Would love to reconnect or talk with descendants of my uncle's wife. He drowned at age 22. (see story below)


Arthur Lamar Roberts (my mother's youngest brother) came to live with us in 1944 when he was sixteen. I thought he was wonderful. He stayed a couple of years and then went back to Tennessee. He worked with my Uncle Burke in his shoe shop in Humbolt, TN about 1946. And then came back to Michigan again. He stayed with my folks and me until he was called to the Army. Shortly after boot camp, he married Jean Tutor.

Before they got married and left for Alabama, he and Jean and his buddy and his buddy's girlfriend took me out with them one night. We went downtown to the Fox Theatre. At that time, downtown Detroit was an exciting place to be. Several elaborate theatres were in operation. Their lobbies were lavish and huge and it was a big deal to go downtown to the movies. I have no idea what picture we saw. But I remember eating popcorn and drinking pop. I had a wonderful time and was thrilled to death to be with them that night. I think I had a crush on his buddy. I must have been 9 or 10 years old!

He and Jean married around 1950 and lived in Anniston, Alabama, where he was stationed. In 1952 he and a buddy went fishing (in Art's boat) on the Coosa River. It was a treacherous river with lots of eddies and whirlpools. Neither one of them could swim. The boat capsized and they drowned. It was 45 days before they found his body. It broke my mother's heart. Mine, too. He was like a big brother to me. For years, I imagined that he really wasn't dead. That he had just gone AWOL from the Army (which he hated). I remember going to the Straits of Mackinac with my parents one year and watching the big barges and boats pass by. I just knew I would see him on one of those boats and he would recognize us and wave. I loved him very much.
---Dawn Hopps Coyle Bohannon, 1999.