened to imply that this Helen was "Grandma's Niece" (written by my dad's sister, which would make the referenced "Grandma" my great-grandmother).

Which I felt just happened to bear a resemblance to my paternal grandmother, Mary HODICK:

So I decided to search for Nahodil on the Family Trees section at Ancestry.com.  And found someone whose tree included Julia NAHODIL WODESHICK. 

And so I wrote to her. And she wrote back. And we're now trying to see if the connection she has to Julia is parallel to my connection to Justina. Stay tuned. This is looking very promising. I leave you with one more photo that I just came across for the first time tonight:

The woman in the dark dress is my grandmother, Mary (HODICK) McHugh. The children are: Marianne (standing against Mary), Norie (on ground with the dog) and Dennis, my father. I believe the woman holding my dad is his grandmother, Justina (NAHODIL) HODICK. I do not know who the other woman is.